Cat Killed the Curiosity

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.” – Albert Einstein

Recently, I have found items in the NY Times that have stimulated me to write – that is a good thing, because I need to write. It makes me feel whole – much like singing was to Mr. Tanner in the Harry Chapin song.

In the Education Life section of this weekend’s paper, I happened upon an interview of David Helfan, a Columbia professor who is on leave and is now serving as the president of Quest University Canada. He mentions that while in New York, he went to speak to a group of 4^th graders about the universe and was amazed at their unbridled enthusiasm and curiosity. Of course, this was the Dalton School, not your average NYC public school. Regardless of the fact that these were pretty high-functioning students, it made him return to his Ivy League classroom and ask “what happened to you guys?” to his current students. The answers were what you would expect, highlighted by the chap who proclaimed, “I’m paying for a degree, not an education.”

So what happens between the time the infant starts exploring his surroundings, watched over by protective parents, to when that same child finishes high-school with a street-smart sense of navigating through the educational landscape. If we all agree that curiosity is the conception of any new discovery, then we in turn should wonder what kind of disease has infected our children to bring about this common malady. It reminds me of the warning issued by the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

If someone was messing with your child’s brain, one that Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan claim is hardwired for discovery, would you want to know what causes this slow degeneration? Would you want to take action to stop it? Or maybe the process is so gradual, that most of us don’t notice. I call it the “when I was a kid” syndrome. If it was good enough for me, then it is good enough for my kid.

As a high-school administrator, I encountered a good deal of this process in action. None was worse than the time I observed a first-year biology teacher, someone who was a scientist and became a teacher. When the students discovered I was going to observe the class, they gave me a heads up to look out for one of their classmates who, they bragged, could sleep with his eyes open. They were right – I was truly impressed, especially when the teacher praised the class for doing a good job as the bell for passing rang. What transpired up to that point was what I believe is killing the curiosity.

The instructor stood at the head of the class straddling an overhead projector with her writing arm. For 45 minutes, she proceeded to write in outline form: phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species, of some semi-important biological kingdom. There was no break, few questions, and a deadening silence from the peanut gallery. When I questioned the teacher as to why she chose this method to teach the wonders of biology, she stated that she had to “cover” the material for the Regents exam.

But that was high school, where many teachers are plagued with the “teach as I was taught” pedagogical methodology. Now I am a college professor training a new wave of teachers. So it was with dismay that I sat and watched a pre-kindergarten lesson on sinking and floating where the teacher demonstrated the concept while the students sat in a circle watching. One child, who desperately wanted to touch, was restrained by the head teacher – he was trouble, I was told. So it begins, the deadening of curiosity.

In my elementary math and science methods course, one of the “big ideas” is that inquiry is the basis for teaching science. First pique their curiosity, let them ask questions (which you have to model for them first), provide them resources and then let them act like scientists. Most of my students agree that this sounds nice, but how can one do that and still teach the curriculum? How can one insure that what’s on the test has been covered in class? The resistance seems to be hardwired – it has replaced curiosity.

As a teacher of teachers, I have vowed to try to rewire this “cat killed the curiosity” mentality. I can’t do it alone, but I am going to try!