Intellectual Curiosity.
Little children always ask ‘why?’. It’s borderline obsessive at times. Every parent knows this. A garden variety 3-year-old is always wondering about things, and asking why things are the way they are. The things that occur in nature are easy to explain, for the most part. That’s how those things are in the natural world, and here’s how they work.
Things that are man-made … well, that’s not so easy. Stated differently, it was easier for me to explain photosynthesis to my daughter than our political process. It wasn’t even close.
Fostering and nurturing intellectual curiosity is the one thing that I keep as a baseline ingredient as a teacher. Our teenagers are swamped with incoming information, at speeds we can’t imagine. For them it’s normal, but they are still not immune to the effects. The onslaught of digital information feeds our Instant Gratification DNA, and destroys our ability to delay gratification.
The “curiosity gene” gets hammered into dust after a few years of this. Why be curious about anything when all the information is simply sent to you? Why wonder about stuff?
Year 24 begins for me on Tuesday. I maintain energy and vigor in the classroom by trying to re-ignite teenagers’ intellectual curiosity.
It was there years ago. I get fired up trying to bring it back. It is what keeps me going.
Sincerely,
Douglas Marolla – English, MVHS, Room 227
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