Are We Killing Curiosity in the Classroom?

With all the rhetoric about what’s wrong with education today and how to fix it, there is no shortage of opinions and perspectives about how to raise test scores and improve student achievement. From assessment to standards to accountability, reformers are debating long and hard about how to best prepare our students for a rapidly changing global workforce.

Meanwhile, back in the classrooms, great teachers everywhere are doing everything short of tap dancing on the tables to engage students, help them develop critical thinking skills, question, wonder, and develop a love for learning.

For the last several decades, our educational system has been structured to usher students from prekindergarten to college. Our current system relies on two assumptions: first, that all kids navigate the educational system in the same way with the same opportunities, and second, that a college-preparatory curriculum adequately prepares high school graduates for direct entry into the workforce.

But students, workers, and employers say those assumptions don’t wash.  Employers lament they can’t find skilled workers, while many graduates feel ill-prepared for even entry-level work. In fact, a 2022 study found that nearly half of recent graduates (49%) didn’t apply for an entry-level job because they felt underqualified.

40 years ago, the seminal “A Nation of Risk” reported the same fundamental challenges. “More and more young people emerge from high school neither ready for college or the workforce. This predicament becomes more acute as the knowledge base continues its rapid expansion, the number of traditional jobs shrinks, and new jobs demand greater sophistication and preparation.” The world has certainly changed since 1983 but update the context and that same report could describe our present-day problem.

1. Edwards Deming, a forward-thinking American considered to be the father of the continuous quality improvement philosophy, wrotethat 94% of issues in the workplace are systemic. Only 6% are attributable to individual-level, idiosyncratic factors. Communication, work-life balance, team dynamics and continuous improvement opportunities are among the top challenges today’s employees face.

I’m skeptical that the “one right answer” approach allows for the kind of complex, open-ended exploration and experimentation that our current real-world problems require, not to mention the fact that we don’t even know what many of the next real-world problems will be yet. If our goal is to prepare kids to be problem-solvers, critical thinkers and innovators, measuring that preparedness with bubble sheets is a bit like measuring rice with a colander.

Before you get all excited, I’m not suggesting that we do away with benchmarks, standards, or assessments. There are fundamental skills, facts, and data points that students must have to form a foundation for advanced learning. What I am suggesting is that the real-world challenges students will face in the workplace will rarely have one right answer that they can solve independently.

The most meaningful and impactful experiences are rooted in our own natural curiosity – a personal, passionate yearning to find out what, why, or how something works or could work better. Throw in a little trial and error, searching out and considering other perspectives from colleagues and mentors, communicating in many ways with many different types of people, and learning from a lot of things that didn’t work.

Those are the meaningful learning experiences that shape our growth and contribute to our cognitive backpacks – at age 5 or at age 50. The philosophers among us could debate the intrinsic value of education all day long, but where does curiosity fit into all those standardized tests in pursuit of the data streams that prove or disprove that learning is happening?

To me, science is just formalized curiosity. A way of figuring something out when I don’t understand it.

– Chris Hadfield, retired astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot, musician, and writer

Kids are innately curious about why things work and how things work and what might happen if we change this or that.  The best teachers know that kids are most engaged when they dig deeper to answer their own questions. They know that curiosity is the basis for understanding, creativity, and critical thinking and the foundation for all meaningful learning. Real, authentic learning is nurtured by our curiosity and manifested in the information we actively seek out, in what we read, write, discuss, and think about.

Albert Einstein once said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Indeed, it is. Curiosity is the very basis for education, and it appears that we may be slowly killing it in our classrooms.  Focusing on the “one right answer” method rather than the kind of innovative and critical thinking skills necessary for authentic, meaningful learning in the 21st century, will be at the expense of curiosity.

You might also enjoy Killing Curiosity: Shut Up and Learn

When public school students graduate (commence), what should they be capable of? How are our schools hitting or missing the mark? Dig into these questions and more in an open conversation led by Mac Bogert and Jeff Ikler at Salon 360, on Tuesday, August 27 at 1:00 PM Eastern.

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