Curiosity is an appetitive state involving the recognition, pursuit, and intense desire to investigate novel information and experiences that demand one’s attention.
– Curiosity and pathways to well-being and meaning in life: Traits, states, and everyday behaviours
In all of these problem-solving efforts, whether by cats, or chimps, or people; aimed at opening latches, retrieving bananas, solving puzzles, or creating works of art, common general patterns were observed. The successful problem solver, driven by his or her curiosity, generates a great variety of behaviours.
– The Cat that Curiosity couldn’t Kill
There are things which defy easy explanation. We do not in the ordinary course of things, devote attention to such things in the classroom. An OECD report distinguishes between “the kinds of questions that can be answered by science and those which cannot”. In the classroom, students learn (not study) what others have discovered about the former.
This is not to say no discovery happens in the classroom. Nor is it to say, the classroom ought to be something else than what it is and what it is transforming into. A popular refrain among educationists is that teaching has been didactic – or entirely teacher led. This is changing with student-centred pedagogy and self-directed learning which is not the same thing as hearing a teacher speak on some video-conferencing software.
A related complaint is that when students have to master a planned curriculum, their natural curiosity is suppressed. For instance, Kai et al., (2017) quote Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” and suggest that “Long anticipated holidays have also been transformed into dreadful revision periods”. According to them, this removes “the opportunity … to realize the
most valuable asset of humanity: a love for learning, facilitated by pursuit of one’s curiosity through inquiry”.
This type of argument frames curiosity as the highest good or at least places it on a pedestal and is attractive only at first blush. It appears to offer an alternative model where learning is all pleasure and no effortful labour. What Socrates meant was education should not tell students what to think but how to think or simply just, to think. Socrates could certainly not have been suggesting that mastery can be achieved without revision and discipline.
How might an entirely student led education system work? If ten different students are curious and want to explore ten different areas, there is no purpose in them meeting under one roof. Meeting under one roof is necessary to grow in shared values. Also, they might need ten different mentors who specialise in these areas. This is of course presuming that these students know how to seek and understand what they find.
There is a difference between curiosity and fascination. The former demands protracted commitment and requires a set of skills and the latter is content with merely having seen something captivating.
A student who chances upon something may feel fascinated by what he sees. Fascination refers to or can entail, “intense gazing at an object that arouses wonder creates silence and stillness” (Chorell, 2021). He may well just stop there and continue to revere or fear what fascinates him.
For example, in the short story, Day of the Builders, the inhabitants of a village were sitting on a massive supply of natural gas in a “natural hole”. Due to the “fiery display and overpowering smell of rot”, the villagers referred to the place as “the Pit of Hell” and fittingly stayed well clear. Near the Pit of Hell, were specimens of “Dickinsonia costata, intact and perfectly preserved” and the villagers believed “the markings” on them had “either divine or magical origins” and also left these alone. Their fascination paved the way for outsiders to take control over the entire area in exchange for building a “tourism base” where the natives could “sell things to tourists, perform magic shows for them, whatever you want”.
Curiosity goes beyond mere fascination. It asks, “how did that event produce this state of affairs?” and aims for nothing short of “unrestricted expansion and control of nature” (Chorell, 2021). Dubey and Griffiths (2020) define it as, “the mechanism by which humans come to act in accordance with the optimal behaviour of seeking stimuli that maximally increase the value of knowledge to maximize rewards”. However, without knowing how to read or write or count in more than a rudimentary way, fascination would not turn to curiosity which is what leads to pursuit and expansion of knowledge.
Though self-directed learning on the internet circumvents logistical issues such as the need for the physical presence of a multitude of subject matter specialists, it is premised on the assumption that children know how to process information online. A planned curriculum works in tandem with self-directed learning to equip students with the skills necessary to navigate their individual areas of interest. Given how children cannot be expected to know what they need to function in the real world or to pursue their areas of interest, a planned curriculum is necessary.
Also, both unbridled fascination and curiosity have a forbidding quality and not without good reason. Chorell (2021) explains how “until the nineteenth century, fascination was an external threat of inappropriate, dangerous and even lethal influence that endangered the integrity and life of the affected”. He says curiosity, “has been denigrated as a sinful poking into others’ business, and a dangerous search for the secrets of creation” and that it involves “transgressions of borders, and the upsetting of established identities and categories”. It may not always be in someone’s interest to pursue what is of interest. So, warnings against answering whenever curiosity calls are not altogether unmerited. Some types of curiosity are as Dubey and Griffiths (2020) call it, “maladaptive”. Curiosity is good as servant and not as master.
Curiosity can lead to sacrifice of other needful areas in pursuit of answers. Chorell (2021) cites Bergman (1965) who gave the example of a film director who claimed, “unbearable curiosity” “drives me forward, never leaves me in peace, and completely replaces my hunger for fellowship”. It can lead to seclusion.
Consider the example of Dr. Jane Goodall. Scientists used to think tool making was “exclusively human” (janegoodall.org) until she “immersed herself in” the “forest habitat with the fresh perspective of a mind uncluttered by academia” to observe chimpanzees for “many years”.
This kind of exploration and discovery is fraught with dangers and may lead to a road to nowhere with nothing at its end. Even when ground-breaking discoveries are made, these come at a price. Dr. Goodall for instance explains how “Even in Gombe it is not all plain sailing” because, army ants “have the sneaky habit of moving undetected up your legs and then, in response to some secret signal, all biting at once” (Goodall, 2013).
At the same time, the Values in Action Institute on Character classifies curiosity as a “strength within the virtue category of wisdom” and explains that curious people, “are interested in exploring new ideas, activities and experiences, and they also have a strong desire to increase their own personal knowledge”.It does qualify this in the corresponding “I-statement” – “I seek out situations where I gain new experiences without getting in my own or other people’s way”. Kashdan and Michael (2007) “found that on days when they are more curious, people high in trait curiosity reported more frequent growth-oriented behaviours, and greater presence of meaning, search for meaning, and life satisfaction.”
The Future of Education and Skills, Education 2030 Report released by the OECD in 2018 identifies, three ‘Transformative Competencies’ students would need. One of these is ‘Creating New Value’ and says this is necessary because, “To prepare for 2030, people should be able to think creatively, develop new products and services, new jobs, new processes and methods, new ways of thinking and living, new enterprises, new sectors, new business models and new social models”. It adds that this competency requires, “adaptability, creativity, curiosity and open-mindedness”.
Measured curiosity is a character strength. It can make learning pleasurable because it is driven by the need to satiate some internal drive. It is distinct from fascination and contrary to what appears to be the suggestion, requires the mastery of fundamental language and scientific literacy and numeracy to function in a useful way. It is necessary to create new value and function in the 21st century.
Fandakova and Gruber (2020) explain how “intrinsic states of curiosity – the desire to acquire new information – enhance learning and memory”. Schutte and Malouff (2020) state that, “Several studies have found associations between higher curiosity and greater creativity”.
Dubey and Griffiths (2020) suggest ways to increase the natural curiosity in students. The first is to induce “an information gap” where students need research to fill such gaps. They cite studies which show that people are usually curious about stimuli which are not too simple or too complex and in topics they are moderately confident about.
Flowing from these findings, they suggest that by creating conditions which do not bring to mind past instances of failure to understand, confidence to explore novel content and along with it, curiosity can be increased. Finally, they suggest that even though students may not be curious about tasks they perceive as too hard, they can be made curious about such tasks, if they were shown the future value of present engagement with the same.
Curiosity could kill or it could feed. The experience of the Indiana Joneses of this world, suggests the path to finding something of great value is usually paved with quicksand and other perils.
When peeling off the layers which hide tasty fruit, one would do well to also keep the eyes peeled.
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