In a recent address to Howard County Public School Principals, Dr
Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland at Baltimore County,
spoke of the need to develop our student’s curiosity as one of our most
important missions. This same
sentiment has been expressed in works by some of the biggest thinkers out there
(Tony Wagner in Creating Innovators,
Amanda Ripley in The Smartest Kids in the
World, Yong Zhao in Catching Up or
Leading the Way, and one of the smartest people I know, Stephanie Harvey in
Strategies that Work). Steph also says “Smart isn’t something
you are. Smart is something you get.”
We need to ensure those kids who enter our school brimming with
questions and curiosity, leave our school even more curious and asking even
greater, or more beautiful questions.
Unfortunately, too many schools today are not set up to foster this kind
of inquiry. By the time kids leave
school, we have retrained their naturally curious brains, requiring them to
answer our questions much more frequently than they are encouraged to ask their
own questions. The future will
require so much more of our current students. Information is no longer king, as it can be accessed
instantly as needed. Curiosity is,
and will continue to be the new currency.
The motivation behind this post, besides the years of trying to change
the system? Well oddly enough, it
was an article I read in the Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine on one of my recent
trips to Charleston. The article
entitled, Chasing Beautiful Questions
was written by Warren Berger. Mr.
Berger also published a book entitled, A
More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. You can check out the Spirit
article below. Be curious. Check it out. Ask some beautiful questions. Go ahead, you can do it.
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