“Look mom, a snail!” The little girl squats down on the sidewalk and reaches out for the little garden snail that is slowly but surely making its way across the tiles. “Yes, darling, but NO, don’t touch it. You’ll get your fingers dirty,” was the mother’s prompt reply. And immediately the little girl pulls her fingers to herself and stands up hesitantly, still with her eyes fixed on the little snail. The obvious interest in the living creature on the sidewalk is replaced by a growing skepticism and a negative sense of what a snail really is.
The scene took place in a residential neighborhood north of Copenhagen, but could just as easily have been anywhere else in the country. And unfortunately, the incident is not unique. All too often, children’s innate curiosity is quashed with remarks like this, and nature is made out to be “dangerous” or disgusting. And what a shame it is. What could be the start of an exciting journey into the world of nature for the child, and thus also the start of a healthy relationship with nature, is instead slowly but surely put to rest.
The same is true in our school system, where curiosity is not exactly rewarded. There is reading and writing and arithmetic. Children are given homework and taught to memorize and use the material. But in my opinion, their curiosity is all too rarely challenged and they are given the opportunity to explore the world on their own terms, let them freely seek out the knowledge they are interested in, or let them pick, root and dig in the forest floor to see what might be hiding in the black soil. Most of the teaching is confined to the writing in the books, where they can learn about what should be hiding in the dirt, but don’t get the opportunity to investigate it and enjoy the joy of “finding”.
The excuse for not taking children out of the grip of books and giving them the opportunity to explore the real world is often the economy. It’s “too expensive”, both in terms of manpower and transportation, to take children to the woods or the beach where they can indulge their curiosity and “find” rather than just “read” their way to knowledge. But it doesn’t work. Firstly, you don’t have to go far from school to find suitable places to do this – no matter where you live in the country. A park, a gutter, a forest, a beach or even a sidewalk. There are opportunities everywhere. We just need to think outside the box, such as in the Science Club, where children have the opportunity to get acquainted with chemistry, biodiversity and other scientific topics through experiences rather than just theoretical learning. And overall, in my opinion, it’s much more expensive not to do it. Because by not continually sparking children’s curiosity and showing them what they can achieve by using it, or even punishing them for using it, we are taking away their best weapons to succeed in the world.
Curiosity is a unique quality that we must cherish. In nature, curiosity is what drives the survival of animals. They use their innate curiosity to learn how to cope in the environment they were born in. They explore the area for hiding places, escape routes and breeding opportunities, and they try out new foods to improve their survival chances. Then, for many of the animals, there’s guidance from their parents or the group so that they don’t make the same mistakes they made and perhaps suffered from. But even then, learning happens by piquing the cubs’ curiosity. The parent animals don’t actively show the kids what to do, but simply perform the behavior themselves. The cubs then try to imitate the parents, driven by their curiosity to try things out and learn how to survive in a complex world.
The same attitude of curiosity, the urge to constantly investigate our surroundings and the acceptance of failure in the process should be much more widespread, both in society as a whole and in the education system in particular. We have become too conformist in our approach to knowledge, overwhelmed by the vast amount of knowledge already available. But we will gain far more knowledge if we stop stifling curiosity and instead support it both with challenging activities and in the way we evaluate results. And here lies another stumbling block. Our current grading system cracks down on mistakes and gives no extra bonus for unique curiosity. It should be changed so that students, regardless of their level of education, are not afraid to ask questions and try new things at the risk of failure. Take our new Nobel Laureate, Professor Morten Meldal, for example. He himself has said that he did relatively poorly at school, partly because he was busy with everything but his homework. It must be said that he did pretty well after all.
And as adults, we need to stop being so afraid of letting go when children start exploring their surroundings. Yes, they may well get dirty. And yes, they may even get slightly injured, but rarely to the point of permanent damage. And yes, they may fail, whatever that means. But then what? Then you just have to try again, maybe with guidance and maybe alone. Both processes will lead to new insights for the children, making them smarter. But if they gain their knowledge through their own experiences, they will remember them far better than if they just read about them. Even better, they can have huge success experiences that give them the strength and courage to continue learning.
Of course we need to intervene before the accident happens. Just like in the animal world, where mothers are especially careful to make sure their young don’t go in the wrong direction. But the limits of intervention are much further out in the realm of uncertainty than in our modern world, where we intervene far too early and thus help kill innate curiosity. This is the boundary we need to push, not by removing the safety net completely, but by accepting curiosity as a driving and developing force to a much greater extent.
