national program to support Childhood Curiosity

teaching children to be intelligentSo.

I recently saw a TV commercial encouraging maintaining arts/music in schools curriculum. I didn’t pay much attention to the details and I am not really a government program gwonk (whatever that is) but I assume someone in their infinite wisdom is cutting money supporting these things in schools therefore someone else thought an advertising campaign was needed to answer that.

I paid attention because I worry that in a world in which “decision by numbers” & “data decides” is an increasing overarching philosophy (in business & in academia) we are losing sight of the importance of the intangible – imagination & curiosity. I would argue (and have) that numbers are just numbers & data is just data, soulless & lacking true conviction of rich & royal hues which connect with people, without someone who can imagine what can be done with the numbers & data.

All that said, well, in general, I would say I would jump on this soapbox.

But.

I won’t. I won’t because of ignorance with regard to the choice I would actually be making. Huh? Well. This idea sounds good but I am unclear of “at what cost”. If I support this, does funding get cut from some other children’s education program? As I stated I am not a policy gwonk so I don’t really know how these things work (but ps experience tells me government has nasty habit of stealing from something good – not bad – to pay for something good).

But.

Setting aside this perilous choice. Here is what I do know. Every child is born curious. And every child has an unopened box of curiosity which has a key to open it. And I do know every child needs a different key to open it.

Key? For me it was words. Words in songs. Words in books. Wherever I could find a word. I listened to the radio music incessantly and read every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy book I could get my hands on. Sometime in elementary school a teacher read us Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ during reading hour (I couldn’t wait to be able to read the words on my own).

For others I assume the key is something else.

dream possible play friendsThe stars and planets and space.

Playing an instrument.

Understanding what makes things run and go.

How do things live.

Why is the grass green and the sky blue.

Crap like that.

Frankly, I don’t care about any individual program (music, math, social studies, chemistry, etc.).

What I care about is giving children a box of keys and let them figure out what opens their curiosity box and then making sure that curiosity never grows hungry. Then make sure the mind, once opened, can be fed for as long as they want to keep eating. Curiosity will never have an obesity issue .. there should be an all-you-can-eat curiosity food buffet 24-7 for kids.

Is that realistic?  Once again, frankly, I don’t care.

This is me being unreasonable. What I do think is really unreasonable is having music fight for money from sciences who is also trying to make sure they have money from machine shop/woodworking. That’s all kinda nuts. You are choosing among the children (literally and figuratively).

So while I am okay with a TV commercial fighting for something like music in schools I am not okay that money has to be spent on the fight (versus actually using the money for feeding kid’s curiosity).

This is not “no child left behind” (although I guess if I did some research I could be really sure about that statement). In fact, I read somewhere that, inadvertently, the ‘no child left behind’ program kind of created the arts cutback situation because funds had to be diverted to sciences & math to insure the program met its goals (I don’t think anyone planned it to work that way).

Heck.

President Obama announced a $250 million initiative to train math and science teachers and help meet his goal of pushing America’s students from the middle to the top of the pack in those subjects in the next decade. Obama said the $250 million in public and private investments for his “Educate to Innovate” campaign will help train more than 100,000 teachers and prepare more than 10,000 new educators in the next five years. I am all for that also. Just not at the expense of other curriculum options students could select.

Why do we have to choose one over the other? (I guess that is where I get stuck on this issue)scraps of dreams pick up

So.

What would I do? (an unreasonable idea): A National Childhood Curiosity Program.

Use that $250 million to train Curiosity Fulfillment teachers.

Create a Curiosity Fund and go put “things” in front of kids.

Have Curiosity Fulfillment trained educators keep shoving “keys” at them until they find something they gravitate to. The only reason (in my opinion) kids “give up” in school is because they just don’t find anything relevant to them. I am NOT suggesting we should ignore a well rounded education (they do need to know 2 and 2 is 4 and stuff like that) but give them a “hook.”  Something to hold on to. Something that inspires them to want to know more. I agree with JK Rowling in that “its not that people don’t like to read, they just haven’t found the right book yet.”

Children will be better at coding, data development & assessment, innovations, management and, well, doing whatever it is they want to do in their career if they have a healthy imagination and a good curiosity muscle.Why wouldn’t we actively encourage & stimulate this intangible strength which makes the tangible shit we seem to embrace so often in adulthood better?

There you go – a National Childhood Curiosity Program — I call it educating to feed Curiosity. I could argue this is an education initiative which feeds the dreams which may someday feed us. Curiosity feeds the imagination and, well, as we all know … what one imagines leads to what one makes.

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Written by Bruce