The Future of Education
Recovering Curiosity in Adult Students
David Rosner, Metropolitan College of New York (United States)
Abstract
Curiosity is a natural part of childhood. But it unfortunately appears extinguished in many students by the time they reach high school. How might curiosity be reinvigorated in adult learners? This paper will examine four strategies for accomplishing this purpose, all fundamentally involving the pedagogical virtue of intellectual humility. These four strategies are:
- Modeling teaching and learning as disinterested inquiry
- Emphasizing scientific explanation as tentative
- Emphasizing learning as an open and continuous process
- Emphasizing the fundamental mysteriousness of the world.
Many strategies have been offered lately for solving problems related to “retention” and persistent “skills gaps” in higher education. But if a student is curious about the subject, the student will desire to know as much as possible about it and will work harder to acquire this knowledge, even if it is difficult. An emphasis on cultivating curiosity could thus also help with student retention. Students will not be as quick to drop classes when the material gets difficult, but rather will be more driven to master it. Improving education is therefore not just a problem of improving levels of skills acquisition, but also, more fundamentally, a problem of basic motivation.
Keywords: curiosity, wonder, mystery.
