Hello and welcome to another episode of Blooming Curious.
If you've been teaching for longer than five minutes, you agree and
know the children have changed.
Kids are just more easily distracted, they're less calm,
and they struggle to focus.
We can argue the million and one reasons for it, but ultimately, no
matter which way we slice and dice it, the fact remains the children
are less curious, but what if you could completely shift the
energy in your classroom or homeroom space without throwing out
everything you are already doing?
What if engaging students didn't mean reinventing the wheel, but simply
looking at it from a different angle?
Hi, my name is Edwina and I'm here today to tell you about something
that's made all the difference in my teaching and in children's learning.
But first, let me tell you where all this began.
Years ago during my practicum, I spent time in a school where the entire teaching
approach was based on direct instruction.
This was a school that was hell bent on great NAPLAN scores.
NAPLAN is the national standardized assessment here in Australia for
students in years 3, 5, 7, and nine,
and it tests literacy and numeracy skills.
And in this particular school, yes, it did help them with their scores,
but there was no creativity, no exploration, and no room for curiosity,
and definitely no creative expression.
Children sat still.
They followed commands and completed worksheets.
Behavior was managed through humiliation.
Think about sending kids out to spend time in a different classroom, a traffic light
system where at the end of each day a behavior diary was sent home, and children
that had three warnings that day had to stand in front of the class, in front of
their peers and explain their behavior.
And these were four or five year olds.
This environment was lifeless.
You could feel it.
You could also feel the tension in the air.
The kids were there, but they weren't present.
They weren't alive with questions and wonder or ideas.
They were just complying, surviving each day.
I was miserable, and I remember thinking, this cannot be what
teaching is meant to feel like.
So when I had my own classroom, I made a decision I would do it differently.
I didn't have a perfect plan.
I didn't have flashy resources or endless time, but I had one clear goal, and that
was to make sure that my classroom was a place where children felt curious,
where they were happy to come to school and where they wanted to learn.
That's all I wanted.
And so I started small.
I used my intuition as a mother, and I taught the way I had been
teaching my own children at home.
I invited questions.
I invited students to wonder.
I asked open-ended prompts, and I let learning unfold through
creativity and problem solving.
We explored topics deeply.
We made room for hands-on projects, and I encouraged the
children to think for themselves.
I wasn't quick to answer questions.
They had to explore to some extent, to follow the thread of their own interests.
And of course, it helped tremendously when I started following
Claire Warden and Kath Murdoch.
And then I knew I was onto something.
And here's the unexpected bonus.
I rarely had behavioral problems because the kids were engaged.
I can probably count on one hand the children that were difficult,
and it was usually because they came with serious issues of their
own and their own difficulties.
But for the most part, children were learning.
They were seen, they had agency.
Curiosity did more than just create interesting lessons.
It created a culture.
A culture of energy and creativity and connection because my own curiosity
gave children permission to be curious.
And in case you're wondering, I am also a huge proponent of
explicit instruction and phonics.
And so I still had my explicit lessons and in fact, explicit
instruction and inquiry-based learning dovetail each other.
You need both in a successful classroom learning environment.
So don't think of it as an either or situation.
It's more like both and more.
As Jessica Vance says.
Now, this methodology that I was using just came quite naturally to
me and to my teaching, but I didn't know at the time that it had a name.
But after years and seeing so many educators and homeschool educators even,
needing a little structure to inject this type of learning into their own
practice, I've bundled this approach into something simple and supportive.
And easy for you to use no matter what kind of school curriculum you are in.
And I'm calling it the Curiosity Toolkit, and it's designed for educators just like
you who want to inject curiosity into your classroom or homeschool environment
without having to redo everything.
This isn't a program that asks you to overall your whole planning or
to throw out all your strategies.
It's just a little mindset shift.
It's a collection of powerful, doable tweaks, the kind that can
transform the culture of your classroom in small, consistent ways.
The toolkit gives you clear strategies, it gives you guiding questions, gives
you curiosity prompts, and ready to use examples that you can apply whether you
are in early years or primary years, or even in your own homeschool environment.
If you've ever thought, I want my students to be more engaged, but
I don't have time to start from scratch, then this is for you.
If you've ever wished for fewer behavior battles and more meaningful
conversations, then this is for you.
And if you've ever wanted to build a classroom culture
where learning feels alive.
Then this is definitely for you.
You can grab the curiosity toolkit right now via the link that I'll post in the
show notes and start using it tomorrow.
Yes, literally tomorrow.
Because once you unlock the power of curiosity, everything changes.
So no matter what the outside influences are, you can help children
come alive again in your space with one small shift at a time.
So get your curiosity toolkit in the show notes and also while I'm at
it, can I ask you a massive favor?
Well, actually it's quite a small favor.
If you find any of the episodes here, interesting or valuable, please click that
share button and share it with a friend or colleague that you think might find
this type of content interesting too.
So thanks so much for helping the show grow by sharing it.
Thanks for listening.
I know that you can listen to a million podcasts, but you chose this
one, and for that, I'm so grateful.
And until next week, stay blooming, curious, and take care of yourself.