Let me ask you something.
Have you ever looked at your class or your students, your children, and
thought, why does it feel so hard to get them interested in learning?
They're distracted.
Their attention fades quickly, and no matter how much effort you put in, it
feels like it's never quite enough.
If you've been feeling overwhelmed, flat, or even questioning your why.
Lately, this episode is especially for you.
For a long time, we were told that good teaching meant careful lesson
planning, having clear objectives, covering the curriculum, keeping
everyone on task, and if children were disengaged, the solution is usually.
Better behavior management or more engaging activities, or tighter
structure, or just trying harder.
And of course it's always, well, you need to develop better relationships.
But here's what I started noticing, both in my own work over the years
and in the conversations I have had with friends and colleagues.
The harder we try to control engagement, the more disengaged children seem
to become, and that's exhausting.
Last year, I surveyed the educators on my email list and I asked what they
were struggling with the most, and the responses were incredibly consistent.
Educators told me they were struggling to keep children engaged.
Because children were so disengaged, they told me that they were watching
curiosity fade in front of them.
They were feeling pressured from administration to tick curriculum
boxes, and they were overwhelmed by the amount of planning they had to do
and really worried about how to prepare children for an uncertain future.
And what struck me most was that these weren't educators who didn't care.
They cared deeply.
They just felt stuck in a system that isn't working anymore.
And this is where my own shift happened.
I realized the problem wasn't the teachers, it wasn't even the curriculum.
The real issue was this.
We've been trying to create engagement without addressing curiosity.
And curiosity is the engine of learning.
When curiosity is alive, children lean in, they ask questions, they
persist, they think more deeply.
Engagement naturally becomes a byproduct.
And I've seen this so many times, even with very young children.
When curiosity is absent, no strategy in the world can force engagement to last.
And then this was my epiphany.
In today's world, especially with AI changing everything, the most
important thing we can nurture in children is not content recall.
It's their ability to wander, to think creatively, to problem solve,
to adapt, and to stay curious, even when learning is challenging.
Curiosity is no longer just nice to have.
It's foundational for a digital future, and the good news is, that
it doesn't require throwing out all your plans, losing that structure
that you love to clinging to, or reinventing everything you do.
It just requires a shift in how you design your learning experiences, and
so I created Curiosity Without Chaos.
It's a short, self-paced professional learning framework designed
to help you reawaken curiosity as the driver for engagement.
It plugs curiosity into lessons you already teach.
It maintains that structure without burning you out.
And plans learning experiences that are going to feel meaningful.
This isn't about doing more, 'cause I know you already don't have more time.
It's about thinking differently, especially as you prepare for
the year or the semester ahead.
If you're already feeling overwhelmed, I want you to hear this.
Burnout often isn't a sign that you're doing too much.
It's a sign that something meaningful is missing.
And for many educators, that missing piece is curiosity.
When children are curious, teaching feels lighter.
When learning has purpose, your why starts to reappear.
And right now.
I'm opening a wait list for Curiosity Without Chaos.
If you want a clear framework, practical tools, and a way to plan
for engagement without overwhelm, I'd love you to join the wait list.
You'll find a link in the show notes.
There's no pressure.
This is just an invitation to explore a different way forward.
Teaching doesn't have to feel so heavy.
Learning doesn't have to feel flat.
Curiosity changes everything when we give it space.
If you've enjoyed this episode.
Could you please forward it to a friend or a colleague and remember to follow
the podcast so that you are notified each time a new episode is published.
Get the link for curiosity without chaos in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening and for being here today, and until next time,
stay blooming curious, and take care.