WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.939 Imagine a classroom where you don't have to convince children to engage, where 00:00:05.939 --> 00:00:11.999 the learning starts before you've even said a word that classroom is possible. 00:00:12.509 --> 00:00:14.099 And I have taught in it. 00:00:14.729 --> 00:00:17.039 Welcome back to Blooming Curious. 00:00:17.099 --> 00:00:18.359 I'm so glad you're here. 00:00:18.689 --> 00:00:24.239 I'm Edwina Early Childhood Educator, and this is the podcast for parents 00:00:24.239 --> 00:00:29.159 and teachers like you who believe that the early years really do matter 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:32.159 and that learning should be joyful. 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:38.099 Today I wanna talk about what really matters in a classroom or a home when 00:00:38.099 --> 00:00:40.919 curiosity actually leads the learning. 00:00:41.649 --> 00:00:47.319 It's not just a nice idea, not a slogan or a poster, but a 00:00:47.319 --> 00:00:49.299 real lived daily experience. 00:00:49.569 --> 00:00:53.349 And I wanna share some stories from my own classroom that I think 00:00:53.349 --> 00:00:57.519 you'll recognize because you've probably seen glimpses of this too. 00:00:58.359 --> 00:01:00.280 Let me paint you a picture. 00:01:01.269 --> 00:01:03.220 It's early morning. 00:01:03.579 --> 00:01:07.479 The children have just come in and before you've even called them 00:01:07.479 --> 00:01:09.579 to the mat, the start of the day. 00:01:10.289 --> 00:01:14.519 Two or several of them are already at the table pulling out the projects 00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:15.809 that they've been working on. 00:01:16.649 --> 00:01:22.589 One is drawing a diagram of a rabbit touch because last week she decided 00:01:22.589 --> 00:01:25.889 she wanted to find out more about rabbits and what they need 'cause 00:01:25.889 --> 00:01:27.299 they've just adopted a rabbit. 00:01:27.819 --> 00:01:30.099 Another is writing a list of questions. 00:01:30.099 --> 00:01:33.399 He wants to research about viruses, not because I signed 00:01:33.399 --> 00:01:35.469 it, but because he chose it. 00:01:36.429 --> 00:01:40.509 There's a low hum of purposeful conversation. 00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:43.179 Children are helping each other. 00:01:43.449 --> 00:01:46.005 They're disagreeing, they're thinking, they're revising. 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:48.459 I haven't even said a word yet. 00:01:49.119 --> 00:01:53.559 That's what learning looks like when curiosity leads. 00:01:54.369 --> 00:01:56.739 Now I know what some of you might be thinking. 00:01:57.160 --> 00:02:00.759 That sounds wonderful, but where's the evidence for this? 00:02:01.119 --> 00:02:03.309 Or is that just feel good teaching? 00:02:03.850 --> 00:02:05.649 Well, there absolutely is evidence. 00:02:06.414 --> 00:02:09.114 Apart from my very own classroom lived experience. 00:02:09.114 --> 00:02:16.015 Of course, there is a 2023 study published in Early Child Development and Care, and 00:02:16.075 --> 00:02:21.504 this one is really interesting because it looked at how interest develops in 00:02:21.504 --> 00:02:26.094 young children, specifically children around ages of four and five, and 00:02:26.094 --> 00:02:28.734 the researchers found that curiosity 00:02:29.109 --> 00:02:33.309 is a natural asset for learning in the early years, but what really 00:02:33.309 --> 00:02:39.100 matters is when that curiosity shifts into real interest, and they call 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:44.319 this authentic interest a sustained, enduring state of attention. 00:02:44.964 --> 00:02:51.444 And both curiosity and authentic interest were found to contribute to cognitive 00:02:51.444 --> 00:02:54.204 development and success in learning. 00:02:54.714 --> 00:02:58.614 I'll leave a link to the research for you in the show notes or in the description. 00:02:59.574 --> 00:03:04.344 Now, in other words, what they were saying is that it's not just curious 00:03:04.344 --> 00:03:06.955 kids that are more fun to teach. 00:03:07.345 --> 00:03:12.145 Students with authentic interest are more likely to pay attention. 00:03:12.145 --> 00:03:16.765 They're more likely to be engaged and ultimately perform well. 00:03:17.915 --> 00:03:21.665 And here's the neurological angle that I found really compelling. 00:03:22.295 --> 00:03:28.415 From a neurobiological perspective, the early years are an ideal time 00:03:28.505 --> 00:03:33.935 to focus on generating curiosity and developing interest in things. 00:03:34.535 --> 00:03:39.745 Synaptic formation in the prefrontal cortex is at its highest between 00:03:39.745 --> 00:03:45.325 12 months of age and six years of age, meaning that the brain is 00:03:45.325 --> 00:03:50.995 literally at its most malleable and most open to new stimuli during the 00:03:50.995 --> 00:03:53.275 years that we are actually teaching. 00:03:53.995 --> 00:03:58.855 We are working with the most receptive brains on the planet, 00:03:59.275 --> 00:04:01.015 and that's not a small thing. 00:04:01.505 --> 00:04:06.485 And yet the research has also found that children's curiosity tends 00:04:06.485 --> 00:04:08.855 to decrease through schooling. 00:04:09.255 --> 00:04:15.705 In fact, school enjoyment decreases even from preschool to kindergarten. 00:04:17.055 --> 00:04:23.775 So something is happening between those early years of joyful natural 00:04:23.775 --> 00:04:31.995 curiosity and that shoulder shrug of, I dunno, that so many of us see by the 00:04:31.995 --> 00:04:34.815 time our kids reach primary school. 00:04:35.895 --> 00:04:39.105 And that's the gap that I'm most interested in, 00:04:40.095 --> 00:04:45.645 And I think curiosity led learning is a big part of closing that gap. 00:04:48.180 --> 00:04:53.429 Let me tell you about a student I had in my year two class and 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:57.810 let's call the student C. This is not his real name of course. 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.500 C was academically gifted or probably still is. 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:06.780 He was the kid who picked up concepts really easily and quickly. 00:05:07.530 --> 00:05:12.240 For children like this, there's always that real chance of boredom setting in, 00:05:12.510 --> 00:05:15.300 and for some they even become disruptive. 00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:19.380 Of course, I set this child more challenging work because 00:05:19.380 --> 00:05:20.310 that's what you would do. 00:05:20.910 --> 00:05:25.050 But the real kicker for him was when I started giving the class 00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:28.515 dedicated project time twice a week. 00:05:29.325 --> 00:05:30.405 The rule was simple. 00:05:30.915 --> 00:05:35.235 You could choose anything you wanted to learn about or things that you 00:05:35.235 --> 00:05:39.615 were genuinely curious about and you wanted to find out about, but it had 00:05:39.615 --> 00:05:43.455 to connect to what we were learning, other words to the curriculum. 00:05:44.205 --> 00:05:47.865 But the question, the angle, the way you explore it, the way 00:05:47.865 --> 00:05:49.935 you present it, that was yours. 00:05:50.715 --> 00:05:55.365 This child C chose to investigate the influenza virus. 00:05:55.874 --> 00:06:00.879 He wanted to know, how it was spread and what could be done to prevent it spread. 00:06:01.710 --> 00:06:07.889 And of course I let him present his findings, how he wanted, he was on fire. 00:06:08.580 --> 00:06:12.869 But here's the thing that really surprised me, or perhaps not so much. 00:06:13.170 --> 00:06:20.759 His engagement didn't just stay in that project bubble, that same 00:06:20.774 --> 00:06:24.930 energy was brought to everything else, to his reading, his writing 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:28.920 tasks, math, because he remembered 00:06:29.460 --> 00:06:34.200 or he knew what it felt like to be genuinely curious, and 00:06:34.200 --> 00:06:36.210 that feeling spills over. 00:06:37.109 --> 00:06:43.739 When you give a child like C a place where his mind can stretch, really 00:06:43.739 --> 00:06:50.729 stretch, he stops just tolerating school and starts loving learning. 00:06:52.019 --> 00:06:55.469 Now, let me tell you, in case you think that this type of 00:06:55.469 --> 00:06:56.879 learning is just for the gifted. 00:06:57.734 --> 00:07:03.314 Let me tell you now about a different student, and let's call her M. M found 00:07:04.094 --> 00:07:09.254 reading and writing really hard, and there were actually several children like this. 00:07:09.944 --> 00:07:13.994 Every literacy session seemed to remind her of what she couldn't yet do. 00:07:14.714 --> 00:07:18.104 She developed what I could only describe as a protective shell. 00:07:18.644 --> 00:07:25.274 She'd go quiet, look away, disengage, or find a reason to go to the bathroom. 00:07:26.070 --> 00:07:32.040 She learned that school was a place that felt like failure, so she switched off. 00:07:32.790 --> 00:07:38.009 But when I introduced Project Time, M chose to investigate rabbits. 00:07:38.430 --> 00:07:43.349 She'd been given a rabbit and was captivated by them, and at 00:07:43.349 --> 00:07:45.239 first she just drew pictures. 00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:48.930 Then she started asking for help, how to write labels. 00:07:49.290 --> 00:07:51.779 Then it was, how do you spell these words? 00:07:53.169 --> 00:07:56.859 Words that were well above her reading level, but she wanted them 00:07:56.859 --> 00:07:59.289 because they were her rabbit words. 00:07:59.619 --> 00:08:01.209 They meant something to her. 00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:06.309 The shift was quiet but profound. 00:08:06.849 --> 00:08:09.939 She started taking more risks in other areas. 00:08:10.150 --> 00:08:13.539 She attempted writing tasks she would previously have avoided, 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:15.909 and I don't think that that 00:08:16.464 --> 00:08:22.074 was a coincidence when learning feels like it's yours when it connects to 00:08:22.074 --> 00:08:27.804 something that you actually care about, it stops being something done to you 00:08:28.194 --> 00:08:30.294 and becomes something that you own. 00:08:31.134 --> 00:08:37.554 And for children like M who needed to rebuild their confidence as learners, 00:08:38.154 --> 00:08:40.419 that ownership was everything. 00:08:42.130 --> 00:08:45.459 If you are thinking, oh, I love this idea, but I genuinely, 00:08:45.459 --> 00:08:47.079 I don't know where to start. 00:08:47.410 --> 00:08:48.189 I've got you. 00:08:49.074 --> 00:08:55.015 I have a blog post where I walk you through exactly how I introduced 00:08:55.015 --> 00:09:00.895 inquiry in my own classroom, the simple framework I used, how I structured 00:09:00.895 --> 00:09:03.415 the time and what I said to the kids. 00:09:03.685 --> 00:09:07.135 I link it for you in the show notes or in the description here on YouTube. 00:09:07.135 --> 00:09:08.455 So what actually changes? 00:09:09.055 --> 00:09:12.235 When children are genuinely interested? 00:09:12.750 --> 00:09:13.530 Quite a lot. 00:09:13.890 --> 00:09:14.880 It turns out. 00:09:15.450 --> 00:09:16.440 For literacy. 00:09:16.560 --> 00:09:20.400 Children write more and they write with more intention. 00:09:20.940 --> 00:09:21.515 They read. 00:09:22.950 --> 00:09:24.750 Because they have a reason to read. 00:09:25.740 --> 00:09:27.390 They want to find answers. 00:09:28.050 --> 00:09:30.000 They want to record discoveries. 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:32.190 They wanna share their findings. 00:09:33.050 --> 00:09:36.950 The reading and writing isn't the task any longer. 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:42.770 It's the tool and tools feel very different to tasks. 00:09:42.890 --> 00:09:46.000 Excuse me for numeracy. 00:09:46.750 --> 00:09:51.655 Curious children ask measurable questions, how many, how far? 00:09:51.655 --> 00:09:59.335 How long they want to count, compare, calculate because the maths is in service 00:09:59.665 --> 00:10:02.125 of something that matters to them. 00:10:03.145 --> 00:10:07.225 For wellbeing, which is probably the most significant shift of all, 00:10:07.555 --> 00:10:12.295 curiosity relates to children's enjoyment of learning and school. 00:10:13.075 --> 00:10:14.575 When children feel. 00:10:15.130 --> 00:10:19.150 That their interests are valued, that their questions are worth 00:10:19.150 --> 00:10:23.770 asking, that school is a place where they can be themselves and 00:10:23.770 --> 00:10:25.780 not be afraid of asking questions. 00:10:26.170 --> 00:10:33.760 Their sense of belonging, changes and belonging matters enormously. 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:38.980 Particularly for children who've already had negative experiences with learning. 00:10:39.770 --> 00:10:45.470 And you don't need a whole curriculum overall to make this work. 00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:50.420 You don't need a special room or a big budget or tons of resources. 00:10:50.930 --> 00:10:56.420 You need a bit of time and a genuine willingness to let children's 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:03.020 curiosity lead and the belief that their questions are worth following. 00:11:04.115 --> 00:11:05.045 Twice a week. 00:11:05.375 --> 00:11:11.915 That's all I gave my students initially, at least twice a week to explore something 00:11:11.915 --> 00:11:17.255 that mattered to them, and the ripple effect went beyond those sessions. 00:11:17.255 --> 00:11:22.085 It was like that thing when you drop the pebble in the middle of the pond and you 00:11:22.085 --> 00:11:24.485 have those concentric circles that go out. 00:11:25.325 --> 00:11:28.295 If you are a teacher, I'd encourage you to try it. 00:11:28.415 --> 00:11:30.545 Start small, give them a question. 00:11:30.755 --> 00:11:31.700 What do you wonder about? 00:11:32.510 --> 00:11:33.740 And see what comes back. 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:36.020 You might be surprised. 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.320 And if you're a parent, the same applies at home. 00:11:39.650 --> 00:11:41.210 Follow the snail. 00:11:41.750 --> 00:11:47.030 Follow the question about why the sky changes in the color at sunset. 00:11:47.670 --> 00:11:51.210 Follow the fascination wherever it leads. 00:11:51.750 --> 00:11:53.415 That's curiosity in action. 00:11:54.270 --> 00:11:58.680 And that's the beginning of a lifelong love of learning. 00:11:59.580 --> 00:12:06.240 And if you want to see just how simple everyday experiences can nurture 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:12.420 curiosity, then download My free e-guide, which has 10 curiosity starters included. 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:16.080 I will link it in the show notes and the description for you. 00:12:16.800 --> 00:12:21.180 Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. 00:12:21.400 --> 00:12:26.170 If this episode resonated with you, I'd love if you share it with another teacher, 00:12:26.170 --> 00:12:28.990 colleague, or parent who needs to hear it. 00:12:29.410 --> 00:12:33.460 And if you have a story of your own, a moment where a child's 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:37.810 curiosity led somewhere unexpected, I'd genuinely love to hear it. 00:12:38.420 --> 00:12:44.555 Until next time, take care of yourself and be blooming curious.