During our preparation to open Griffin State School in 2015, Vicki connected us to the _Curiosity and Powerful Learning_ (CPL) Brisbane Metropolitan Region network. Authored by Wayne Craig and Professor David Hopkins, CPL is a school improvement framework with curiosity at its core. Our continued work with Wayne Craig and the network has broadened our understanding about the nature of curiosity and how we might best harness it as a powerful tool for learning.
Many say that Alice, from _Alice in Wonderland_, is the supreme model of the curious child, often muttering "Curiouser and Curiouser," as she explores. A child innately following her own interests, instinctively questioning, pondering, and wandering; a self-motivated learner driven by her why’s and how’s to explore Wonderland. Within the seven _Curiosity and Powerful Learning_ manuals, Alice and her journey through Wonderland is used as an example of teaching for curiosity and the associated transformation pedagogy can take.
Craig and his work has lead us to explore the types and stages of curiosity, namely exploratory and intellectual curiosity. As we're beginning to grasp, both are useful for educators to understand when planning for teaching and learning. Around the planning table, we explicitly discuss how we will spark interest, inspire genuine questioning and provoke risk-taking in our learners. We then deliberately design learning opportunities aimed at igniting curious thinking, drawing our learners further down into rabbit holes as they follow genuine curiosity.
Developing our understanding about the nature of curiosity has allowed us to think more critically about our planning and how Opportunities over Activities and Powerful Provocations might better cater to how children innately learn. If we hold the image of Alice in our mind when designing classroom experiences, the nature of our role shifts too. In better understanding curiosity, we are designing fewer experiences where we are the ‘sage on the stage’ and are more deeply considering how we might be the ‘guide on the side’, noticing and spurring Alice along in her journey.
If we want our children to be authentic learning seekers, then understanding how we best encourage this behaviour is crucial. After all, if we want our learners to leave us Literate, Numerate and Curious, we must not only preserve curiosity but also magnify its power, making this explicit to learners. Understanding the role that curiosity can play and how best to harness this gift of childhood at school is and ongoing focus for educators at Griffin.
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