In class recently, we've been doing a lot of examining of this crazy thing called "curiosity". While studying it and understanding it, we've read a couple articles, one of them being Pass the Plate, Mr. Feynman - from Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda. While reading this article, being a child myself, I couldn't help but think "This guy reminds me of my baby cousin... just fascinated by everything she comes across".
He explains his thought processes about why things are the way they are, or why things work and how they work. While sitting there, I'm putting this guy's face on a baby's body!
Mr. Allen brought up this weird natural thing that we all did as kids which was, naturally, to put strange, unfamiliar objects in our mouths.. Now WHY would anyone do that!? Because, we're curious, and by doing this, Mr. Allen says, we get every sense and it helps us figure it out. So, tonight I took a picture of my cousins in action... and what do know... Nicole has a shark in her mouth.
So, every week, on Monday nights, my baby cousins come over a tend to destroy my house... because their curious. Just like in the essay when Alda broke his mother's watch because he wanted to know how it worked.
When I watch them play and break things and observe and even talk to themselves, I'm always forced to think about what will happen when they grow up, and get a formal education. Where will their curiosity lead them? Will they still have their curiosity? Or will it leave them, like it did so many of us?
As Einstein once said "It's a miracle curiosity survives formal education". But what worries me, is what if it doesn't? What if education really just drains the curiosity out of these wonderfully curious kids? Hopefully it doesn't, never stop questioning what's greater than you. Curiosity is the greatest gift we are all born with, we just need to learn to keep it as close to us as possible.
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