Does It Pay To Preserve Curiosity?

Is it really worth it to do all we can to preserve, and develop innate curiosity in our children?

As the years go by, like I shared recently in "Harvest People", you reap the harvest of years of right choices. This blog is about that. With Cyndy well indoctrinated from her degree in Elementary Education, at first, she was not very interested in home schooling. But I had one opening. She said of her teaching experience, in one unguarded moment, "The light in their eyes is going out. It is happening right before my eyes and I can't figure it out. But it's happening to nearly all of them." It was their loss of natural curiosity. That is why the light went out. The kids were learning now to negotiate the "listen and tell back" challenge. The more they played that game, the more the light went out. Learning was becoming all about pleasing the teacher, pleasing friends, pleasing others, instead of actually learning. That was Cyndy's public school experience. Frankly, this same kind of thing can happen anywhere. It can happen at home too. Preserving curiosity doesn't come natural to anyone, I don't think.

However, once Cyndy got the hang of it... well you can't turn her off now. So, preserved curiosity, the willingness to risk and fail and risk again, has become part of the mystique of our children. For a couple of reasons, 1) Cyndy and I, actually, model following our own curiosity in much of what we do. The kids learned what they saw in their parents and 2) they came to us with curiosity, and we avoided stamping it out and killing it. The example we set of our own interest in exploring, gave them permission to do likewise, and that along with their natural propensity to be curious, nutured a seed, that has grown intp a fruitful plant, from which we still are harvesting.

One example. Our number 2 daughter lost a baby over a year ago. Died in the womb. It was a sad time for the entire family. Tam worked through it, and we all worked through it. The good news is that Tam got pregnant again, and we now have a little Zoe in the family. Allison, our number 1 child, helped Tam process the loss and the grief that kept coming back from time to time. During that process, Allison wrote her a song.

Sweet baby blue how your mommy loved you
Closed your sweet eyes as we kissed you goodbye
Sweet baby blue that the heavens still knew
Sweet baby blue, in a moment and you
were gone, a short song

Sweet baby blue with the skies opened wide
Angels have welcomed you back to their side
Sweet baby blue, the world will miss you
Sweet baby blue
I’m your mom, I’m your mom

Tender days, to have you near
Still the Promise is ringing clear
I will watch over you,
Sweet baby blue

Sweet baby blue how your mommy loves you
I’ll find your sweet eyes and our heartstrings will bind us
Sweet baby blue that the heavens still knew
Sweet baby blue, just one moment with you
Carry on, carry on, carry on, carry on…

Then she put it to some music she wrote and she mixed the music and her voice using a simple MacBook and the GarageBand software. Click here to listen.

The point in all of this is that Allison is still pursuing the development of her talents, and risking their view to the rest of the world. She has finished one Master's Degree, was a Fullbright Scholar, and is now finishing her second masters at the University of Chicago. Who taught her how to write music? She taught herself for the most part. Who taught her how to perform it in such a sensitive, unique way? She tried and failed and tried and failed again, and taught herself. And who taught her how to mix this stuff on a Mac? She taught herself. And why can she do this? Because we succeeded in NOT killing her natural curiosity. Instead we nurtured it, by helping her grow her interests while we worried less about the "basics" trusting that they would come to her in time, which they have.(it is amazing to me, how many parents I talk to who say, 'But what about the 3 R's?' as if we didn't care if our kids got the basics at all. Of course they get them. But they get them perhaps at a different time than some think they NEED to get them.) In our family, for whatever reason, Allison is not the exception. All of the kids, risk and try and read and research and try some more.

Does it pay to preserve curiosity? A thousand million bazillion times over it does! And if you don't believe me, perhaps you will enjoy this TED talk by Sir Kenneth Robinson Schools Kill Creativity. Keep in mind, this isn't a statement about public schooling alone. Home schooling runs the same risks.

If this is the only benefit we derived from the blessing we have enjoyed of home schooling our children, this is sufficient. I can't stress too much how badly I hope you will take a long walk and ponder for hours what it means in your life, and the lives of those you love, to preserve the God given natural curiosity in yourself and in them. Then I would pray that you would have the courage to take steps, even hard ones to give this gift to your children. As Sir Kenneth Robinson said, we may not see the future, but our children will. Past ideas about preparing them to succeed in their future are not servicing. Our view is that homes can do more, homes need to do more, to preserve in their children curiosity for life around them.

If you agree, how about sharing some ideas on how to do just that, preserve curiosity in our children?