Curiosity Awaits...

October kicked off with a class I took on the power of curiosity.  I sat in a room with 40 of my colleagues with no computers or phones.  We did have fidgets on each table to keep our hands busy while thinking about curiosity.  The class ended up setting the tone for the whole month.

Am I a curios enough person?  What “better” questions can I ask? What are the things that I am curious about?  How can I be more curious about things that do not interest me? Do I need to be curious about things that do not interest me?

These questions lingered in my head through out the month.  I still don’t have definite answers to any of them.  However, I decided to observe my kids a little closer to see how they show their curiosity. After all, their minds are not blurred with bunch of grown-up stuff yet and they have already passed the “why” phase.  Whenever they show interest in something, the questions never stop.  When they receive enough answers then they digest what they learn.  Somehow, you can tell from the way they look at you that their mind is churning.  And finally, whatever they learned or absorbed comes out as a drawing, as a game or as a skill…. It is an amazing transformation of curiosity into reality.

I found it easier to be curious about things that I care.  I can spend hours to evaluate different workouts and moves, and try to understand the underlying benefits or potential dangers.  However, when it comes to things that I am not as interested, I then shut it down and move on.  Interestingly enough, my kids are very similar too.  If it is something that they are not interested in, then there is only one question, if any, and then they move on.

Curiosity is an interesting muscle to exercise.  I think the main challenge comes in when  you are faced with a task that you don’t care about or interested in.  It can become a fun game to figure out a good question to ask on something that you don’t care about learning.  What do you think?

Since my mind was very consumed with the idea of “curiosity”, I dedicated one of our Train and Smile weeks to the same theme and I asked the participants for ideas of tools to use.  The “board game” idea won!  Here is the workout, if you would like to give it a try:

High five to you all for asking that ONE GOOD question on a subject you do not care! ;)

My two curious minds

Can you guess what kaya was for Halloween?