How Schools Destroy Curiosity

Children enter school eager to have new experiences. Their eyes are wide open with wonder. There are so many new people, sights, sounds, ideas, and skills all awaiting absorbtion into their rapidly expanding brains. They are delighted with each new
* skill they develop,
* idea they understand, and
* fact they learn.
Their motivation to learn is intrinsic; they are rewarded with the joy they experience as they learn.

But soon after they enter this wonderful world of learning, the teacher explains to them that teacher have to evaluate what students are actually learning. They do this by testing them. Grades will be assigned depending on how well they do on tests.

So now, the students, eager to please their teachers and parents and to compete with their fellow students, strive for good grades. When they get grades they will be rewarded with the appreciation of others. They are now learning not for the intrinsic joy of the experience itself, but for the extrinsic reward that comes after the the learning experience. I'll learn this if you promise that I'll get that.

Joy has been replaced with Promises of Future Rewards. Wonder has been replaced by Commerce. Wow has been replaced by "What do I get?".

Of course, this is an oversimplification, but it is essentially true for many, if not most, students.

When a teacher asks a student to do an assignment, the first question almost all students have is, "do I get credit for doing it?".

Since this process has occurred for generations, many teachers are the product of a system that squeezes out curiosity and replaces it with achievement. Those teachers continue that process.

There is hope for a change and a restoration of curiosity based education. But many such efforts are resisted by education administrations that are uncomfortable with change. Good teachers may be punished for their efforts instead of rewarded for their insight and inspiration.

But, there is still hope for a reigniting of the dying embers of curiosity squelched by the industrial educational machinery of compulory achievement.