A museum, some books, and childlike curiosity
I just finished Brian Glazer’s book on Curiosity. It was a great read and you should check it out. It made me explore my “curiosity evolution.” I had vivid imagination and curiosity as a child. To me, heaven on Earth was the Greensboro Children’s Museum. I wanted to live there so bad.. I’ve only been about five times but it holds a deep place in my heart. The chance to be a news anchor, a radio DJ, a grocery store owner, and a pilot. It was freeing! I have vivid memories of a trip to my hometown news station WFMY News 2. Just walking around and seeing all the cameras, the newsroom, the weather maps I lit up. We even got to sit and watch a live broadcast and I was in awe and curious about how it all came together (probably fueled the energy of my communications endeavors).
Sometimes, I think about that blind but wide wonder and curiosity and where it went. My guess is that, along the way, some of us got too curious and what we experienced yielded a result that didn’t make us want to learn more but one that told us to be quiet and sit down, causing a sense of guilt or punishment. We saw what was really up and in reading this book I realized that the world will really suck the curiosity out of a child as soon as it can.
It’s fitting that a book on curiosity got me thinking. I believe books are stories of curiosity helping us to open our minds to new ideas and experiences. Walking back to the office from Starbucks one day, I came across a little library and a book from one of my favorite book series from my childhood “The Magic Tree House.” These books were my jam when I was a kid. I wanted a Magic Tree House-themed birthday party. In the books, we see that Jack and Annie were curious kids, following a sign or a bird to a mysterious treehouse. The first time they were probably a bit hesitant, remembering their parent’s warnings to not go too far or to places, you don’t know but they went inside again and again and again traveling to different moments in time. Their curiosity helped them. “Curiosity is a state of mind. More specifically, it’s the state of having an open mind.” Brian writes in the concluding paragraph. Jack and Annie embodied that. I would also say that it’s a moment of trust. So many times we hold back and don’t ask for fear of being wrong, we are hesitant to publicly show that we don’t know for fear of looking dumb. Similar to what Dr. Brené Brown talks about in her book “Daring Greatly” (another great read), there is fear and shame in being wrong/not knowing especially to others because it can open us up to vulnerability. Curiosity forces us to ask ourselves if we are curious enough to see where this story takes us? It can help us be vulnerable.
Cause let’s be honest. The curious option is not always the safest. Glazer writes “Curiosity, including scientific curiosity, was a challenge to the power structure of society.” I can imagine that in some ways it still is. The scientists of old fought persecution, mockery, and rigid power structures for asking questions of how the world operated. Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his work that showed the Earth moved around the sun. Curiosity offers up new ideas and viewpoints that can be contradictory to current life even if you’re right. It’s a challenge. You’re stepping outside your comfort zone and while we think about our safety every day, I think we shouldn’t let our comfort get in the way of learning something new.
Speaking of something new, I think about my upcoming grad school journey. A new state, a new place, and new people. I have a feeling that it may be a bit easier to get to know my surroundings by being curious. At the core of curiosity is a hunger to learn from the books, people, places, and experiences. When I start my number goal should be to be curious about what I am doing. As one of my soon-to-be co-grads said “To get to know the students for who they are.” Essentially to be curious and what if that is the main goal of any learning institution: to produce students that are very curious about the world around them. I haven’t been talking about the fake, “trying to be nosy” curious but the type of curiosity that is genuine. I was genuinely interested in how news broadcasting works. So, I became a PA Announcer in high school and did the morning announcements. I am genuinely interested in how higher education works. Now, I am pursuing a master’s degree in it.
Maybe that is what is missing from our world and certain systems that are steeped in rigidity and tradition, systems that may be essential to help folks figure out how to navigate a post-pandemic world. Some curiosity, a curiosity that truly brings some new ideas instead of guiding folks to things already tried.
In the face of capitalism that aims to suck the joy out of people.
In the face of white supremacy and dominating eurocentric culture that says “This is right and everything else is wrong.”
In the face of the political divides and hatred on all sides.
In the face of the fear and the mounting challenges
Maybe we should all tap into the curiosity we had when we were a child. To trust that our questions will give the answers we may desire and if not, we become better because of the journey.
