Building Curiosity Naturally

06/26/2006

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of a child.
Carl Jung

In the Exchange book, The Wonder of It: Exploring How the World Works, Marguerita Rudolf talks about the value of stones for handling, discoveries and creativity…

“My own favorite natural item that attracts and holds my attention are stones – stones calling forth in me an instinctive response to their infinite variety of shape and surface, their universal presence, their abundance on beaches everywhere in the world; an aesthetically rich material that induces reflection; provides pleasure – all to be had, to be picked up, free! Moreover, my own appreciation of stones prompts me to think that such an unstructured raw material would elicit curiosity and invite safe investigation and various uses by children of a wide age range. What is required of the teacher is to have an experimental and open mind as to what might happen when children put stones to use in the classroom.

“Obviously, the teacher’s interest in a particular material will affect the children’s interest and constructive use. When I placed a strong wooden box with approximately 20 stones of different shapes and sizes on the table, the box was immediately noticed by the children, and several came up to inspect the stones, remove them from the box, and ask where I’d found them. They definitely did not take them to be ‘educational play things.’ Practically all the children expressed some curiosity about the stones and spontaneously commented on the physical attributes…and compared the stones with familiar objects….The sharpness of one stone was investigated. Ideas for using the stones came from the children over a period of a few weeks. They served as cargo for toy dump trucks and pretend food items in the housekeeping area....Since many children enjoy making some decoration on a finished block building, stones were used effectively for that purpose….So we place a box of stones on the block shelves. A tin can with stones was supplied in the kitchen. Some heavier kinds of stones were kept in the supply shed outside and used to hammer in am emergency or as a load when operating the pulley. Once a child deliberately buried a stone in the sand box and then pretended to have found it. The process seemed to be a simple game, yet it reflected a child’s notion of what discovery is.”

Encouraging children to be enchanted and stimulated by the natural world is one of the themes of the upcoming Working Forum on Nature Education. To learn more about this ground-breaking event, CLICK HERE!

All Exchange Books on Sale! To celebrate the approach of summer, Exchange has placed all its books, covering topics such as leadership, curriculum development, parents, design, and money, on sale at a 20% discount for this week only. Check out this sale!

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