Heick, Terry. “How To Kill Learner Curiosity In 12 Easy Steps”. teachthought, February 2020.
In this article author Terry Heick had allowed us to see in a simplified fashion ways to kill a person’s curiosity. Not curious of the question itself but only striving for the answer negating those extra thoughts. He breaks the steps down in simple terms to let us readers easily acknowledge the issues that happen in our current society. Especially in an age where the education system may come into question of it’s methods and if it still holds up to this day. The education system can be often described as black and white as Heick describes. It hinders our abilities to, “think outside the box” and think only in one path. Being told how to get to the answer rather than dwell on the question as to why it happens. Heick states, “Keep it formal, sterile, and academic. Leave the children’s lives, their family traditions, cultural legacy, and individual gifts out of it”. When I read this I almost immediately rejected this philosophy when working in an academic space such as school. Thinking in one perspective in school and not using our own experiences to combine the academic experience to form new ways to question and answer is extremely limiting. When we were children our minds ran rampant full of life and curiosity wanting news ways to answer. Going to school almost feels like a mental prison at times as it takes your curious intuition as a child and throws it away. Steps one, three, four, seven, and nine I believe are the most impactful steps as described by the author. Step one is about dictating the learning domain. This would mean when the teacher teaches and how he/she teaches. When to give out tests and how to grade their students. These rules would force students to follow a straight forward curriculum. Following directions and studying the one topic in order for you to pass. Step three is thinking black and white. Getting to an answer in school is usually definitive and there is no other way around it. This can easily deprive students of their interests of the subject. Step four would be focusing on answers instead of questions leading to it. There is no “if” “ands” or “buts”. When you’re wrong you’re wrong without question. It almost seems threatening as your grade is on the line if you don’t follow orders. Step seven would be to forget creativity. Which overall is what schools do negates what you want to learn. Step nine is what I had mentioned before about not being able to use your past experience intuition to learn in a more explorative way to make school more engaging.
The author’s writing style is very simple and straight to the point in an article. It makes it credible as it gives some factual information as how our education system can feel so mentally limited. I believe the author chose this genre was to show any curious reader a quick glance to give you a thought and perspective of our education system.
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