Author: bmuniz (Page 7 of 11)

As a kid I have always been active and was very much interested in particularly sports. I was
interested in playing football, baseball and ride bicycles around the neighbourhood. But I
stopped all that at an early age when I was 9 or 10 years old. I started playing basketball and
doing boxing a little bit later. I was being more energetic and enthusiastic. So, slowly my
interest shifted to motorcycles, dirtbikes and bicycles. I quitted sports to ride bikes and all. I

was curious how the cars and bikes run. I like how the engine worked, the speed and
manoeuvres. Then, I stopped doing these because I knew bicycles won’t do anything good to
me. When I got into high school, I realised I wasn’t that good in sports and this field is really
competitive. I knew I need a real job to support me and my family. I believe I was into too
many sports and hobbies and it was kind of hard to keep and needed to focus on one thing.
I’m still interested in sports and bikes but it just that I don’t give them my enough time and
energy. Asking questions have always helped and made me learn and grow in a better way.
As I grew, so do my curiosity changed and have grown over the years. I’m interested in
space, a little bit of finance and helping people. I think educational system didn’t quite do any
good to motivate students to ask questions and to be inquisitive. In my opinion school has
been more about regular test and assignment. I think curiosity is a part of all of us but it
depends on us as and when we give it importance and a way. Elders do less on their part to
make children more curious. We are more expected to be focussed, to behave well in the
manners defined by them, which eventually made us lose our interest in our things and do
things as they ask. But I think curiosity is in us all the time and it’s just us who don’t give
time to our curiosity.

“It could be a scene in almost any school. Children, full of questions about things that
interest them, are learning not to ask them at school. Against a background of tests and
targets, unscripted queries go mainly unanswered and learning opportunities are lost.”
“Further, the researchers found that when it came to good school performance, the ability to
stay focused and, for example, not be distracted by a thunderstorm, was less important than
curiosity – the questions children might have about that storm.”
This is the reality of most education system around the world. Our education system is more
about scripted targets and success than about the learning process and purpose itself. Most
teachers and parents are concerned only about the good academic performance and being
focussed in our lives. We fail to realise that curiosity is the self-motivation. If we are not
curious about the things than we might not want to learn them but we do forcibly just to pass
exams of various kinds. We are taught that we should strive for successful future and others
interest of ours are mere distractions. Therefore, we give up many things that we genuinely
like and struggle to find where we belong.
Engel, who is professor of developmental psychology at Williams College in Williamstown,
Massachusetts, says: “When you visit schools in many parts of the world it can be difficult to
remember they are full of active, intellectual children, because no one is talking about their
inner mental lives. How well they behave, and how they perform seem much more important
to many people in the educational communities. Often educational bureaucracies have
shunted curiosity to the side.”
It is true for each one of us. As we enter the primary schools, we lose our bubbling curious
nature behind and mould ourselves as per the educational institutions. It is made worse by
how we are gauged by our scores in the name of improvement of life skills. We then focus on
memorizing the concepts than understanding them deeply, which honestly don’t do any good
to us.
“He says: “What children love is to copy what adults are doing with objects. What people
and objects do makes them curious about their world?” Children are so innocents and real
curious kinds. As they don’t know anything of this world, so all they learn is from the elders.
We as kids really try to copy elders and ask them endless questions and mostly, in return we
are asked to keep quiet and behave well. Therefore, slowly we lose our curious nature.
“School kills curiosity. When do children get to ask questions about things that interest
them? As soon as they are at primary school they have to shut up and learn. It’s not the fault
of teachers. They have so many targets to meet.” In my opinion, school is not to be
completely blamed. This is how our society works. We have to work and behave in a certain
manner to be a part of this “big society”. I believe people should be encouraged to ask
questions, be it at home or workplace or schools. Also, we should not be afraid to ask
questions or to look for answers from different sources. We as a person should be motivated
too to let our creativity to flow.
As a kid I have always been active and was very much interested in particularly sports. I was
interested in playing football, baseball and ride bicycles around the neighbourhood. But I
stopped all that at an early age when I was 9 or 10 years old. I started playing basketball and
doing boxing a little bit later. I was being more energetic and enthusiastic. So, slowly my
interest shifted to motorcycles, dirtbikes and bicycles. I quitted sports to ride bikes and all. I

was curious how the cars and bikes run. I like how the engine worked, the speed and
manoeuvres. Then, I stopped doing these because I knew bicycles won’t do anything good to
me. When I got into high school, I realised I wasn’t that good in sports and this field is really
competitive. I knew I need a real job to support me and my family. I believe I was into too
many sports and hobbies and it was kind of hard to keep and needed to focus on one thing.
I’m still interested in sports and bikes but it just that I don’t give them my enough time and
energy. Asking questions have always helped and made me learn and grow in a better way.
As I grew, so do my curiosity changed and have grown over the years. I’m interested in
space, a little bit of finance and helping people. I think educational system didn’t quite do any
good to motivate students to ask questions and to be inquisitive. In my opinion school has
been more about regular test and assignment. I think curiosity is a part of all of us but it
depends on us as and when we give it importance and a way. Elders do less on their part to
make children more curious. We are more expected to be focussed, to behave well in the
manners defined by them, which eventually made us lose our interest in our things and do
things as they ask. But I think curiosity is in us all the time and it’s just us who don’t give
time to our curiosity.

“Our collective belief in the importance of definite answers impacts many areas of our lives, including how we understand the process and purpose of research. Specifically, it leads to a thesis- first research model in which research is only used to verify our existing ideas or theses. In this model, there is no room for doubt or ambiguity. We assume we need to know the answers to our problems or questions before the process gets underway, before we consult and evaluate what others have said.” I believe this is true for each one of us. We all hope for definite answers to our problems. We get curious about many things happening around us and we are always driven by the success of the research or any work than the knowledge itself. If we think that the nature of our research is not certain and time consuming, we most likely drop that idea from our minds. So, we mostly use research as a tool to confirm our doubts and answers and such mindset is harmful.

“And yet, genuine inquiry—the kind of research that often leads to new ideas and important choices— tends to begin with unsettled problems and questions, rather than with thesis statements and predetermined answers. Wernher von Braun, an engineer whose inventions advanced the U.S. space program in the mid-21st century, famously describes research as, “What I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” by the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL). They write that research often begins with open-ended questions that are “based on information gaps or re- examination of existing, possibly conflicting, information.” In other words, research isn’t just for backing up our hunches. It can, and should, also be used as a method of investigating areas of uncertainty, curiosity, conflict, and multiple perspectives.” I really liked the quote “What I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing”. This so resonate with my mind that for true research as much as our path of research is unknown but our questions should be understood well. As many a times we skip or overlook what are we looking for and we tend to deviate from our paths. So, understanding our curious, unsettled problems give us a roadmap to actually explore our problems. In my opinion the authoress meant it right that research should be used with open mind and multiple perspective rather than narrow, preconceived facts and knowledge.

“The messiness of research requires us to be flexible, often modifying our approaches along the way. When we enter the research process with a narrow and rigid focus on our thesis, we can become discouraged and inclined to abandon our ideas when the research process does not unfold neatly.” There’s no doubt that research is uncertain and not a linear process. It is very dynamic in nature and sometimes we have to change everything and start from scratch and it is easy for us to get discouraged. The only way we don’t get discouraged when we are driven by curiosity and not by predetermined thoughts. So, we have to be more flexible and motivated to welcome new challenges.

“Berger also recommends that as children go through school, parents and educators can work together to support children’s questioning nature, rather than always privileging definite answers. When students graduate and move into the working world, employers can encourage them to ask questions about policies, practices, and workplace content; employees should be given freedom to explore those questions with research, which can potentially lead to more sustainable and current policies, practices, and content. The same goes for civic and community life, where any form of questioning or inquiry is often misconstrued as a challenge to authority. To value questions more than answers in our personal and professional lives requires a cultural shift.” I completely support this idea that we should never stop learning new ideas and grasping ever growing information. Learning should be promoted from when we born to when we work in different fields. Encouragement and freedom of expression plays a real important role to keep us motivated and curious. We should learn from everything that happens around us; be it any scientific cause or government policies. We should try to grow and develop and keep us updated as new ideas comes.