“Schools kill curiosity” by Wendy Berliner is about how in the quest to produce hard working students, children are institutionalized to prioritize focusing and good behavior, instead of satiating their curiosity which’ll allow them to become better critical thinkers. “When teachers teach young children not to ask questions… it is not surprising that high-performing students… were found to be less curious, because they saw curiosity as a risk to their results” paragraph 12, contradicts the idea that “Children are born curious.. it is one of the critical methods humans adopt to learn” paragraph 8. Oftentimes students aren’t able to grasp new topics and ideas on their own, because they’ll have questions about aspects of it that don’t make sense, or things they wish to know more about. These questions are what develop a persons ability to think critically and understand topics better. However since children are being told to stop being as curious they stop wanting to learn more and that hinders their developmental ability. “Children in an american suburban elementary school asked between two to five questions in a two-hour period. Even worse, as they got older the children gave up asking altogether.” paragraph 9. Since children are being shunned and told to not ask questions, their eager minds stop yearning for new information so they’ll give up trying to learn more outside of what they’re taught inside of schools. The killing of curiosity is endangering a critical thinking and learning ability of children nationwide.
