Part 1: MLA Citation
Berliner, Wendy. “‘Schools Are Killing Curiosity’: Why We Need to Stop Telling Children to Shut up and Learn.” The Guardian, 28 Jan. 2020. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/28/schools-killing-curiosity-learn.
Part 2: Summary
In the article, “Schools are Killing Curiosity,” Wendy Berliner claims that it has been proven that curious kids perform better academically but the school system fails to encourage curious behaviors in young students. The author mentions that researchers from the university of Michigan found that as kids got older, their curiosity levels weakened. The article mentions that since teachers prioritize behavior and staying focused, they dismiss any questions a student has. It was found that in order to have a good foundation for early learning, curiosity should be emphasized and encouraged in all classes by mentors. Berliner further emphasizes that when teachers dismiss questions continuously, children became less curious and view it as a risk to their results/grades. While the system has chosen to dismiss curiosity, there are still a handful that do encourage it. Berliner concludes that teachers have many targets to meet so it’s truly up to the school system to change their curriculum and system to benefit students that want to know more. All in all, Berliner implies that humans learn from novel situations and the act of curiosity is important to that process.
Part 3 : Rhetorical Analysis
The genre of this article is feature piece. The author of this piece, Wendy Berliner, is credible because she published a book named, “How to Succeed at School.” Berliner incorporates an informative and objective tone to display her message. Berliner uses rhetorical appeal of logos as she uses research coming from educated researchers and professors to prove her points about curiosity in schools. For example, she uses Dr Prachi Shah’s study of promoting curiosity in the children coming from environments of economic disadvantage. Through logos she appeals to the audience by providing logical reasoning and ideas from accredited resources. Berliner also uses ethos by mentioning research experts like Susan Engel and professor Paul Howard to provide sense of trust in the resources she’s providing. In addition, Berliner uses the appeal of pathos by continuously mentioning how crucial it is for students to remain curious despite the failure of encouragement from teachers. The intended audience for Berliner are the parents of young kids in school. Berliner conveys the message of awareness and clarity to the school system and how it’s failing students concerning their curiosity levels. This source is credible as “The Guardian” is a famous British newspaper outlet that has been around since 1821 and is well known for their journalism pieces. This topic of curiosity in kids is still important today as it’s still a major issue however, this article was published in January of 2020. During this time the concerns of low curiosity in kids had recently rised bringing more light to the problem to further research on it.
Part 4: Notable Quotes
- “In a finding critical to tackling the stubborn achievement gap between poorer and richer children, disadvantaged children had the strongest connection between curiosity and performance.” – (Berliner)
- “When teachers teach young children to not ask questions, it is not surprising that high performing students studied by American Researchers in 2013 were found to be less curious, because they saw curiosity as a risk to their results.” – (Berliner)
- “Schools kill 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.” -(Berliner)
