by Nathan Munro

Created on: June 27, 2008   Last Updated: September 04, 2008

Does conventional schooling stifle curiosity? I'll go a step further and say that many aspects of our educactional system were created to control curiosity. By looking at the history of our education system it becomes fairly evident that controlling children was a hallmark from the beginning.

When our school system began the primary concern was producing a literate population that could read the bible. It later became the vehicle for transforming the children of farmers into factory workers. Today we still work until the bell, then changes places and beginning work again. We really haven't changed the model in 100 years!

Now our economy is based on the service industry so we've adjusted slightly with more
"group work." There is nothing wrong with preparing kids for the kinds of jobs they will have one day, but we take it too far when we stifle curiosity and creativity.

I am a teacher and an advocate of public schools, but I acknowledge the many flaws in our system. I've always tried to be the teacher in the building that encourages curiosity and creativity and I've usually been alone in that endeavor. I worked hard for my students everyday because I was a straight-A kid who hated school, and I wish someone had balanced conformity with creativity when I was behind my tiny desk.

I've just finished a nightmare school year working at a prominent charter school that works with urban populations and calls itself a "college preparatory elementary school". You would think preparing children from underprivileged backgrounds to one day attend college would entail encouraging them to think critically and creatively. You would think the natural curiosity of each child would be harnessed to achieve great results. To my horror, the opposite took place. Students were drilled incessantly, art was not offered, and the nine hour school day was packed full of control mechanisms.

C.S. Lewis, the author of the "Narnia" series, wrote a barely known little book called "The Abolition of Man" about educating young children in his time. I'm paraphrasing, but one of his main points was that a teacher's job should be to inspire the curiosity of children. Even in his day teachers were more concerned with controlling students than unlocking their potential. He wrote that too many educators see the mind of a child as a jungle that has to be cut back. More accurately, he writes, a child's mind is a desert that must be irrigated. All of our energies should be put toward encouraging the curiosity of our students because it leads to critical thinking and true education.

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