Young children have been practicing cognitive accommodation. Think of a toddler whose only experience is Shih Tzu, a family’s little. One day, the child met the neighbor’s Great Dane. Wow! The psychological concept of a child’s “dog” has rapidly expanded to include more shapes and sizes.
Cognitive accommodation is at the heart of a good education: this is what enables students to modify, expand and deepen their understanding of concepts with prior knowledge. As Summer Allen writes in the “Science of Awe” white paper: “The ability of awe elicits cognitive abilities can also explain why humans evolve into this unique emotion. Experienced awe may be adaptive because it encourages us to adopt new information and adjust our psychological structure around it, helping us drive our world.”
Awesome connection
“My favorite findings suggest that awe may help stimulate curiosity about the world,” psychologist Craig Anderson told me. Research How this emotion affects teenagers. “The more awe they feel, the more curiosity they express, the better they perform in school,” he said.
Awe is sometimes described as a “knowledge emotion.” Paul Silvia, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, describes intellectual emotions as “a family of emotional states that promote learning, exploration, and reflection.” These emotions include surprises, interests, confusion, awe and awe and are derived from “experiences that are unexpected, complex and spiritually challenged, which inspire learning in the broadest sense.”
According to Silvia, awe is a powerful educational tool because it inspires people to explore understanding of the world. “When people see beautiful and striking color images of supernova, black holes and planetary nebula, they often show a sense of awe and surprise. These feelings then motivate them to understand what they see and the importance of science,” he wrote.
When you want to know, you are learning
None of this research surprised Fred Rogers, who was a pedagogy for this. He knows that curiosity is the reason why children’s brains learn. He also has incredible abilities to convey his miracles through the screen, especially his obsession with young audiences.
I contacted Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski, co-author Ryan Rydzewski When you want to know, you are learning: Mr. Rogers’s enduring course to develop creative, curious, caring childrento learn what they learned from studying Rogers’s works. They told me:
When Fred Rogers sings When you want to know, you are learninghe is not kidding. He was right in a very real sense. From modern science we know that when we are in a miracle, something in our brain opens. We began to absorb all kinds of information. Moreover, the more curiosity we have, the more likely we are to retain that information. . . That’s why some scientists believe that curiosity in children’s success in school may be as important as intelligence.
According to the researchers, curiosity “a fundamental impact on learning and memory.” When children are curious, they are more motivated to learn and are better at retaining information. Think of a four-year-old who knows the name of each dinosaur, a ten-year-old who can recite and explain dozens of rollers G-shaped, or a fourteen-year-old who remembers it Hamilton lyrics. No teacher assigned this job. The four-year-old went to the Natural History Museum and was fascinated by the huge bones. The 10-year-old was riding their first roller coaster and was fascinated by all these feelings and physics. The fourteen-year-old has never heard of music or history like this, so they keep listening. Awe, curiosity, learning, memory.
Here is another great discovery: Curiosity is right other study. A study by the University of California, Davis found that when participants were curious about the initial information submitted to them, they could more easily absorb irrelevant information. Just being in a curious mindset can help participants’ brains remember materials that they are not too excited about. As Matthias Gruber, the lead author of the study, put it: “Curiosity can put the brain in a state where it learns and retains any information, such as the vortex attracts something you are motivated to learn and everything around you.”8
This is a news teacher, and parents can use it. Interact with children Asking and helping them discover what sparks their curiosity is a concrete way to support their general learning. The challenge is not to make them fall in love with all theme. But what if we develop their curiosity about one or two? If we keep an eye on what sparks their interest, what sparks their awe and drives that?
Deborah Farmer Kris is the author of “Improving Awesome People: How Miracle Science Helps Our Children Flourish”. You can follow her alternative on @raisingaweseseekers or @deborahfarmerkris.
