In the Flow: Emotionally unafraid students are curious students

Here, I reflect on our first month after the start of school, where more than 700 students joined us from 100 different schools. Curiosity and emotional safety take center stage, with reflections grounded in neuroscience and learner-centered practices.

In the Flow: Emotionally unafraid students are curious students

As I reflect over the last month I can't help but think of all the emotions we have felt - from excitement to anxiety, from happiness to mental exhaustion, from love to frustration. I have seen children, teachers and staff calm on one day, tearful on the next and this ebb and flow of emotions got me thinking of the link between emotional well-being and learning.

One of the researchers I most admire in the field of neuroscience is Mary Helen Immordino-Yang. I saw her speak at a conference in May and her words resonated with me and what I think all of us who work at Avenues want for our students. I also strongly recommend her book called “Emotions, Learning, and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience”. Our mission statement says that we will graduate students who are "emotionally unafraid". We can interpret that phrase in many ways and here I will elaborate through the lens of neuroscience.

In her studies of the brain, Immordino-Yang has come to see that fear and curiosity are complete opposites in terms of the way in which they engage condition and memory. In an interview, she shares:

"When you’re curious you’re open, you’re safe, you’re in a kind of intellectually playful place in which you’re sort of exploring possibilities. When you’re afraid you narrow yourself to a very efficient, focused escape strategy, like, “Get me out of here, quick. I just memorize this, and I’m done? Okay. I’ll do that.” So, you’re directly undermining the development of interest and curiosity and long-term learning when you do that."

As we discussed during our onboarding weeks, too much focus on external rewards, teacher instruction, set answers or final products will reduce curiosity. Instead, we want to create experiences that promote an appreciation of the open-endedness of certain kinds of problems and that allow students to engage with that uncertainty in a productive way. Immordino-Yang continues:

"So what you want is students who can use their knowledge and their skills to actually prove and examine their own values, their own assumptions, their own world. And to use what they have as building block skills to innovate and make changes and solve problems when they notice that those problems warrant solving."

Curiosity is defined in the dictionary as 'a strong desire to know or learn something', and so this is certainly a disposition we want to encourage in all our students. Curious children actively explore the world around them, asking questions about what they see, making predictions about why things happen, testing their theories and sharing their discoveries. And you, the teacher, an expert in your field without necessarily owning the answers, must work as a guide, supporting the students to construct their own answers and helping them be emotionally unafraid.

Take time to have in-depth conversations with your students about their ideas and what they believe to be true. Their theories may not match what you are expecting but they are valuable in that they will help you and them reflect on their current understanding of the world and, more specifically, their role as a student in the here and now.

Fostering creativity and curiosity involves offering students real choices. This will help develop their confidence in making decisions on what to investigate, design or create, in selecting resources, choosing who to work with, finding a suitable place in which to work and planning their use of time. Children behave as creative thinkers when they transfer understanding gained in one context to another. As adults, it is important to appreciate and nurture the excitement of not knowing exactly what will happen next. Valuing the awe and wonder that comes from profound and deep thinking around new discoveries and helping children communicate this, will encourage them to be even more curious and creative.

Warmly,
Anne