Curiosity is a strong desire of a child that causes him to explore strange places and objects. He wants to touch things, to feel anything new and strange to him. He is always eager to know the what, the where, the why and the how of everything that comes his way. This is why the child keeps on asking endless questions which sometimes are irritating to us adults. This is the foundation of learning and as a wise ancient Greek named Plato said, “Curiosity is the mother of all knowledge.”
The invention of modern equipment and machinery in all phases of human endeavour is brought about by his strong innate tendency of curiosity. It is then the duty of the teacher to:
- Encourage his students to ask relevant questions and answer them with patience and sympathy.
- Interestingly introduce though-provoking questions to arouse students curiosity on the new lesson.
- Allow students to explore, observe, infer, generalize, classify,measure, quantify, investigate, and perform experiments to discover facts.
- Use audio-visual aids to make learning more permanent.
- Utilize previous and everyday real experiences of youth which may relevant to the new lesson.
- Organize field trips or excursions to utilize all their senses in learning, etc.
However, the teacher must not forget too, that “curiosity sometimes kills a cat,” a psychological saying that can be applied when teaching a subject, e.g., exploring places which have not been inspected and confirmed safe by the teacher and that may endanger the lives of the students. Performing experiments which involve chemicals requires careful guidance from the teachers . Students should be given the necessary safety precautions in performing such experiments by a well-qualified science teacher.
By: Ricer M. Borja | Teacher II | Mariveles National High School-Cabcaben | Mariveles, Bataan
