Noticing and Wondering: Kicking off and supporting enquiry

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I have written previous posts about the importance of nurturing the ability to wonder in young children and in ourselves, for example here, here and here. It is always a delight, then, to come across a post that expresses ideas similar to, but extending, my own.
This post by Aaron Eden on Edunautics, Exploring a World of Learning questions whether there could be any skills more important than noticing and wondering. He says that in school students are generally told to think and wonder about what someone else (the teacher, the curriculum writer, the policy maker) thinks is important.
Eden argues for the importance of learning to learn; of learning to identify what is important and of understanding how to learn it. He promotes developing an environment of questioning and suggests ways of extending students’ learning through participation in genuine inquiry based upon their own wondering and questioning. His suggestions help make the process more explicit, and therefore possible, for teachers to implement.

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9 thoughts on “Noticing and Wondering: Kicking off and supporting enquiry”

  1. Annecdotist

    Actually, this is a bit what therapy is like. People often assume it’s about fixing yourself but it works best in my opinion if it starts with just noticing and reflecting on how we tend to be. That simple (actually not so simple because we do it so rarely as adults) attending to ourselves can then open up a range of choices about how we might want to deal with these issues.

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    1. Norah Post author

      Thanks for making that connection, Anne. I agree that noticing and reflecting is important. Sometimes we don’t like to do too close an inspection inwards for fear of what we might see! Now that indicates a need of therapy, doesn’t it?!

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  2. Autism Mom

    Thank you for sharing this! I have been trying to direct my son’s wondering a bit – he has taken to comparing his work unfavorably to others’ and I have been suggesting he ask himself what he liked and didn’t like about to others’ work, and what he might have done differently. It is that kind of wondering that can save him angst, I think.

    This post is helpful for that! 🙂

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    1. Norah Post author

      Those are great ways of getting him to appreciate his own work, and identify what he sees in others’ work that he would like to emulate. Definitely saving him angst and moving him forward in his thinking are worthwhile outcomes of the strategy.
      Thanks for sharing. 🙂

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