Practice: Sense of Curiosity

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Inventors use curiosity and empathy to discover meaningful problems and develop novel responses.



You can’t really make a good decision without empathy.
It requires you to think of everyone’s perspective.

Olive, age 11


Children will discover meaningful problems and create novel solutions using curiosity and empathy
when adults…

  • articulate and make their values visible through a Letter of Intent
  • pay attention to what children care about
  • use documentation to make visible those moments when children are demonstrating curiosity or empathy
  • look for and foster connections between the children’s interests, the concerns of the learning group, and global issues

Teachers will use curiosity and empathy to discover meaningful problems and create novel solutions when they…

  • reflect on relationships between school experiences and the school’s goals and values
  • pay attention to what they care about as individuals, professionals, and community members
  • articulate their intentions annually, revisit them often, and use them to inform daily planning
  • document and reflect on children’s thinking as a daily part of planning for instruction

Partner-Explore

Use this tool to encourage children to practice negotiating ideas and to identify new possibilities that may not emerge from working alone.

View PDF

Modeling Language to Support Inventiveness

Use this tool when you hear children using language that is not supportive of inventiveness.

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Jonah’s Paper

During Story Workshop, six-year-old Jonah considers alternative layouts for his paper and finds the optimal one for expressing his thoughts.
His teacher supports his inventive process through listening and offering suggestions. Jonah’s invention ultimately serves his community.

Classroom Video

Partner-Explore

When children work together, they encounter and respond to problems that are meaningful to them. Through the structure of Partner-Explore,
1st- and 2nd-graders explore each other’s ideas in ways that develop social and emotional capacities.

Classroom Video
Blog Post



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This Practice is guided by Principles

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