Musings

"Tell me I forget; Teach me I may remember; Involve me and I learn"
~Benjamin Franklin

So true! Over the years, I’ve realised the importance of activity based learning or learning by doing for life long retention of the learnings. This realization has come from my own experiences that I had in my childhood as well as while raising two curious kids.

From my professional and personal experience, I've learnt that ability of applying the acquired knowledge to the real world problems is a crucial skill. That is the best use of knowledge. Problem solving skills cannot to be taught. Those are the self learnings when you actually work on them. Like the famous caterpillar story; to become a beautiful butterfly; it has to struggle on its own to emerge out from the cocoon. Similarly each one of us need to go through our own struggle to learn to become an effective problem solver. 

Creativity and imagination help to solve problems differently. Having an open mind helps to understand that a problem can have multiple solutions. With creativity and imagination, we can "see" those solutions when we actually start seeking them either in our thoughts or actually working on them in practice. That's how the inventors and innovators are born!

We are all born curious minds. We always want to know more about the world around us and how things work. We are curious to know what works and what not. We want know "whys" i.e. reasons.  We are explorers and experimenters. This curiosity is at its peak in our childhood. Some can retain it, some are not as we grow up.

If we can help our children to fuel their curiosity; help them to explore the things than just to know about them; let them practice their own problem solving skills so that they enjoy the process rather than getting fearful of the problems; I think we are better equipping them for their future.

From my childhood, I have always been interested in STEM i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Today the acronym has advanced to become STEAM. The "A" which stands for Arts, boosts creativity and imagination. Thus activities built around STEAM today, work perfectly to stimulate both left and right brains. These activities not only add to knowledge but also give plenty of opportunities to be an explorer and a problem solver. 

And I believe, that is what a curious mind needs!! :)