Habits of a Scholar: Curiosity

We have started discussing the Habits of a Scholar, which are used throughout the GATE program to help our scholars develop positive habits and behavior to support their learning.   This week we started by discussing CURIOSITY.  You can see an overview of the Habits of a Scholar here:  Habits of a Scholar

Each week we will be discussing a new habit.  Our discussion will focus on defining the habit, discussing how we can use it at school, and how we can use it at home.  When I say "at home" I really mean outside of school.  For example, some of the ideas we came up with for curiosity were visiting museums and exploring nature.  

 This last illustration was one of my favorites because I think that all parents of gifted children have felt this way at one time or another (or maybe very often!) because of their natural curiosity and seemingly endless questions.  In fact, when I asked the class if it was good to be curious, one scholar replied, "No because it is annoying."  We discussed how it is very good to be curious but that being curious does not mean waiting for someone else to find the answers for you.  Being curious means asking good questions about the things that interest you, and then searching for the answers yourself.  We also discussed the things that we might not have today if people had not been curious enough to invent them or conduct experiments.  Overall the scholars had a good understanding of what it means to be curious.  This is a habit that they are already quite strong in!