In the purest sense, a nerd is a person who loves learning. They like studying. They are self-directed learners; you might find them reading Wikipedia on their own. They haven't let the adults in their lives convince them that they only need to learn things that will benefit their careers. (Yes, adults cause this problem, and they should stop. You aren't helping anyone. Then, you are shocked when your child isn't motivated at school. Just quit it.)
Teachers, one of the best things we can do for our students is to stoke the curiosity of nerds. When someone asks a strange question, say, "That's interesting. Let's think about it. Let's look it up. I'm so glad you asked that because now I want to know that too." I know I've talked about this a ton on this blog, but it is because I believe it is so important. Preventing kids from having a utilitarian view of the world will ensure that at least some of them will go into adulthood with the ability to innovate. Curious people solve problems. Curious people invent things. Curious people become entrepreneurs. Curious people make a difference in the world. Utilitarians do not.
By the way, curious people also enjoy life more. They don't get bored; well, they do, but they know how to fix it in positive ways rather than causing problems. They don't believe themselves to be cooler than the moment; so they tend not to have FOMO because they enjoy learning whatever they can.
The people who push personality tests on us make us believe that we are static, but it is not true. Teachers, we have the power to turn our kids into nerds. We can turn a utilitarian into a curious person (Frighteningly, we can also send them the other way if we aren't careful). One of the best ways is by modeling your own curiosity. Some of those moments are planned; every year, during the chapter on light, I teach a lesson on why the sky is red in the morning and evening but blue during the day. Then I tell them about something I genuinely wonder about - why is it never green? They are so used to our teaching methods that they assume I know the answer and am trying to get them to answer, but I genuinely don't know the answer and enjoy wondering about it. I want them to see the joy in wondering about things and speculating about answers, even if you never arrive at one. I work that one in every year because it is one of the opportunities my curriculum provides. But, it doesn't have to be planned. You can also just keep your eyes open for unusual things and take advantage of teachable moments. When you hear a bird on the roof, you can say, "How can you tell it's a bird and not a squirrel?" You can respond to a spilled water bottle by speculating about why some paper towels are more absorbent than others while cleaning up the spill. You can say, "You know what I saw on the way home last night? There was an interesting pattern when the raindrops were falling in a puddle. I wonder what caused that."
I'm not suggesting that you replace your curriculum with an inquiry model. If you have read this blog before, you know that isn't me. But, I also think there are moments of opportunity that you don't want to miss. Three days ago, a student asked a question about time travel. (I don't even know how it came up, but middle school students like to ask about it.) As I was thinking out loud about the answer, I said, "Here's a thought that's never occurred to me; it would take time to travel. Would that mean that I would not go back as far or that I would go farther forward? I don't know." I pondered it for a few seconds and moved on with class. There's not an answer, so I'm not going to take a lot of time classtime trying to get to one, but I think it is worth a few moments to model the joy of having an unanswered question. When a student asks a great question, sacrifice a few moments of your class time. Of course, you will have to get back to your objective at some point, so make a note to keep thinking about it or look things up. Then, make sure to tell them. If only one student seemed interested, you can email them with your findings. If other students were interested, you can bring it back up at the beginning of the next day's class. It's a great lesson to show them that you continued to be curious about it after class and that you valued their question.
The great philosopher Ferris Bueller warned us. - "Live moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around, you could miss it." Keep your eyes open. Ask big questions. Model it for your students. We don't want to miss it, and we don't want them to miss it either.
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