iServi News | 27 November 2020 | Term 4, Week 7
Character Strength Spotlight: Curiosity
Provided by Cat Lamb, a consultant with the Institute of Positive Education at Geelong.
- Interest, novelty-seeking, openness to experience.
- taking an interest in finding out more about people, places, ideas, and things.
Curiosity is a strength which is closely related to other strengths of Wisdom, including Love of Learning and Open-Mindedness.
Curiosity is described as ‘cognitive exuberance’. It is a motivational state, an innate desire to learn new information. It is the character strength that propels the development of humanity, and therefore it is imperative that we, as a community, foster curiosity.
Some Suggested Curiosity Activities
- Spot and celebrate curiosity as a strength as children use it.
- Ask kids to come up with a family project that they can be curious about, whether it’s tracking how much mail you receive, how often you have to fuel the car, or a veggie garden – what are the mundane ways you can inspire curiosity?
- Investigate something that has resonated with you over the last 24 episodes of our strengths podcasts.
- Pursue an interest for the sake of enjoyment – get lost in the adventure of something new.
Three things to try:
Below are some suggestions for some materials that may spark your curiosity.
- Book
Curious, Todd Kashdan - TED Talk
How to Spark your Curiosity, Nadya Mason - Book
Big Ideas for Curious Minds, The School of Life
Podcast
The Institute of Positive Education at Geelong Grammar has produced a 24-part mini-podcast series on Character Strengths. Each episode explores one of the character strengths in order to recognise, utilise and celebrate it in our daily lives. To listen to the Curiosity podcast, click here
Mrs Franca Coutts
Vice Principal