Curiosity Won't Kill You But It Will Make You Smarter

"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.  Life was meant to be lived.  Curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Dr. Matthew Gruber conducted a University of California in which he posed a series of trivia questions to his test cases.  Each question was followed by a 14 second delay and then he showed the test cases a neutral, unrelated picture of a face.  Later he gave each test case a recognition test of the trivia as well as the faces.  During the study, the test cases' brains were scanned.  The results revealed that:

1.  For those test cases who were highly curious, they retained more trivia and showed more face recognition.

2.  When their curiosity was stimulated, their brain circuits showed increased activity related to the reward area of the brain. The study showed that intrinsic motivation recruits the same areas of the brain as extrinsic motivation.

3.  Curiosity motivated learning increased activity in the hippocampus, the small part of the brain that looks like a seahorse (the French word is "hippocampe").  The interaction between the brain's rewards system and the hippocampus puts the brain in an alert state.

Dr. Gruber concluded:  "Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn and also everything around it." (http://theantimedia.org/curiosity-fix-enhancing-memory-intellect/)

A healthy curiosity sets the stage for lifelong learning and learning can bring us closer to our goals. Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion of learning.  While many First Ladies were content to sit back and let their husbands take centre stage, Eleanor Roosevelt was heavily involved in political life.  She held her own press conferences.  A champion of literacy, for almost three decades she contributed to a daily (except Sundays) newspaper column called "My Day" on weighty issues like Prohibition, World War II and race relations.  She worked tirelessly for various charities.  Eleanor explained: 

"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.  Life was meant to be lived.  Curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." (http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/04/22-great-quotes-on-curiosity/)

One of Eleanor Roosevelt's goals was to draft a Charter on Human Rights, a goal which she met in 1948 when she served as the United States Delegate to the United Nations.

Note:  Read "Ten Ways to Foster A Culture of Creativity in Your Learning Organization" at http://etale.org/main/2015/06/22/10-ways-to-foster-a-culture-of-curiosity-in-your-learning-organization/.

http://izquotes.com/quote/262762

How to Fail Successfully

"The key to not failing is to fail and fail often."  (Max Londberg)

In his valedictory address, Max Londberg encouraged his fellow graduates to fail.  But shouldn't he be encouraging them to succeed?  He said that when we fail, we get rid of trivialities; we no longer worry about pleasing others.  We focus on the task at hand.  Some teachers and parents believe that children/students learn best when they are allowed to make mistakes, when they are encouraged to explore and to draw their own conclusions.  

One study suggests that children who believe that their intelligence is fixed, and that their success is due to their intelligence, do not react well to mistakes.  In fact, their performance on standardized tests dropped 20% over time.  The other group, who believed that their intelligence was not fixed, that it could grow over time, had a more positive reaction to their errors.  Their test scores increased by 30% over time.  

Look at successful historical figures who learned from their many mistakes and disappointments. Winston Churchill said:  "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."  He would know, given that he didn't even become Prime Minister of Great Britain until the age of 65.  He was well accustomed to failure, but not defeat (remember his "We Shall Never Surrender" speech?).  How about Abraham Lincoln who lost eight elections but was later elected to two terms as President of the United States?  Or how about Thomas Edison who failed 1000 times but created hundreds of successful inventions?  Or Henry Ford who failed and went broke five times before he got his Ford Motor Company up and running in 1903?

Learn the art of failure.  Embrace it.  You could be the next success story.

Note:  To read Max Londberg's graduation speech, click on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/uloop/my-graduation-speech-on-h_b_3365543.html.

Winston Churchill circa 1941 courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill.