鈥淚 have to write a stupid outer space story in class next Tuesday,鈥� says my 11-year-old daughter. 鈥淚 hate astronomy. It鈥檚 so boring.鈥�
鈥淏oring?鈥� I say. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 see the universe as 鈥� amazing?鈥�
鈥淭oo far away,鈥� she grumbles. 鈥淎nd I just don鈥檛 care.鈥� She trudges to her room to examine the assignment鈥檚 three reference papers.
My daughter 鈥� let鈥檚 call her Hailey 鈥� is cheerfully giddy 99 percent of the time. But her consternation about a cosmic assignment worries me. I鈥檓 one of those science nerds who fantasizes about space travel. I speculate about life on Ganymede, Jupiter鈥檚 largest moon, and, of course, colonizing Mars. Potentially habitable exoplanets. I am very curious about them 鈥� why isn鈥檛 Hailey? But then, she鈥檚 fascinated by soccer, a passion I find confounding at best.
I wish I could transform my daughter鈥檚 interest in astronomy from a tiny dead speck like 2013 RZ53, into a hypergiant star like UY Scuti.
Where’s her curiosity?
What is curiosity, anyway? This childlike state is essential to human consciousness; one 2007 study found that pre黄色app children ask an average of 107 questions per hour. Yet it remains a conceptual curiosity.
鈥� Child development guru Jean Piaget defined curiosity as 鈥渢he urge to explain the unexpected.鈥�
鈥� Curiosity researcher Daniel Berlyne characterized it as 鈥渁n optimum amount of novelty, surprisingness, complexity, change, or variety.鈥�
鈥� Research psychologist Susan Engel suggested curiosity 鈥渃an be understood as the human need to resolve uncertainty.鈥�
Despite so many definitions, curiosity still seems to dance at the edge of understanding. It may be as old as humankind, but only in very recent years have neuroscientists attempted to understand exactly how it works.
The inquisitive ones
Meandering through the vaults of pubmed.gov in search of studies that would help me crack the code on my daughter鈥檚 curiosity, I learn that inquisitiveness is highly predictive of intelligence. A 2002 study that identified 鈥渉igh stimulation seeking鈥� (meaning highly curious) 3-year-olds found that at age 11, they had higher academic grades, superior reading ability, and IQ scores 12 points higher than their less inquisitive peers. Curiosity also helps us maintain our intelligence 鈥� by protecting against mental decline. A study of older Minnesotans published in JAMA Neurology, found that keeping curiosity alive reduces Alzheimer鈥檚 risk and delays its onset by 8.7 years.
I also learned that curiosity has a powerful emotional component. It works on our pleasure center: the dopamine rush delivered by curiosity resembles the rush obtained when we win at the racetrack, inhale nicotine, or gobble chocolate. But the curiosity habit is more fragile than, say, a nicotine addiction. In her recent book The Hungry Mind Susan Engle chronicles how children begin losing curiosity at a relatively young age: 鈥淲hen they鈥檙e between the ages of 5 and 12, their curiosity diminishes.鈥� Why? Engel suggests that childhood curiosity diminishes because of lack of listening support from adults.
Kathy Koch, author of How Am I Smart? A Parent鈥檚 Guide to Multiple Intelligence echoes this view: 鈥淭oo many children tell me they stop asking questions because parents and teachers respond too often with statements like these: 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 need to know that.鈥� 鈥楲ook it up yourself.鈥� 鈥楾hat鈥檚 not important.鈥� 鈥� Not allowing children to ask questions and not taking their questions seriously are easy ways we shut down the logic-smart intelligence.鈥�
Engel also notes that the decline of curiosity coincides with 黄色apping. 鈥淸Curiosity] that is ubiquitous in toddlers is hard to find at all in elementary 黄色app,鈥� she says.
A recent breakthrough in curiosity research piques my interest. At the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California at Davis psychologist Matthias Gruber studies how the brain files long-term memories of events.
His recent study with researchers Bernar Gelman and Charan Ranganath 鈥� published in Neuron 鈥� found that curiosity changes the brain in ways that enhance learning. The study tested the memory of participants on a series of topics that they had rated in regards to their curiosity. Participants also underwent MRIs during parts of the study. Basically, when the brain鈥檚 curiosity was triggered, thereby releasing dopamine, the person later could remember 鈥渋ncidental information.鈥� In other words, participants didn鈥檛 just remember more about the topics they were curious about, but they remembered more information about unrelated topics when their brain had recently experienced a spike in curiosity.
The magic spark
The research has convinced me that curiosity is the magic spark I need to ignite in my weary little girl, but how?
Hailey is oddly radiant Tuesday, like the star Canopus in the southern hemisphere. Today she has to write the dreaded 鈥渟tupid outer space story,鈥� so I thought she鈥檇 be miserable, but she dashes off smiling before I can question her.
With Matthias Gruber working only 75 minutes from my home, I meet with him at a Starbucks in Davis, CA, to chat about his research. His PhD was on long-term memory encoding; his determination to comprehend the neurology of memory led him to his present investigation of curiosity.
鈥淲e looked at the neuro-correlates of curiosity 鈥� and we found that dopamine, the 鈥榳anting system,鈥� is only active when you鈥檙e in the curious state,鈥� Gruber explained.
Research suggests that dopamine should now be more associated with our need to discover things, of wanting to know more, than making us feel pleasure. It keeps us motivated. Dopamine drives our goal-directed behavior. It causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search. It may have kept cavemen alive.
When asked if dopamine and curiosity have implications for education, Gruber says he assumes that good teachers are already doing it instinctively. 鈥淚f they turn on the 鈥榳anting system鈥� in their classrooms, the hippocampus works better,鈥� he explains, referring the part of the brain associated with long-term memory storage. 鈥淚f teachers find a way to inspire each student by telling them something every student wants to know, they will all remember the incidental information. Once the 鈥榳anting system鈥� is turned on, it remembers everything.鈥�
I find myself explaining that I was an odd student who got either an A+ or a C- because I was either wildly interested in the subject, or paralytically bored. 鈥淗ow would you teach math so that it鈥檚 not boring?鈥� I ask. 鈥淭hat was one of my C- subjects.鈥�
鈥淗ave the students solve complicated, world real-life problems,鈥� he suggests.
When asked what sparked his curiosity about psychology, he smiles.
鈥淚 had an excellent professor who taught memory,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淒r. Karl-Heinz Baeuml at University of Regensburg. He sparked my curiosity and warmed up my hippocampus. Learning should be a 鈥榝low experience.鈥� 鈥�
鈥淢y daughter doesn鈥檛 like astronomy,鈥� I blurt out, suddenly. 鈥淪he says 鈥榦uter space is too big.鈥� What鈥檚 wrong with her?鈥�
Matthias doesn鈥檛 hesitate. 鈥淗er teacher,鈥� he suggests, 鈥渘eeds to find a little detail in astronomy that fascinates her, something to spark her. Once she catches fire, she will love the subject.鈥�
Driving home, I wonder about what made me love astronomy. What sparked my interest? Then I flash on a memory: Gazing at the stars after eating s鈥檓ores at Boy Scout campouts in the Sierras and listening to a golden-tongued counselor point out Orion鈥檚 Belt.
Universe downsized; curiosity upsized
Arriving home, I discover that Hailey is glowing, like Venus in early summer. 鈥淗ow did you like writing the astronomy paper?鈥� I ask.
鈥淕reat!鈥� she enthuses. 鈥淵ou know what comets are?鈥�
I open my mouth, but she launches into a breathless, extemporaneous lecture.
鈥淐omets are giant snowballs full of rocks, when they get too close to the sun the snow melts so if the pebbles smash into our atmosphere they burn up as shooting stars, but there are other ways to make space pebbles too, space is full of pebbles, if asteroids hit each other little chips fly off and asteroids do hit each other all the time because they鈥檙e spinning around the sun in different circles at different speeds and the real name for shooting stars is meteors, but if they don鈥檛 burn up and land on Earth, they鈥檙e called meteorites and the biggest one weighs 60 tons and it鈥檚 made of 84 percent iron and 16 percent nickel!鈥�
On and on she yammers, her brain swirling with wonder like a galaxy, expelling words excitedly like a solar plume, snagging my attention in her gravitational orbit. Obviously her 鈥渨anting system鈥� had been turned on.
We went outside and looked at the waxing crescent of the moon.
鈥淲hat changed?鈥� I ask Hailey. 鈥淎stronomy bored you.鈥�
鈥淎stronomy seemed impossible,鈥� she confesses. 鈥淭he speed of light? Billions of stars? The temperature of the sun? I don鈥檛 get it. Too big. But if a comet is just a flying snowball, I like that. That makes sense. Can we see a meteorite someday soon?鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 a great collection at ,鈥� I tell her. 鈥淚n Los Angeles, where your uncle lives. Hundreds of them!鈥�
鈥淐an we go see them, pleeese?鈥�
I quietly thank those on-point reference articles from her teacher for charting a pathway from my daughter鈥檚 fifth grade brain into the cosmos. With her curiosity awakened her learning spree will take off like a rocket.
