Above: Aleta Margolis leads teachers in a professional development exercise as part of the Inspired Teaching Institute.
When I taught 6th grade, one of my students—we’ll call him Marcus—was having a tough time in math class. I watched him grow frustrated when navigating problems on worksheets, often giving up after just a few tries and claiming he was “bad at math.”
But I was curious about how he learned, and eager to adjust my instruction to engage him more effectively.
I knew the struggle I saw in Marcus’ work was not reflective of his capabilities; he had single-handedly solved engineering issues in the classroom, fixing the rollers on my desk drawer and the draft sneaking under our windows during the Chicago winter. Driven by a desire to engage him more effectively, I designed a curiosity-driven geometry lesson on the Pythagorean Theorem for my students.
In this lesson, I challenged students to design, build, and fly a box kite or a diamond kite, using the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate dimensions. Students engaged their curiosity as they translated ideas into drawings, converted drawings into kites, and figured out how to get their kites into the air.
I observed Marcus’ engineering mind at work with every piece of building material he gathered and every revised approach to his kite’s design. When it came time to fly their kites, my students experienced mixed results. Marcus’ kite, however, was soaring high above his peers’ from the start, much to his visible delight. Students celebrated his success as they watched his kite in the clouds (and, per directions, used geometry to calculate how far off the ground it was).
My curiosity about my students’ approaches to learning—in this case Marcus’ fascination with mechanics—determined the direction of our work. And it resulted in Marcus discovering joy in his education in a way that had previously eluded him. Moments like this underscore a powerful truth: Teacher curiosity shapes student curiosity. When educators tap into their own sense of wonder and pay close attention to how students think, question, and make meaning, they create space for student curiosity to emerge and grow.
Understanding the Curiosity Crisis
In my nearly 40 years as an educator, I have observed an alarming crisis of curiosity in our schools.
This decline didn’t happen by accident—it’s the result of deliberate policy choices and instructional mandates. According to Laura Bartlett, education professor at UC Santa Cruz,
As a society, we have, for two decades, embraced this notion that the way to improve teacher practice is through strict standards, including scripted curriculum, standardized testing, and mandates about how teachers should teach. The pandemic demonstrated why that approach is ultimately not beneficial, for either teachers or students. (Soergel, 2025)
As we strive to make our schools, and our children, “high performing,” we often double down on methods of education that have long proven inadequate, reinforcing the transmission model, compounding harms to our students’ mental health and well-being, widening inequalities, and netting little-to-no progress academically. In fact, a survey of high school students published this past August found more than one-third of students couldn’t recall even one example of having learned something interesting in the last seven days (Walton Family Foundation & Gallup, 2025).
When was the last time you went down a rabbit hole and read about, watched, or researched something just because you found it fascinating?
Math is important. Reading is important. But a narrow focus on strengthening only those skills that can be tested is detrimental—and counterproductive—when it comes at the expense of our students’ curiosity. In our well-intentioned efforts to expose kids to the content, standards, and benchmarks required in schools, we may be suppressing our students’ innate sense of wonder.
But here’s the good news: Curiosity is a muscle—the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
Curiosity increases uncertainty tolerance (Kashdan et al., 2012), boosts memory (Gruber et al., 2014), and improves our capacity to learn (Reio & Wiswell, 2001). We—teachers and students—grow curiosity when we prioritize our wondering about each other and the world around us. If curiosity is a muscle, then the question becomes where—and how—do teachers get the chance to strengthen it? The answer begins with professional learning experiences that invite educators to wonder, reflect, and learn with the same openness we hope to cultivate in classrooms.
Designing PD to Spark Curiosity
As founder and president of Center for Inspired Teaching, I regularly work alongside educators to design learning experiences that surface reflection and growth. In a recent professional learning session my colleagues and I led for teachers in Washington, D.C., we invited participants to bring in three items from home that represented their social and emotional growth. They wrote up descriptions of the meaning behind each item and displayed them on chairs around the room, creating a “Me Museum.”
Amy Grady, a teacher at Rappahannock Elementary School in Virginia, sits at a table surrounded by objects displayed as part of her “Me Museum.” Photo courtesy of Aleta Margolis.
As teachers traveled from exhibit to exhibit, they were invited to engage their curiosity by asking one another questions about their items. For example, one teacher, a gospel singer, recorded an album. Her peers were eager to listen to her songs and they asked questions about her life as a performer. Another teacher included pictures from his time serving in the military; his colleagues wanted to know how the rigors of the battlefield compared to those of the classroom. Teachers reported learning a tremendous amount, not only about one another, but about themselves. And they came up with new questions, new things they wanted to learn about each other.
“Imagine if we did this with our students,” one longtime teacher commented. “If we did this right at the beginning of the year, we’d learn so much about one another; it would be a game changer.” One team of teachers who participated in the session together took the idea back to their school, which had experienced high staff turnover. They used the Me Museums to create a getting-to-know-you activity at the start of the year, encouraging their colleagues to keep the museums outside their classrooms for Back-to-School Night so parents could learn more about them. Another teacher used the Me Museums with her class as a writing project, having the students focus on personal narrative as they wrote stories about each object they brought in. Peers could then read and respond to these narratives with sticky notes.
Teachers observed their colleagues’ “Me Museums” at the 2025 Teaching with Improvisation Summer Institute in Washington, D.C. Pictured in the foreground are fellows Alfons Prince and Takiyah Carroll. Photo courtesy of Aleta Margolis.
When children and adults feel known—when they experience a sense of belonging—they are more interested in and committed to their learning. When teachers connect what students are required to learn with what interests them, students feel more competent and accomplished. Child development psychologist Jean Piaget (1952) famously said, “When you teach a child something, you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.” I challenge us to amend those cautionary words by redefining teaching as the act of sparking students’ curiosity—their desire to learn. Excellent teaching doesn’t undermine curiosity; it ignites it. Meaningful professional learning that nurtures curiosity in teachers helps educators move beyond transmission and toward teaching that deliberately invites curiosity in themselves and their students.
Leaning into Wonder
“What are you curious about?” I spent 2025 asking students and teachers, colleagues, friends and family, and complete strangers this question as part of Center for Inspired Teaching’s Curiosity Challenge, a yearlong initiative to center curiosity in teaching, learning, and the world at large. We began the initiative as a response to rising polarization, understanding that the desire to explore difference and the unknown counteracts bias and sets the foundation for knowledge and understanding. Participants in the challenge spent a year engaging in monthly activities like meeting strangers, disrupting routines, finding awe, investigating new ideas, considering different perspectives, and more. As we learned alongside the participants, we found that people are genuinely curious about everything—from how string theory works to how contact lenses are made. The challenge was so engaging that we’ve carried it into 2026, focusing on specific practices that build curiosity, like observation, making mistakes, play, conversation, and critical thinking.
So, what are you curious about? When was the last time you went down a rabbit hole and read about, watched, or researched something just because you found it fascinating?
The first step toward fueling curiosity in our students is strengthening it in ourselves; the next step is approaching our teaching with curiosity. This means tuning in to what’s going on in the lives of students: Listen to their ideas, questions, and concerns. Observe how they approach a science experiment, a conflict with a friend, an art project, an essay. Notice how they respond when they realize they’ve made a mistake in a math problem, what they do when they’re looking for something, or how they enter the classroom when they’re running late.
When Marcus was struggling, I engaged my curiosity. I observed him—noting both where he was struggling and where he was excelling. I challenged myself to design a lesson that would meet my learning objectives, build on Marcus’ strengths, and engage all my students in meaningful learning.
If we’re curious about our students, everything they do offers us data, which in turn fuels our teaching. Once we begin to view our teaching practice, and our students, through the lens of curiosity, things begin to change for the better. There are so many ways to make room for students to explore their curiosity. We don’t have to choose between joy and challenging academic learning. Our inherent human curiosity fuels both.
Reflect & Discuss
Leaders, how often do you ask teachers what they’re curious about? How might you make more space for teacher curiosity?
Teachers, what evidence of curiosity have you observed in your students’ thinking or behavior this week? How might you extend that curiosity and connect it to the learning?
