My friend Lisa said to me, “I’m reading a book right now called Being Wrong. Have you heard of it? You have to read it, it’s all about PSCS.”
It’s not actually about PSCS. But the themes raised by the author, Kathryn Schulz, are relevant to the school where I work. I’ll quote a passage below (and probably more in the next few days).
* * *
I was chatting with a neighbor earlier today and she asked me, “How do spell ‘rooting,’ as in rooting for a team to win the game?” (It was one of those moments we all experience when we’re feeling explicably stumped about the spelling a common word.)
I said, “Two o’s.” She nodded and smiled to express gratitude.
A friend was nearby and said, “I wonder where that word comes from.”
My neighbor replied, “I think it comes from the Greek word for . . . “
And that’s where I lost track of the conversation. My son and I were on a quest to find some toys to play with. I turned around a few moments later and I could overhear them still at it, offering up competing theories for the etymology of “root.”
My son and I kept walking towards the toys, and got involved in a game of ring toss. We found a 12-inch plastic post with a half dozen plastic rings around it. We stood about six feet away and tried to toss the rings onto the post.
My son immediately picked up the biggest ring, seeing that it would have the greatest chance of landing on the post. “No no no, wait! Go with the smaller ones first. That way, you’ll have had a few practice shots to get ready for using the biggest ring,” I theorized.
My son had his own theory, and tossed the big ring first anyway.
* * *
I’m telling this slice-of-life story to make a point. Here’s a quote from Being Wrong that will help provide context:
For at least a century, psychologists and philosophers have suggested that our urge to explain the world is analogous to our urge to populate it. Like making babies, they argue, making theories is so crucial to our survival that we have a natural drive to do so—what William James called a “theoretic instinct.” . . .
It’s easy to see why a theory drive would be evolutionarily advantageous. Imagine that you are your own earliest ancestor, trying to make your way in the world some 200,000 years ago. Somehow, you have to figure out that shaking a certain kind of tree will make edible fruit fall to the ground. Upon hearing a rustling in the bushes, you have to be able to infer—pretty damn quickly—the presence of a predator, or of dinner. In other words, you must be extraordinarily adept at guessing what’s going on in your environment and why. . . .
The evolutionary urgency of theorizing also helps explain why we form beliefs both constantly and unconsciously. What we aren’t capable of doing is not theorizing. Like breathing, we can ignore the belief-formation process or control it—or even refine it—but whatever we do, it will keep going for as long as we keep on living.
* * *
Whether it’s obscure eytmologies or hypotheses about a game of ring toss, we’re constantly expressing our beliefs in the world, and trying to figure out how things work. Our lives are an endless game of trial-and-error, about topics both trivial and serious. This is why I don’t think there is any such thing as intellectually “lazy” kids. Human beings are hardwired for unrelenting curiosity.
In school, it’s not that kids aren’t curious. They just might not be curious about the things you want them to be curious about.
In these situations, we inevitably end up pathologizing the child. In fact, we should be taking a hard look at restructuring the institution so that it can take advantage of our innate curiosity with the world, and dial into what the student is interested in learning.
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