Wild Curiosity: How to Unleash Creativity and Encourage Lifelong Wondering

by Erik Shonstrom

Overview

Wild Curiosity brings together cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology research with simple, effective advice for parents and teachers on how to ignite the fire of curiosity in children. The author offers a new way to think about parenting and teaching—one that values autonomy, creativity, and celebrates the spontaneous and unexpected joys of learning. Following the groundbreaking work of researchers like Peter Gray and thought-leaders like Richard Louv, the book offers justification for the de-institutionalization of learning and a roadmap for how to create engaging, inspiring, and exciting experiences to nurture curiosity for children of all ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475815283
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/17/2015
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Erik Shonstrom has worked in education for nearly two decades. He has taught students while clinging to cliffs in Joshua Tree National Park, swimming frigid rivers in the High Sierra, snorkeling jellyfish infested waters off Mexico, paddling tippy kayaks amid the orcas of Puget Sound, trudging up narrow trails in the Adirondacks, and—occasionally—in the classroom. He has worked for charter, independent, public, and experiential education-based schools. The words “you’ll need to know this because it’s going to be on the test” have never passed his lips.
Currently, Erik is a professor of rhetoric at Champlain College. He has published a number of articles on education in The Chronicle Review, Children & Nature Network, and Education Week, among others. To learn more about Erik please check out http://www.erikshonstrom.com/.

Table of Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Chapter 1: Introduction: Song of the Sirens
Chapter 2: Resurrecting the Cat
Chapter 3: Hardwired for Adventure
Chapter 4: Inside Bad, Outside Good
Chapter 5: Some Awe is Awesome
Chapter 6: Empathy, Conflict, and Getting’ to Know Ya
Chapter 7: “Call me Ishmael”
Chapter 8: Finding Our Direction (with or without the GPS)
Chapter 9: Snorting Lines of Ed Tech
Chapter 10: Paying Attention Without Trying
Chapter 11: Learning as Journey
Chapter 12: Impulsivity and The Need to Know
Chapter 13: Curious Failures
Chapter 14: Stop Daydreaming and Get Creative
Chapter 15: Tapping Into Flow
Afterword: To Build a Fire
Bibliography
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

I have more than 50 week-long 'Encounter Weeks' under my belt. The natural emergence of curiosity and creativity that happens when you're in the woods is beautiful captured by Wild Curiosity. As a science teacher, I am deeply impressed with the literature that Shonstrom has compiled to back up his impassioned storytelling. This is a must-read for new and developing outdoor educators!

Peter Goff

Wild Curiosity offers remarkable insight into what truly motivates us all to learn. Shonstrom’s writing merges prominent research in this field with intellectual and witty insight into the nuances of curiosity, motivation, and learning. This book encourages us to reasonably question the institutional structures and practices of schooling that shape our society. It beckons us to remember what we most likely knew at one point in our lives: that it is inevitable that we will at some point follow our own untamed curiosities and that perhaps we should embrace a more natural way of learning—one that values wonderment, awe, experience, ambiguity, and desire.

Elisabeth Siddle

Wild Curiosity is a convincing and insightful treatise on what needs to change in education if we hope to nurture children’s hungry minds and inspire lifelong learners and searchers.

Richard Louv

The book comes at a time when curiosity is everywhere.. . .Wild Curiosity offers a unique perspective on how idiosyncratic curiosity can be a powerful force.

The Other Paper

This book brings together cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology research with experiences fro m the authors own life to explore what, exactly, makes us curious and why. Part memoir, part critique, this unrestrained book explores the applications of curiosity in our own lives and our children’s lives. It provides fascinating examples of how books can change us, how wilderness adventures can be transformative experiences, and how following curiosity may be a radical and revolutionary act in itself. How to best innovate using curiosity as a starting point? How to find fulfillment through indulging our curiosity? Wild Curiosity investigates all these questions and more, and shows us how curiosity connects, compels, and defines us.

The Manchester Journal

Smart, funny, literate, thoughtful, informed—utterly engaging. Inspired, in fact, and inspiring, too. You want to teach better, learn better, think better, feel better? Read this book.

Dinah Lenney

Wonder and awe: these are things that teachers and parents know lead to creating lifelong learners. Using examples drawn from modern neuroscience and research in psychology, author Erik Shonstrom offers insight and tidbits of wisdom for inspiring curiosity in children. In his book WildCuriosity: How to Unleash Creativityand Encourage Lifelong Wondering, he argues that by celebrating spontaneity of the unexpected we can expose children to a world of learning beyond the textbooks and classroom walls. Drawing on the works of experts such as Ivan Illich and Richard Louv, the author calls on the reader to awaken the natural curiosity of young minds.

Green Teacher

Through the lens of wondrous curiosity, Erik Shonstrom challenges teachers to revisit the soul and art of teaching. Wild Curiosity is a timely anchor in the shifting tides of standards-based, data-driven public education. It made me laugh, cry, and deeply reflect upon my practices and vision as a 21st Century educatorstriving to make a meaningful difference.

Tracy Garland