Written by Assunta Di Gregorio, Deputy Head of High School

National Science Week was marked in the High School with students participating in an escape room activity called Species Survival. We saw young people running excitedly from one challenge to another— joyful, animated, and competitive.

The students were given the following scenario to consider:

After hearing a conservation scientist explain the important role of conservation work in the survival of vulnerable species, you hear and see a stampede of animals. Some cheeky monkeys have deactivated the park’s power, allowing the endangered species to escape!

They were then given 20 minutes to restore power to the park gates by completing eight challenges related to the science behind conservation work and the survival of species.

Science and curiosity are natural companions, and when learning is gamified, as it was in this task, engagement skyrockets. The students certainly had a lot of fun, and they were also deeply involved in the learning process, driven by a blend of curiosity and competition. This led me to consider what I have recently read about the difference between curiosity and wonder.

It is not uncommon to hear teachers ask their students to complete a common thinking routine called ‘See, Think, Wonder’. The words ‘curiosity’ and ‘wonder’ are often used interchangeably, so I was intrigued to learn that wonder can fuel apathy as it can be aligned with mystery, which is abstract—perplexing, even— for some students, and therefore they become overwhelmed. Yet, when wonder is rebadged as curiosity—a ‘skill’ that leads to reliable knowns—students will find expedient ways of arriving at the answers. In this sense, curiosity favours mastery over mystery.

“Led in part by the rise of information technology, wonder has been trivialised and commodified, reduced to a fleeting transaction of glamour, a banalized version of curiosity that tranquilizes rather than stimulates. Deprived of its sense of wonder, the search for Truth in the modern ‘post-Truth’ landscape has become a consensus of non-commitment.”

– O’Rourke, 2019

Encouraging students to be comfortable with ambiguity and to revel in the idea of boundless possibilities can help restore the profound value of deep contemplation. In a religious context, this might be akin to the experiences of prayer or faith. In an educational environment, fostering moments of inquisitive curiosity—where easy answers are set aside—can empower young people to engage more meaningfully with life’s big questions, whether those questions arise in real life, within the pages of a novel, in ancient cultural traditions, or through the creative act of imaginative writing.

The work of W. Desmond and C. Pickstock (2018) distinguishes between three modalities of wonder: curiosity, perplexity, and astonishment. Curiosity is seen as the most pragmatic of the three, “it is driven by the desire to move, by inquiry, from an initial incomprehension towards the acquisition of some new knowledge.”

Understood in this way, wonder becomes like a human instinct for seeking truth. By nurturing this sense of wonder, we empower our students to transcend Plato’s cave and embrace the richness of human experience. The pursuit of truth resides in the world of books and all their elusive wonder.

As we celebrate Book Week, fittingly themed ‘Magic,’ let’s inspire our students to discover the boundless wonders within the world of literature. Happy reading, everyone!