Member-only story
Encourage a Sense of Wonder to Get Your Kids School-Ready
Why it’s more important than academic skills
A world without wonder
In a time where rushing is normal, taking a break to do some wondering is a low priority, but what would it be like if we didn’t wonder? If we didn’t ask, “I wonder if I could do this better?” If earlier people had never wondered, “What will happen if I heat these? Build this? Make this?”
Wondering changes things. It looks outside the limits. Inventors and philosophers spend hours thinking, asking why? Why not? What if? And they come up with new, different, often better, ideas and solutions — our modern homes, washing machines (thank goodness!), ovens, and dishwashers are the result of someone wondering. It’s the creative way our brains are meant to be used.
But it takes time. It can look like play, or writing, day dreaming, or worse — doing nothing! To do nothing in our society isn’t a popular practise, but in ancient times, people valued this downtime where they could contemplate and be imaginative. If we did that too often today, we’d be called unproductive and lazy! We live in a consumer society, so does that mean we are so busy consuming things, ideas, information, knowledge, television, etc, that we have no time to wonder? No time to think? Are we content…
