Being a bit of a “word nerd,” I decided to research the meaning of ‘curious.’ Most children, who have grown up in English speaking countries, have heard the stories about Curious George - that funny little monkey who went on all sorts of adventures and got into a lot of mischief, due to his curiosity. So, even as children, we learned and understood the basic meaning of the word.
However, if we wish to dig deeper, we can go to a site like http://www.etymonline.com to uncover the origins of a word and related meanings. This is known as etymology. Understanding the etymology of a word can give us greater insight into text. As an adjective, as early as the mid-14th century, it meant "eager to know" (often in a bad sense), from Old French curios "solicitous, anxious, inquisitive; odd, strange" (Modern French curieux) and directly from Latin curiosus "careful, diligent; inquiring eagerly, meddlesome," akin to cura "care" (see cure (n.) - remedy). As the noun ‘curiosity,’ it appears in the late 14th century meaning "careful attention to detail," also "desire to know or learn" (originally usually in a bad sense), from Old French curiosete "curiosity, avidity, choosiness" (Modern French curiosité), from Latin curiositatem (nominative curiositas) "desire of knowledge, inquisitiveness," from curiosus. The neutral or good sense is from early 17th century. The meaning "an object of interest" is from 1640s. Most of this, we already know intuitively. To be curious is to have the desire to know or learn. But what I wish to focus on is the connection of the word ‘curious’ to care and cure. To be curious then is to care about what and how we teach and learn, and to care about the learning of our students. In addition to that, it means to cure or to remedy. Cure who? From what? Perhaps it means to cure ourselves and our students of boredom, apathy, or the dislike of school systems and to find a remedy for the drudgery of schedules, homework, worksheets, committees, marking, detentions, and so on. Let’s be curious, like that famous little monkey and the man with the yellow hat … seek out adventures, choose objects of interest, desire to know more, care, cure, and get “lost” in our learning along the way.
3 Comments
Elizabeth Martin
3/29/2017 12:09:08 pm
Love the idea of being "cured" from apathy and boredom, rote assignments, someone else's priorities for my learning, especially worksheets & multiple choice testing !
Reply
3/30/2017 04:58:54 am
Curiosity has kept coming up for me in our IMMOOC conversations. Thank you for your curiosity in researching the word curious; for both caring and curing.
Reply
3/31/2017 04:06:40 pm
From a fellow word nerd. I loved your blog. I hope we can follow Curious George and care enough to cure apathy in education and empower students, teachers, administrators, parents, and government leaders to realize the importance of bringing innovation to schools. School needs a make over, kind of like the renovation TV Shows, but this one would be called Flip My School.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorVicki Den Ouden is a Learning Disabilities & Reading Intervention specialist in Kelowna, BC, Canada. She love books, photography, and technology. ArchivesCategories |