The Teachers Guild sat down with Head of The Nueva School, Diane Rosenberg, to talk differentiation, meeting your bookshelf, and the gift that keeps on giving: sparking student curiosity.

Q: What is curiosity? What role does it play in school?

A: It is our great privilege and responsibility as educators to keep curiosity alive, to instill a passion for learning by asking good questions. I love the story about Isidor I. Rabi, the Nobel Laureate in physics, who was once asked why he had become a scientist. He credited his mother, Janet, who would ask him when he came home from school each day, not what most of us do — “What did you learn today?” — but rather, “Did you ask a good question today?” Over buttered bread and milk, Izzy and his mother discussed the questions he had raised, seeking answers to what intrigued him most, placing, as he said, his education not on his teachers but on himself.

Every year, our kindergarten teacher introduces her students to this story to create a lesson on inquiry, asking our students to pose questions for themselves, to value their own observations and thoughts.

That is our hope as a community — to nurture the next Isidor Rabi, to create the creators. At Nueva, we try to live these educational ideals — students making meaning, creating authentic experiences, solving real-world problems, and working with others in a way that furthers purpose. Curiosity is at the heart of it all.

Q: How do you grow student curiosity?

A: We believe that genuine curiosity begins and ends with students, so we ask them what they are interested in and what they want to learn. We try to live our belief that there are no glass ceilings at Nueva. If students are ready to explore something beyond their particular grade level, they are encouraged to pursue those interests and share what they learn with the community.

In Lower School, for example, the fourth grade curriculum has a single theme, which becomes the focus of the curriculum across all subjects. As the year progresses, students extend learning in directions of their choosing. From sandcastle architectural design challenges to weekly dance practice, academic research to fictional character development through dialogue, students develop interests and strengths, working towards a final culmination where they compose, direct, and perform a musical of their own invention. The end result is a celebration of student-driven curriculum.

In the Middle School, this thirst for interdisciplinary exploration forms the core of the sixth grade Solar House project. Students design a passive solar house, budgeting the entire process and locating it in a city and country of the foreign language they study. They write a final report in that language and present to their peers, incorporating core mathematics, writing, science, and humanities coursework in addition to student-driven supplements like CAD programs, architecture, physics, economics, and ethnographic studies.

In many high schools, students are often constrained by set courses they have to take to prepare for college. While we have a core curriculum, it includes time for collaborative work with peers, as well as the opportunity to explore individual interests. The Nueva Quest Program* comes out of our work with Bill Damon, author of Path to Purpose, and asks students to identify and craft a personal inquiry through their high school career. Students seek the guidance of mentors and online resources and pursue internships to further their investigations as they develop a mastery of selected areas of passion and learn to navigate in the world.

Why does all this engage students? It’s purposeful. It introduces students to philosophy and complex ideas; it engages students in intellectually meaningful work and challenges them to ask bigger and bigger questions.

Success in life requires more than a memorization of facts — it requires flexibility, adaptability, a sense of humor, an ability to work well with others, an inner confidence. EQ matters as much as IQ. In schools, we need to have a both/and, not either/or, philosophy that allows students to broaden their interests while defining their focus.

Check out one of the Quest videos here!

Q: Why is curiosity something to encourage among students?

A: Leadership is the companion to curiosity; we hope our students will develop into good citizens who understand the power each one of us has over our own choices and to use those choices to make change in ways both large and small. Curiosity pushes students to seek out mentors and guides, to make that phone call and to write that email in pursuit of their own interests. It gives students the inner confidence to try something that actually might not work and to savor the opportunity to learn from both the process and the failure itself. That creates resilience and a path to purpose in life that we hope will guide students to make the choices that are right for them.

Q: Why are you excited to open this conversation up to a larger scale? Why is collaboration between the Innovative Learning Conference (ILC) and The Teachers Guild exciting?

The Innovative Learning Conference started in 2007 as an opportunity to discuss educational ideas and values with the broader community. The conference was designed to immerse the faculty, staff, and parents of our own community — this year we have added our 10th grade students — in a conversation at the highest levels of educational research and practice. Quite literally, it is a chance for those passionate about education to meet their bookshelf, as one attendee famously told me.

Teachers from a diverse set of schools — charter, parochial, public or private — all have the chance to exchange ideas and study together in workshops. Ideas are exchanged and best practices learned. There is a direct benefit to students when their teachers are engaged in this deep learning and both the ILC and The Teachers Guild share this common purpose of educating educators.

We are excited this year to now be able to continue discussions started at the ILC beyond the scope of the conference itself. This is where the Teachers Guild will be so powerful. We all want the best for every child, and by inviting teachers from around the country into the conversation, we are able to share our ideas and practices, enhancing every student’s educational experience.