Curiosity: One Key to Lifelong Learning

Curiosity: One Key to Lifelong Learning

As an undergraduate, I took as many classes as possible. Each course refracted the world back differently to me, shaping my perception and teaching me the value of nuance and depth. But I found myself fascinated by the professors themselves even more than I was interested in the course material. Most of all, I was taken with their curiosity. Though they taught courses that spanned centuries of history and knowledge, each professor approached his or her subject from a highly-refined specialty. Professors were experts in a small, specific area. They were deeply as well as broadly curious – about their subject matter, about their students. Their curiosity was contagious.

Perhaps this is why I loved my English classes most – why I majored in English and then spent the next eight years pursuing still more English degrees. I had always enjoyed reading and discussing books, but in college I learned that reading is about so much more than enjoyment. In fact, I didn’t enjoy a lot of what we read. Pleasure in reading wasn’t the point – pleasure in learning was.

It’s not necessary to have a college degree to enjoy learning. But for me, it helped to see what kinds of questions made other people curious – to have others model intellectual curiosity in such way that I could replicated it. By studying the world and its cultural history through texts – fiction, poetry and nonfiction alike – literature classes taught me how to indulge my curiosity in a way that would remain accessible even when I wasn’t in the classroom.

That’s a good thing, too, because I’m out of school now. For the first time in my life, I’m not pursuing one credential or another. And, again for the first time, I’m able to fully appreciate how privileged I was to devote so much time to learning.

It can be difficult, for an adult who is not in college, to keep learning, especially for the sole pleasure of it. There are practical and perceived barriers to continued education – there are mouths to feed and jobs to do. And there are associations with school that may not always be fondly remembered. Many universities open lectures and other events to the public – but do you feel comfortable attending? Do you know how to find out about them in the first place?

Maurice Prendergast, In the Library, a painting of girls reading books

Maurice Prendergast, In the Library, c. 1906, Private Collection [Public Domain] via Wikiart.org

The beauty of the kind of education that I had – the same kind of experience Books@Work offers in workplaces and communities – is that it gives you the tools to keep learning independently. Ideally, interacting with professors and learning with them inspires participants to feel comfortable seeking out and attending university lectures. More importantly, learning through books, whether those books are fiction or nonfiction, opens up a world of opportunities to participants – to explore the text, each other’s viewpoints and themselves.

What’s more, professors in Books@Work programs exhibit the same curiosity I witnessed in college, including curiosity about participants’ perspectives. Their excitement is a contagious reminder of learning’s greatest pleasures: the thrill of the new realization or discovery; the sudden recognition of another’s intelligence, or one’s own. And in the same way that the professors model continued learning in the college classroom, they facilitate this learning in discussions with our participants, through questioning, talking and thinking about books. Our participants in turn take these experiences outside the seminar, where they become new opportunities to engage with a co-worker, spouse, child, neighbor or friend.

Neither a college education nor money are prerequisites for continued learning. We are fortunate to live in a country with an expansive public library system. But it helps to have a sense of the kind of learning and wonder that might be available through a wide variety of books – and curiosity to make that learning your own. Books are meant to be interpreted and reading, while it seems solitary, is best when it invites interaction. When you read, think about and discuss books, you are taking part in a centuries-old cultural conversation that originates with the very first written word.

Curious to learn more? Pick up a good book – and discuss it with a friend.

Image: Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Curiosities, 1690s, Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Further Reading

Sharing Good Books: How Conversation Bridges Differences and Fosters Empathy

Curious Critics

In Support of the Moral Authority of Professors

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Cecily Erin Hill

Cecily Erin Hill

Cecily Hill is the Project Director, NEH for All at the National Humanities Alliance and former member of the Books@Work team.