Down the Rabbit Hole

In a recent calculus class I visited, a student asked, “Can you have a function where you can take a first derivative but not a second derivative?” The question was related to the topic the class was discussing, but tangentially (excuse the pun). The teacher smiled, paused, and proceeded to write an example on the board where the proposition was true – taking time to unpack it for the whole class. The teacher had the knowledge to come up with an answer on the spot. He had the experience to know that he could get through the explanation quickly and still cover what was on tap for the day. And, most importantly, he recognized that engaging in that moment would reward that student’s curiosity and send a signal to all of the students about the value of their questions.

We are incredibly fortunate to be at a school with a faculty that has the disposition and content knowledge necessary to confidently and efficiently travel down the rabbit holes that our students open. I saw it recently in a Latin class where a student wondered about the placement of certain words in a sentence and the teacher explained the way long and short vowels may have met a poet’s rhythmic constraints; in a geometry classroom where the teacher engaged with a student who had a theory about the effect of moving from a five-sided to a six-sided star shape; in a music class, when, in response to a student’s question about how Spanish composers differed from their contemporaries, the teacher took the time to demonstrate the subtle differences on the piano and filled in the relevant music theory. I could go on.

Too often, high school is a place where even highly capable, motivated students lose their natural curiosity. That doesn’t have to happen. Curiosity can be – and has to be – nurtured. This is one way to do that.

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