I feel like I should give my readers insight into how my brain works and that might explain why I like learning so much. I am a Gen Xer and it is true we had to leave the house in the morning, and not return until the street lights came on.
But the entire neighborhood was under this same assumption. Have you ever seen Goonies? I hung out with a group of kids (I don’t remember their names since this was when I was younger than 10). We would go find our own adventures.
The Grave That Wasn’t
One time I remember we found a ‘grave’. We wanted to find the reason why the grave was there. We were on a military base and this was just in a random area sort of near a water tower and a baseball field. I think we thought we were the Scooby Doo mystery bunch or something and we made up all these scenarios of who it was and why it was there.
There was a makeshift tombstone made of rotting pieces of wood with the words Eva or Eve written on it. I forget which, but then I seem to recall the name switched from one to the other, or we all just misread it to begin with. We stuck sticks in between the rocks and said we found blood (this was in the desert, so this was just clay I am certain). Anyway, we went on our own clue finding missions around the area trying to determine what this was. If I recall, we found out it was somebody’s dog and not such a secret mission, but you know we were kids and let our imagination flow.
“We let curiosity just be what it was.”
Tadpoles, Trouble, and Being Left Alone
When I was a bit older, we would find small ponds and there would be tadpoles, frog eggs, or baby frogs. We would capture them and we got to see how they transformed from one stage to another. It was fascinating. These weren’t things we did in school. This was because we were left on our own, so we explored our area. Oftentimes we got into trouble because unchecked kids can sometimes get into plenty of mischief. I paid my penance for things I did wrong. My parents weren’t the loving type of parents, but they didn’t shy away from punishment when they felt it was required. And sometimes we truly did.
The Fourth Grade Project That Changed Me
Back to my younger self, when I lived on the military base in the desert, I had a teacher (this would be fourth grade) and she gave us an assignment.
I wish my kids had such an assignment when they were in school. We had to research any topic we wanted. It was just something we were passionate about. At that time, I was passionate about gymnastics so that was my topic. We had to handwrite a 5-page report on our subject in addition to a title page, picture pages, and a bibliography. I was often the kid who was smart, but never did my work because nobody seemed to care at my house. But this project was something I took pride in. I wish I still had it. I remember that was when I learned what the word apparatus meant.
“Nice size word for a 9-year-old to know.”
I took great pride in that assignment and dug in deep to learn about the sport in ways I never knew. This was around the time Nadia Comaneci had her perfect scores in gymnastics at the Olympics in 1976. Many little girls such as myself wanted to be her. I was good at gymnastics but at 10, I was taller than my teacher so a bit too tall to be a competitive gymnast.
So I learned fact-checking in that project and although we can go down rabbit holes quicker now, I recall reading several encyclopedias as my research progressed while writing that report. I think we had to have a minimum of five different resources. Some of this could be remembered wrongly, but the report I wrote and the requirements for it were real. Things I am not sure of were how many resources we needed. It might have only been three resources, but that part isn’t important.
Another childhood school project I recall enjoying was in second grade, when we built a diorama of various indigenous dwellings. We learned about the Navajo people and their pueblos, Plains Indians and their teepees, and how they followed the buffalo to hunt them and use every part so as to not waste the kill. Bones were tools, hide built their teepees and clothes, and I can’t recall what else besides food, but I recall that they used every part of the buffalo. Anyway, we built a diorama of their dwellings and the climate they were mainly from. Although I know there are more tribes, I can only recall learning about those two from that project, probably because they were in or near the area we were living in.
Where Did Your Curiosity Start?
My curiosity went from wanting to find and discover who/what was buried in the grave to deep-diving into a topic I loved at the time. My curiosity at learning or discovering things started at a young age.
Those were the beginnings of my curiosity, and it only grew from there. What do you recall from your youth that reveals your lifelong curiosity? I realize it doesn’t change as you get older. The curiosity is still there to learn things if you embrace that part of yourself.
“We can never know it all, but there is no harm in trying to learn all that we can.”
