The Case of Professional Curiosity

Dear reader, let me begin with a small apology.  I have just noticed that I have not actually published anything since what appears to be the middle of the last ice age!  Ok, that might be the smallest of exaggerations, but I have had a bit of a sabbatical from publishing and now I realise that half of the new school years first term has flown by!  You could be forgiven for thinking that I had been hit by the proverbial bus, or kidnapped by crazy policy makers to create the next best, biggest educational disruption to hit our schools.  But no, nothing as exciting,  just your bog standard quotidian leadership tasks that plague educators when school starts for the year.  

The irony here is that my fingers have not been still – in fact, quite the contrary.  I have a plethora of drafts sitting in blogger (23 to be exact) and another pile on my phone in Notes.  Not only have my fingers been busy jotting down ideas, thoughts and wonderings, but my mind has been awash with posts to explore.  Perhaps the thing that has been niggling away at the back of my mind like some kind of bone obsessed puppy, is that of todays post.  (cue drum roll…) 

Professional Curiosity, PC for short.  

It all started in January after a routine blood test threw up a worrying anomaly.  When I say worrying,  to clarify, it was me that was fixated on it more than the health professionals I was dealing with.  And it is that clarification that started my wonderings about professional curiosity – or lack there of.  You see, what I could not reconcile in my head is why no one was curious about this anomaly.  Without going into the ins and outs (and boring you all silly) the crux of the matter is that on one hand I had either cured the incurable or on the other hand, I had a big issue.  The fact that only I was curious about the conflict in data baffled me.  

It made me think of other incidents where professional curiosity was key to being successful in a chosen field.  For example, Techno Man is a techie (as his nickname suggests) – and I know that if he gets an IT issue that seems insolvable or has conflicting data or behaviour in a strange way, that he will leave no stone unturned until he figures out what is going on.  I know of mechanics that also think the same way – if they are presented with an engine issue that does not add up, they will go through a process to uncover why and seek a pathway forward.  Teachers and educators are the same – many of you will know this as ‘teaching as inquiry’, where you look at the data and try and figure out where to next.  Perhaps your high achieving students have slipped in their learning from Above to At.  Your professional curiosity is what drives you to dig deeper into why something is happening in order to find the most effective way to overcome it.  

The more I thought about my own health anomaly (I am fine by the way – I think – in case you were worried about me) the more I applied that wondering about professional curiosity to the teachers I work with.  So much so, I discussed it at our Teacher Only Day, asking staff to think carefully about what was going on in their classrooms, did they notice any anomalies or things that just do not add up – what were they curious about.  I asked them to tap into their professional curiosity and use this as the basis of their Teacher as Inquiry.  

You see, inquiring into your practice – tapping into your professional curiosity – irrespective of what field you work in, is what I believe is at the heart of what you do.  I will take another large leap and say that being professionally curious and following that curiosity is what differentiates you from your colleagues that don’t.  In a busy classroom, it can be all to easy to fall back into default (I am going to publish a post about that topic soon – hopefully before the next ice age!) and I imagine in a busy doctors practice the same applies.  The high achieving, successful teacher, doctor, mechanic, techie (insert profession here) who gets results does not fall back into default ‘she will be right’ mode.  They tap into their professional curiosity and ask themselves the hard questions about why something is the way it is, and they look for the anomalies and the outliers so that they can rule them in or out as required.  They inquire into their practice and they ask themselves – ‘what do I need to do differently’. They use a system to work through (many teachers will be familiar with the Spirals of Inquiry) and they do not stop at the first stone they uncover.  They use their professional curiosity to wonder, examine, explore hunches and test out theories until they get their desired outcome.   Imagine how much more success you would have as a teacher if your students were PC about their learning!  (I feel another post brewing) 

The more I think about PC, the more fascinated I am.  I have never really warmed to the term Teaching as Inquiry as I have always found it a bit ‘fad’ like.  I am a strong supporter of inquiring into my practice, but I think I like the term Professional Curiosity more.  To me it differentiates teaching inquiry with students vs the Teacher Inquiry.  In my humble opinion I think some teachers get a bit confused about it, but if we were to say ‘what are you curious about’ I have a professional hunch that teachers would embrace this as something a little more user friendly.  Heck, I expect that applies in all fields!   I know, and I hear you (I can see you rolling your eyes) – it is the same thing.  Perhaps, but professional curiosity is not just a teacher thing, it is a ‘doing your job to the best of your ability’ thing, and it is applicable to all avenues. 

I don’t know about you, but as a parent I want the teachers working with my daughter to be PC about my daughters learning pathway.  I want the teachers in my school to be PC about what is happening in their classrooms and to inquire into that curiosity, and I want my doctor to look at the anomalies in my blood work, be PC and ask themselves ‘what is going on here – what stones do I need to look under to find out why’!  I don’t think that is a big ask.  

Finally, what are you professionally curious about?  I appreciate most of you will be in education, but some of you will be reading this (perhaps you fell here by accident, but welcome) with as equally exciting jobs as an educator.  What, in your chosen field, makes you curious, and what are you going to do about it!  

It is all very well to be curious, but do not leave it there -explore and inquire into it.  Who knows what you might discover – your discovery could be the next best thing since sliced bread, or solve how to accelerate students who are struggling, or it might be the solution to fix that annoying thingywhatsit on your cell phone!  So go forth and explore you professional curiosity and let me know how you get on – after all, I’m curious about it! Follow my blog with Bloglovin