While reading “Lives on the Boundary” by Rose, he mentioned his story of getting so interested in chemistry so much so that he got the chemistry set and began to learn. This sparked my interest as well as my question of “How has curiosity affected your literacy?” Before we address this question, we have to begin at not everyone can afford to be curious. There are cultures and situations, in particular, financial, in which one’s ability to be curious may be limited. For example, in my family and the environment I was raised in, I was blessed to be in a financially stable situation, but my culture did not allow for curiosity in terms of social events. I was not allowed to go to hang out with friends over night, I wasn’t allowed to go to “parties”, I was also not allowed to consider things that fostered creativity. I was pushed to do more academic pursuits. Considering all of this, “How has curiosity affected your literacy?” I believe being pushed toward the academic side of learning has benefited me in many ways. I took a lot of online classes growing up in math and science and that really fostered that curiosity. I began to enjoy those academic pursuits. In doing so, I think it left me a little socially delinquent. Learning those social cues and “social literacy”, if you will, was a hard transitional period in the first semester of college. What about you? How has your upbringing and moreso your curiosity affected your literacy?
5 thoughts on “Question: How has curiosity affected your literacy?”
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I actually had the total opposite experience that you had. My parents were very focused on the social aspects of my life when I was younger. They were always encouraging me to invite friends over or would take me out to where ever the social gathering of the week was. I honestly can’t remember my parents emphasizing academics until upper middle school, and high school years. However, I was always curious about the world around me.
My parents encouraged all my weird questions, and would answer 100% truthfully no matter what the question was. These answers however would never encouraging development of my literacy skills. For example, I was fascinated with algae in a creek behind my house and when I asked my parents questions about it, instead of making me read something on algae, they told me to go get some out of the creek and learn everything I could from it.
I still remember those weird experiments to this day. In fact, most of my education courses have taught me that this hands on approach would effect a kid at that age more than any literature my parents could have found on it. Of course the literature would have added to the activity, however, would I remember that now? We talked a little bit about the down sides of literacy in class today and I believe my story could speak to that idea.
My personal experience lies somewhere in between these two. While my parents did not specifically emphasize an importance on my social life, neither did they stifle it. The same goes for my curiosity. I was allowed to pursue my interests. Those pursuits were not always “literary” ones but sometimes they eventually led to literacy events.
For example, I enjoyed video games growing up and still do to this day. My interest in video games led me to an interest in fantasy worlds. The interest in fantasy worlds led me to JRR Tolkien and the Lord Of the Rings novels. This was my first venture into the world of fantasy novels and I was hooked. I read other fantasy novels like Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle and most recently the George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Recalling back, reading these books were some of the most positive events in my life. I can remember being so deeply invested that I would sit in my room all day and read hundreds of pages.
My mom was also responsible for some of my curiosity in reading. She put me onto the John Grisham law novels and some of Stephen King’s work.
When I was little my brother used to say that I lacked “natural curiosity” because I wasn’t interested in science and how things worked like he was. As a (sorta) adult now I think I had a lot of curiosity as a kid but not for the same things my brother liked. I often tried to read things above my reading level because they were well known works and I was curious about why they were famous. I read “Christine” by Stephen King when I was in seventh grade because I knew Stephen King was a famous writer. I also remember my mom telling me I wasn’t allowed to read a certain book that we had in the house for some reason. I snuck it anyway because I couldn’t deal with not knowing what I wasn’t supposed to see. I also remember reading series like The Magic Treehouse and The Royal Diaries because they were about different times and places. I like learning about history but only in the way that literature teaches it, not from a textbook.
I don’t think my parents dissuaded or fostered my curiosity. If I asked a question that they knew the answer to they would answer as best they could. If they didn’t know the answer they would I feel like I was just told to look it up, because Google was invented by the time I was five.
I really enjoyed your post! I had a similar experience with Mint but I was receiving mixed signals from my parents. My Dad is by far the most intelligent person I know, and he wanted me reading books constantly. In high school and in college he did not have a social life. My Mom on the other hand was a frat rat. She thought that being social was important for improving my quality of life. I found that in high school, while reading for the summer I was reading books about social situations as well as biography’s of rehab. I was able to combine two interests of mine, and find a middle ground between my parents.
I think there are lots of instances in life where your social experiences effect your literacy. How you are brought up dictates what kind of student and learner you will be, whether you go against your parents, or follow them.
Your question reminded me of the saying “curiosity killed the cat.” That is not because I believe all curiosity kills but because my personal curiosity has also hindered my ‘social literacy’. If someone were to stick their earphones into my brains the lyrics of my thoughts would be freakishly haphazard– it truly is like a tornado of weird questions, comments, and concerns in there! Back to my curiosity though, as a kid because of my inner whirlwind of thoughts I tried my best to learn a little bit of everything. I read books and articles about such obscure details (which are too embarrassing to mention) and this made for much awkward playground chats. While I would not admittedly call myself a ‘nerd’ or ‘bookworm’ I must acknowledge that as a kid I was often times the annoying ‘know-it-all.’ Now I would not say I regret rummaging through all those weirdly specific articles but I can say it did set me back socially with some crowds. I am surprised I never read about social cues or any social literacy since I was so curious!