Curiosity for Its Own Sake

 I was thinking about how my views of education have changed somewhat. When I was very young, learning was just taking a natural delight in things, without considering whether it's beneficial to me or not. I am not sure when that changed, but it might have been in early adulthood, when I started to consider how learning is based on application. When I first started to work, I appreciated how learning is not based on looking at something once, but doing something many times. I truly believe that one has to perform an action at least 400 times before one really understands the nuances of that  action.
   It's understandable that people would want to focus on learning what is directly applicable to their lives, their social roles and occupations. I remember reading an article where a student was interviewed in a local college. He explained that he chose the particular college because it only focused on courses that are directly applicable to one's job, without so many of what he referred to as 'poetry' or 'liberal arts' courses. In other  words: cut to the chase, focus only on 'what matters' to survive and thrive in the world. Many educational institutions focus on this pragmatic mentality, focusing only on what needs doing.
    To a certain degree, I agree with some of what is said here. If courses in high school focused more on concrete experiences such as human relating and communication, this would perhaps have been more useful than mathematical knowledge, which is often stressed in schools. But on the other hand, I am starting to think that something is lost when education only focuses on applied learning. For instance, if a person's schooling is only related to application, what happens when we are not applying ourselves to learning a specific task at work? Does the mind simply turn off? I wonder what happens if people start to believe that education is only about doing practical things. Does the curiosity to explore things in the immediate moment start to atrophy? Perhaps people start to conclude that it's pointless to learn anything unless there is a specific enhancement to one's self, or one's profession. In that case, the learning process becomes narrowed.
       Another consequence of a pragmatic view of learning is that it often fosters a competitive attitude toward learning. Students internalize the perspective that there is one goal of learning, and all classes have only a single objective which needs to be met with a certain degree of success. How is successful learning measured? Similar to the way we are graded in schools, learning is often measured by how well we can articulate our learning compared with others, immediate application, or 'getting the main point' (which often relies on memorization). But somehow, this view takes a little bit of the fun out of learning. It also assumes that learning is a finished product which happens over a transcribed or limited period of time, rather than unfolding over many time periods.
   An alternate way of looking at learning might be to view things from the perspective of 'being curious for its own sake'. I might look at a subject area and conclude that the subject is too far away, or not accessible to my daily life. But if I am open to learning for the sake of being open to the process, something might shift in me. I might become more sensitive to the things that perk my interest as well as the things which simply don't do so. A lot of this process requires an active reflection on how I connect to the world and how unique that connection happens to be. If several people are in a room listening to a lecture, is every person going to hear the lecture in the same way? Are people going to internalize the lecture in the same form or manner? If this were the case, things would be quite boring, and people wouldn't necessarily need to learn together. The uniqueness of how people see and process learning makes for a more interesting dynamic, where no single view is considered 'better' or more accurate than other views.
    How we engage in this curiosity is going to differ from one person to the next. But I think the point is to develop an awareness of where we resonate with a certain subject and to  gently inquire into that resonance, similar to following a lead. This also requires a gentler and lighter approach, almost like  a dilettantism: I entertain an interest and gently follow what it says to me, rather than pre-judging whether the learning will be 'useful' to me or not. In this way, my experience isn't depending on the external surroundings, conditions, or how others are seeing the subject matter. I am rather exploring my own interiority in all the courses I am taking or interests I pursue. From this perspective, one can find something in everything, as long as one is not narrowing their perspective to an official 'learning objective' supposedly shared by all people in a class, or a 'required learning experience.' I just wonder how, then, this interior exploration can be honored in a classroom, and even fostered.