Not often you get to listen to an expert in education on curiosity. Bring a curious individual, it was incredibly on target with my interests! Parents and staff had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Elka Walsh speak about the benefits of being curious.
She is a fantastic ambassador to education and her approach in how problem solving within games impacts positively outside the gaming environment strongly resonates with me as a learner. Having her talk about curiosity also helped me connect problem solving with leadership. The qualities of curiosity in leadership resonated in an older of post of mine as well, titled The power of a Decimal Place. It playfully explored how technology, although ubiquitous, and the skills behind it is an undeniable factor that can either hinder or help an organization thrive.
Dr. Walsh describes curiosity as the intrinsic love for learning and uses research to break it down into five distinct areas: Joyous Exploration, Deprivation Sensitivity, Stress Tolerance, Social Curiosity, and Thrill Seeking.
The first dimension, Joyous Exploration, is critical, especially as an educator in technology. Technology is ever changing and disruptive. But it leads to new discoveries and insights. For the last 20 years working in education and technology, there is always something new and fun to learn, whether it is the flipped classroom, artificial intelligence, design thinking, virtual reality, etc.
An IT leader also needs to recognize it is critical for staff, parents, and students to access accurate and reliable school information. Those that support these systems must have a high Deprivation Sensitivity dimension. All great developers, administrators, and analysists have an undeniable desire to find the best eloquent solution and when things do not work. When things don't work, there is a constant desire figure out why it doesn't...
The third dimension, Stress Tolerance comes hand to hand when working in a school and with technology. From migrating to new systems to supporting the interaction of people and technology to updating security vulnerabilities, problems in technology are dynamic. You need to live in ambiguity; including the willingness to tackle unexpected ill-defined problems.
Working in technology is often associated with introverted characteristics. However, working in technology also means helping others. As a leader, I am genuinely concerned about people's problems. Research sometimes calls this
Collected Cognitive Responsibility, a characteristic of
Social Curiosity. Members of my team must have a desire to listening and learning from others to help troubleshoot their issues.
Social curiosity is definitely a defining trait for a high functioning technology team.
The final dimension, Thrill Seeking, has interesting connotations as well. Many wouldn't equate thrill seeking with IT. However many times when things do not "work" and it is urgent! IT needs to raise to the occasion to solve problems that are poorly documented and unexpected. This is where risk taking comes in. Finding a solution during a network outage during exams, or solving a A/V issue just before the school play requires risks. Vision also plays into Thrill Seeking. There is great risk when migrating to next generation systems, such as Student Information Systems, Finance Systems, Productivity Ecosystems, etc. All of these require a leap as it will impact finance, resources, processes, and people.
A final thought. It is interesting how curiosity aligns with technical troubleshooting and the questions asked to solve technical issues. Dr. Walsh pointed that good questions need to be the framed in the right way.
When mentoring my team or even learning from my peers, I am still learning to ask the right questions without jumping to the solution, especially if we already think we know the answer. When right though, it comes with two big benefits - 1) it not only solves things quicker but 2) it builds stronger trusts and relationship with others.
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