Add curiosity to your cultural transformation - start with your kids!

I've been a long time fan of Seth Godin. I often refer to his ideas on what society should be doing with our young minds - teaching them how to be leaders and solve interesting problems.

I'd like to add one additional criteria and that is to teach them to embrace and live with curiosity. I don't believe our educational system is doing a good job of this.

In our household we have a wide band of ages from 11, 17 and 23. Yes the 23 year old should be out on his own but that's a story for another day. The lack of curiosity is never more apparent in the 17 and 23 year old. They meander through their lives like cows grazing in a field. When life throws an obstacle at them they just collide with it like being hit by a large wave, fall down and ever so slowly right themselves. If they're lucky they manage to stay up for a bit before the next wave hits.

The 11 year old still has an element of that curiosity we've all been annoyed by from children forever asking why, why, why? I do see however change happening in her as the environment and people around her conspire to mold her into another consumer-producer.

I was much the same as a teenager. I can even recall when a particular high school teacher actually tried to stir up a level of curiosity in us during class. We would sit there like inanimate statues, every one of us afraid to openly discuss ideas for fear of looking either way too smart or way to ignorant. I recall even feeling sorry for that teacher - he really tried. Classrooms with 25 or more highly hormonal adolescents are probably not the right environments to instill the behaviors I've come to value. It's going to take parents who have a passion for this stuff and a willingness to impart these ideas to their children as they mature.

Ultimately it's curiosity that will be at the core of an effective leader and of course someone devoted to solving interesting problems. That's what I want for my daughter - a life filled with curiosity observable as achievements, and people who come to follow her as a leader no matter what she is doing. I recognize I have some work to do on her behalf.