"Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures."
-Lovelle Drachman
Are young people today losing their curiosity? I fear the tendency is to accept the information that they are bombarded with on the Internet and social media as the Gospel. Don't know the answer? Just google it. Don't know how to get there? Google map it. Tap. Drag. Click. Done.
Are we keeping them too busy to have time to get lost, to dream, to think and to be curious about the world?
Am I doing my best at teaching them where and how to find the best answers to their questions?
Where has our own sense of adventure and our love of intellectual pursuit gone?
Lots of questions, I know.
I say that it is high time to reclaim our curiosity. It is time to remind ourselves and the students of South Side that there is a great big world out there and other people who live their everyday lives just like they do, only on the other side of the world. Isn't that fascinating? It's time to remind students that sometimes we have better questions than we do answers, and that is perfectly okay. Long and lingering conversations about life and love are something that we all should be having. Life's journey is about seeing that there is something out there bigger than yourself, and that we should stand thankful and amazed and curious about the wonders this world holds. So if kids these days have indeed lost their curiosity, I want to play a part in helping them get it back again.
While students from our small town might not necessarily be able to pack up their bags and fly away, they are invited to embrace the tenets of an adventuresome spirit.
1. Read books written about faraway places, both real and imagined.
2. Seek out people who are well-traveled and ask them about their experiences.
3. Take a road trip to one of the historic sites that are within an hour radius of Bee Branch.
4. Befriend a foreign exchange student and learn as much as you can about their home country.
5. Start a savings account for a dream trip that you want to take in the future.
After spending a month this summer on the grandest adventure of my life thus far, I learned some valuable lessons about adventure and curiosity. The total lack of television or Internet in our cottage in the Philippines leaves a person with a lot of time to think about life and forces you to face those in your family without the involvement of the flickering pixels of a Gameboy or television or cellphone. It forces you to embrace the moment, to play games, and to actually have conversations with each other. It forces you to stop and hear the birds and voices of your neighbors through the screens of your windows. Before you know it, someone has invited you to join a dance group and you say "Yes" and bring the whole family because what the heck else are you going to do? You're going to meet new people, learn some moves, and get out of your comfort zone. Now, that's an adventure! The relationships built and the cultural experiences that I gained during my stay in Davao City serves as an inspiration for this year's library theme.
I understand that it seems kind of counter-intuitive for a Library Media Specialist to say that technology can drown out our sense of adventure, but in truth, technology has become much more than just a tool for us. It has become an idol. Just deal with a student who's cell phone gets taken away at school. Often times it is quite obvious that there are way too many emotions attached to and tied up in those tiny little devices...
Technology is a tool. It is meant to compliment our minds and our intellectual endeavors, not to do our thinking and living for us.
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| Compostella Valley, Mindanao, Philippines |
Let's get it back to that. Let's reclaim our minds and find our curiosity again.
Let's look at postcards. Let's dream big. Let's ask good questions.
Come to the South Side High School Library to get started on that journey.
Guest speakers, Makerspaces, and much much more is coming your way in the library during the 2015-2016 school year.
Blessed are the curious, for they shall find adventures...
Amy Hutto, LMS
South Side High School Library
