December 1, 2025

The Curious Case of the Incurious Children

A Conversation with Susan Engel

Everyone agrees that it's good to be curious, but that doesn't mean schools are committed to fostering children's curiosity. This extended episode of Kohn's Zone features a provocative conversation with early-childhood expert Susan Engel of Williams College, who draws on a deep background of theory and research (some of it her own) to probe the nature of curiosity -- that remarkable desire we have to resolve discrepancies between what we encounter and what we expected. Curiosity can feed on itself, generating new and subtler questions, yet classrooms often fail to support this process -- and indeed may actively discourage it. The more densely packed the curriculum, and the more structured (and goal-oriented) the school day is, Engel argues, the less chance kids have to wonder and explore. She offers suggestions for how teachers can encourage students' curiosity and help them figure out how best to act on it. We also discuss her newest book, which describes her visists to kindergartens across the country: What distinguishes classrooms for young children that are exceptional from those that make a thoughtful observer wince? (Hint: It's not mostly a function of race, class, or how nice the teacher is.)

RESOURCES:

Susan Engel, The Hungry Mind (Harvard Univ. Press, 2018) [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674984110]

Susan Engel, The Intellectual Lives of Children (Harvard Univ. Press, 2022) [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278646]

Susan Engel, The End of the Rainbow (New Press, 2015) [https://thenewpress.org/books/the-end-of-the-rainbow/]

Susan Engel, American Kindergarten (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2026) [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo258923309.html]

Alfie Kohn, "Less and Less Curious," Education Week, October 2, 2024 [https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/curiosity/]

 

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PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Ultraviolet Audio

ART: Abi Kohn