Theoretical foundations for the development of curiosity and inquisitiveness in preschool children. Curiosity breeds new ideas

Curiosity is inherent in genius individuals. Many recognized geniuses possessed this trait. is important to each of us. There are several reasons that prove this.

Curiosity increases mental abilities. The mind of an inquisitive person is always in an active state, a person constantly asks questions and finds answers to them. The more often people use their mind, the more flexible and better it begins to work.

Curiosity allows you to notice new ideas. In the absence of curiosity, a fresh idea, even one that is in front of a person, is not recognized by his mind. For this reason, many great ideas have gone unnoticed.

Curiosity helps to open up new possibilities and see new facets that are usually invisible. Only an inquisitive mind can notice this.

Curiosity increases interest in life. A curious person cannot live a boring life. There is always something interesting, worthy of attention and study.

Perhaps, if you use a few tips.

1.Keep your mind receptive.
This is a necessary condition for the development of curiosity. Learn, forget what you have learned and learn again. Be prepared to change your mind about various publicly known facts that may be wrong.

2. Don't take things for granted.
Look deeper under the outer shell of some aspects of the world. Otherwise, you will lose your curiosity. Don't take what happens for granted.

3. Always ask questions.
To look deeper into things, the best thing to do is ask questions. You have to find out what it is, why it was made that way, when was it made and who invented it? How does it work and why was it created? These questions are a sign of an inquisitive person and his assistants.

4. Don't consider something boring.
If you think so, then you are slamming one of the doors of your opportunities. An inquisitive person always sees this door to an interesting and unexplored world. If there is no time to study it, then he will not slam such a door, but will leave it open to return here later.

5. Learn with interest.
Don't take learning as a burden, otherwise you won't want to study the subject further. Motivate yourself to learn with interest. Then there will be a great desire to plunge into it headlong and find out everything better.

Curiosity is an important trait not only for children, but also for adults. It was curiosity that allowed many brilliant individuals to make discoveries that we use today. Albert Einstein said that it is important not to stop asking questions and not to lose sacred curiosity.

Unfortunately, many adults have lost much of the curiosity they had as children. This, of course, is influenced by the functional development of the nervous system, but not only this, but also the loss of personal interest in something new. Especially after graduating from school or university. But in vain, because curiosity is important because:

• It gives life sincere interest and thereby allows you to fill every day you live with meaning. Agree, our hobbies bring more joy to life.
• It activates the thought process and develops mental abilities. Thus, brain cells (neurons) do not age and retain memory and essential mental functions.
• It allows us to expand our understanding of ourselves and the richness of the world around us. And this, in turn, allows us to discover something new that was invisible or inaccessible.

If curiosity dies, then old age has arrived. Many American studies confirm that a common feature among all centenarians is curiosity. Many of the planet's centenarians have several different hobbies, take life lightly and have a great interest in everything that happens. Therefore, scientists say that it is important to develop these qualities.

How to develop curiosity:

1. Forget what you know. Often our idea that we know something is just an idea. It's hard to learn something new if you're an expert in everything. Give up this idea. You can only be an expert in one specific thing.
2. Don't scold yourself because you knew something before, but now you've forgotten. At any time, you can refresh your memory and discover new interesting details that you had not noticed before.
3. Try to look deeper. Any process, any action can include both obvious and hidden details. Find the "secret ingredient" or create it yourself.
4. Experiment and be open to new things. Try doing something you haven't done before. For example, attend a parent training, a course on making rolls, or a master class on glass painting.
5. Ask questions to yourself, your loved ones, your acquaintances: Where was this invented? Created by whom? When did it appear?
6. Be interested in learning. Change your inner attitude towards learning, make it an exciting and important part of your life.
7. Increase the number of different interests and do not limit yourself to one thing. Choose something that you are not yet familiar with, and then you can expand your understanding of the world even more.
8. Share your new knowledge, and perhaps those around you will follow you into a new world of discoveries and hobbies.

interest educational preschool water

The problem of cognitive interest was widely studied in psychology by B.G. Ananyev, M.F. Belyaev, L.I. Bozhovich, L.A. Gordon, S.L. Rubinstein, V.N. Myasishchev and in the pedagogical literature G.I. Shchukina, N.R. Morozova.

Interest, as a complex and very significant formation for a person, has many interpretations in its psychological definitions; it is considered as:

• - selective focus of human attention;
• - manifestation of his mental and emotional activity;
• - a specific attitude of a person towards an object, caused by awareness of its vital significance and emotional appeal.

G.I. Shchukina believes that in reality the interest is in front of us:

• - and as a selective focus of human mental processes on objects and phenomena of the surrounding world;
• - and as a tendency, desire, need of the individual to engage in a particular area of ​​phenomena, a given activity that brings satisfaction;
• - and as a powerful stimulator of personal activity;
• - and, finally, as a special selective attitude towards the surrounding world, towards its objects, phenomena, processes.

Interest is formed and developed in activity, and it is influenced not by individual components of activity, but by its entire objective-subjective essence (character, process, result).

Interest is an “alloy” of many mental processes that form a special tone of activity, special states of personality (joy from the learning process, the desire to go deeper into knowledge of a subject of interest, into cognitive activity, experiencing failures and volitional aspirations to overcome them).

The most important area of ​​the general phenomenon of interest is cognitive interest. Its subject is the most significant property of man: to cognize the world around him not only for the purpose of biological and social orientation in reality, but in the most essential relationship of man to the world - in the desire to penetrate into its diversity, to reflect in consciousness the essential aspects, cause-and-effect relationships, patterns , inconsistency.

Cognitive interest, being included in cognitive activity, is closely associated with the formation of diverse personal relationships: selective attitude towards a particular field of science, cognitive activity, participation in them, communication with participants in knowledge. It is on this basis - knowledge of the objective world and attitude towards it, scientific truths - that a worldview, worldview, attitude is formed, with an active, biased character, which is facilitated by cognitive interest.

Moreover, cognitive interest, activating all mental processes of a person, at a high level of its development encourages a person to constantly search for the transformation of reality through activity (changing, complicating its goals, highlighting relevant and significant aspects in the subject environment for their implementation, finding other necessary ways, bringing creativity into them).

A feature of cognitive interest is its ability to enrich and activate the process not only of cognitive, but also of any human activity, since the cognitive principle is present in each of them. In work, a person, using objects, materials, tools, methods, needs to know their properties, to study the scientific foundations of modern production, to understand rationalization processes, to know the technology of a particular production. Any type of human activity contains a cognitive principle, search creative processes that contribute to the transformation of reality. A person inspired by cognitive interest performs any activity with greater passion and more effectively.

Cognitive interest is the most important formation of personality, which develops in the process of human life, is formed in the social conditions of his existence and is in no way immanently inherent in a person from birth.

The importance of cognitive interest in the life of specific individuals cannot be overestimated. Cognitive interest promotes the penetration of the individual into essential connections, relationships, and patterns of cognition.

Cognitive interest is the integral education of the individual. As a general phenomenon of interest, it has a complex structure, which consists of both individual mental processes (intellectual, emotional, regulatory) and objective and subjective connections of a person with the world, expressed in relationships.

Cognitive interest is expressed in its development by various states. Conventionally, successive stages of its development are distinguished: curiosity, inquisitiveness, cognitive interest, theoretical interest. And although these stages are distinguished purely conventionally, their most characteristic features are generally recognized.

Curiosity- the elementary stage of a selective attitude, which is caused by purely external, often unexpected circumstances that attract a person’s attention. For a person, this elementary orientation, associated with the novelty of the situation, may not have much significance.

At the stage of curiosity, the child is content with only orientation related to the interest of this or that object, this or that situation. This stage does not yet reveal a genuine desire for knowledge. And, nevertheless, entertainment as a factor in identifying cognitive interest can serve as its initial impetus.

Curiosity- valuable state of the individual. It is characterized by a person’s desire to penetrate beyond what he sees. At this stage of interest, fairly strong expressions of the emotions of surprise, joy of learning, and satisfaction with the activity are revealed. The emergence of riddles and their deciphering is the essence of curiosity, as an active vision of the world, which develops not only in classes, but also in work, when a person is detached from simple performance and passive memorization. Curiosity, becoming a stable character trait, has significant value in personality development. Curious people are not indifferent to the world; they are always in search. The problem of curiosity has been developed in Russian psychology for quite a long time, although it is still far from its final solution. A significant contribution to understanding the nature of curiosity was made by S.L. Rubinshtein, A.M. Matyushkin, V.A. Krutetsky, V.S. Yurkevich, D.E. Berline, G.I. Shchukina, N.I. Reinwald, A.I. Krupnov et al.

Theoretical interest associated both with the desire to understand complex theoretical issues and problems of a specific science, and with their use as a tool of knowledge. This stage of a person’s active influence on the world, on its reconstruction, which is directly related to a person’s worldview, with his beliefs in the power and capabilities of science. This stage characterizes not only the cognitive principle in the structure of the personality, but also the person as an actor, subject, personality.

In the real process, all of the indicated stages of cognitive interest represent extremely complex combinations and relationships. Cognitive interest reveals both relapses in connection with a change in the subject area, and coexistence in a single act of cognition, when curiosity turns into inquisitiveness.

Interest in understanding the real world is one of the most fundamental and significant in child development.

Preschool age is the heyday of children's cognitive activity. By the age of 3-4, the child seems to be freed from the pressure of the perceived situation and begins to think about what is not in front of his eyes. The preschooler is trying to somehow organize and explain the world around him, to establish some connections and patterns in it.

In older preschool age, cognitive development is a complex integrated phenomenon, including the development of cognitive processes (perception, thinking, memory, attention, imagination), which represent different forms of the child’s orientation in the world around him, in himself and regulate his activities. It is known that by older preschool age the possibilities for a child’s proactive transformative activity increase noticeably. This age period is important for the development of the child’s cognitive needs, which is expressed in the form of search, research activity aimed at discovering something new. Therefore, the prevailing questions are: “Why?”, “Why?”, “How?”. Often children not only ask, but try to find the answer themselves, use their little experience to explain something incomprehensible, and sometimes even conduct an “experiment.”

A characteristic feature of this age is cognitive interests, expressed in careful examination, independent search for information of interest and the desire to learn from an adult where, what and how it grows and lives. The older preschooler is interested in the phenomena of living and inanimate nature, shows initiative, which is revealed in observation, in the desire to find out, approach, touch.

The result of cognitive activity, regardless of the form of cognition in which it is realized, is knowledge. Children at this age are already able to systematize and group objects of living and inanimate nature, both by external signs and by characteristics of their habitat. Changes in objects, the transition of matter from one state to another (snow and ice - into water; water - into ice, etc.), natural phenomena such as snowfall, blizzard, thunderstorm, hail, frost, fog, etc. are of particular interest to children of this age. Children gradually begin to understand that the state, development and changes in living and inanimate nature largely depend on a person’s attitude towards them.

The child’s questions reveal an inquisitive mind, observation, and confidence in the adult as a source of interesting new information (knowledge) and explanations. The older preschooler “verifies” his knowledge about the environment, his attitude according to an adult, who is for him the true measure of all things.

Psychologists have experimentally studied that level The development of the cognitive sphere determines the nature of interaction with natural objects and attitudes towards them. That is, the higher the level of children’s knowledge about nature, the more they show cognitive interest in it, focusing on the condition and well-being of the object itself, and not on adults’ assessment of it. Psychologists emphasize that the type of activity in which knowledge is acquired is decisive for the development of a child. We understand cognitive activity not only as a process of assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities, but, mainly, as search knowledge, the acquisition of knowledge independently or under the tactful guidance of an adult, carried out in the process of humanistic interaction, cooperation, co-creation.

Therefore, it is important for adults in the learning process to support cognitive activity and create conditions for children to independently search for information. After all, knowledge is formed as a result of the interaction of a subject (child) with this or that information. It is the appropriation of information through its modification, addition, and independent application in various situations that generates knowledge.

Children love to explore. This is explained by the fact that they are characterized by visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, and research, like no other method, corresponds to these age-related characteristics. In preschool age, he is the leader, and in the first three years he is practically the only way to understand the world. The research is rooted in the manipulation of objects, as L.S. has repeatedly said. Vygotsky.

When forming the foundations of natural science and environmental concepts, research can be considered as a method close to ideal. Knowledge gleaned not from books, but acquired independently, is always conscious and more durable. The use of this teaching method was advocated by such classics of pedagogy as Ya.A. Comenius, I.G. Pestalozzi, J.-J. Russo, K.D. Ushinsky and many others.

After three years, their integration gradually begins. The child moves into the next period - curiosity, which, provided the child is raised correctly, goes into the period of curiosity (after 5 years). It was during this period that research activity acquired typical features, and now experimentation became an independent activity. A child of senior preschool age acquires the ability to carry out experiments, i.e. he acquires the following series of skills in this activity: to see and identify a problem, to accept and set a goal, to solve problems, to analyze an object or phenomenon, to highlight essential features and connections, to compare various facts, to put forward hypotheses and assumptions, to select tools and materials for independent activities, to carry out experiment, draw conclusions, record stages of action and results graphically.

The acquisition of these skills requires systematic, purposeful work of the teacher aimed at developing children’s experimentation activities.

Experiments are classified according to different principles.

• - By the nature of the objects used in the experiment: experiments: with plants; with animals; with objects of inanimate nature; the object of which is a person.
• - At the location of the experiments: in a group room; on the site; in the forest, etc.
• - By the number of children: individual, group, collective.
• - Because of their implementation: random, planned, posed in response to a child’s question.
• - By the nature of inclusion in the pedagogical process: episodic (conducted from case to case), systematic.
• - By duration: short-term (5-15 minutes), long-term (over 15 minutes).
• - By the number of observations of the same object: single, multiple, or cyclic.
• - By place in the cycle: primary, repeated, final and final.
• - By the nature of mental operations: ascertaining (allowing you to see one state of an object or one phenomenon without connection with other objects and phenomena), comparative (allowing you to see the dynamics of a process or note changes in the state of an object), generalizing (experiments in which general patterns of the process previously studied at individual stages).
• - According to the nature of children’s cognitive activity: illustrative (children know everything, and the experiment only confirms familiar facts), search (children do not know in advance what the result will be), solving experimental problems.
• - According to the method of application in the classroom: demonstration, frontal.

Each type of research has its own methodology, its pros and cons.

Albert Einstein said: “It is important not to stop asking questions and never to lose sacred curiosity.” Curiosity is the first sign of genius. This quality was in the blood of such intellectual giants as Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein. Richard Feynman is especially famous for his discoveries that could not have happened without the outstanding physicist's insatiable curiosity.

So why is an inquisitive mind so important for the average person? We will try to present several arguments that will help convince the reader of the benefits of developing curiosity.

This quality trains mental abilities

Everyone knows that people do not use their full intellectual potential. In addition, the mind can be in a passive state if it is not developed and regularly trained. Have you noticed that curious people often ask a lot of questions and want to get to the bottom of everything? This quality helps keep their minds active. Did you know that the mind is like a human muscle, and if you work it hard and use it all the time, it only gets stronger?

Curiosity breeds new ideas

“Curiosity is not a vice” - that’s what the ancients said. When a person is interested in some process, some things, his mind becomes capable of attracting new ideas. Curiosity breeds interest, and without interest the human mind will be closed to new ideas. Thus, a person who lacks curiosity is likely to miss out on an incredible number of opportunities throughout his life.

A curious person sees much more

The ordinary eye cannot see the pitfalls and sky-high horizons. This will become possible only when curiosity settles in the mind as a full-fledged mistress. And then the observant mind will instantly discover everything that is hidden from the surface of ordinary life, opening up additional opportunities for its owner.

The life of a curious person is never boring

Did you know that inquisitive minds never live a day without adventure? For such people, not a day goes by according to a well-established scenario, and, of course, they are never bored. New things, new entertainment, new sensations - all this is given to curious people instead of boredom.

How to develop curiosity?

Our readers will have a logical question: is it possible to learn curiosity, is it possible to develop these qualities in yourself as an adult? We hasten to reassure you. There are several simple tips that you can follow to develop this useful quality.

Keep your mind open

So, you must give yourself the mindset to be ready for everything new. There will be nothing extraordinary if you have to relearn how to do familiar things. Be prepared to start absorbing any information.

Don't take things for granted

Don't think that the world works exactly the way it seems to you. Dig deeper and you will see that this is far from true. People who take things for granted lose their “holy curiosity.”

Ask questions relentlessly

A child learning about the world bombards adults with questions, but this is precisely what helps him get to the bottom of everything. Note that with age, children stop bothering people around them with questions, but not because their curiosity has dried up. Teenagers are able to find the information they are interested in by turning to scientific sources. Remember that a curious person’s best friends throughout his life are question words and phrases. "What is this?" "How does this work?" “Who came up with this and why did he do it that way?”

Cancel the "boring" marker

Whenever you start to think of an activity as boring, your mind starts to resist. And this automatically narrows the range of capabilities that you can have. Curious people see things as doors to an exciting new world. This applies to any process, especially training. The educational process cannot be viewed as a necessary, difficult task. Make it fun and don't see it as a burden. Treating studying as a fun, exciting activity will help you enjoy the process and achieve certain heights.

Read anytime, anywhere

A person who is fixated in his narrow little world will definitely get lost as soon as he gets outside the boundaries. To keep up to date with what is happening, read. Read every free minute and be sure to expand your thematic horizons. New knowledge will certainly provoke further interest in research.

Curiosity is at the core of all ideas, inventions and creative actions. It creates inventors, innovators, discoverers, creators, craftsmen. The result of curiosity can be valuable both for the person himself and for his environment.

What is curiosity

Curiosity is an interest in acquiring new knowledge, an internal openness to people, phenomena, the world around us, a sincere desire to satisfy cognitive needs and gain new experiences or impressions.

Advantages

Curiosity involves a person in a world of discovery, brings positive emotions, frees one from indifference, encourages action, broadens one's horizons and allows one to look at the world without stereotypes.

Thanks to the curiosity of researchers, science does not stand still; combined with hard work, this quality gives unsurpassed results.

Curiosity creates better students.

An inquisitive person is distinguished by full perception and genuine attention to the interlocutor. There are no boring topics for him; he will find something exciting in any of them.

Flaws

Rarely does curiosity bring negative experiences. If, as a result of knowledge, it is discovered that something cannot be changed, this state of affairs is depressing.

Sometimes the desire to acquire new information or conduct a risky experiment leads to big troubles. There are enough examples of how curiosity generated by the ban resulted not only in accidents, but also in lifelong problems with the use of ordinary things (matches, water, electricity).

Interest can play into the hands of schadenfreude or turn into a control lever, helping to understand the psychological reasons for failures. Thus, curiosity is an interest in one direction or another, which can be equated with merit, and curiosity simply goes beyond a person’s own interests and can bring both benefit and harm.

The relationship between curiosity and other qualities

The more knowledge a person receives, the stronger his curiosity. Educators and teachers also base the educational process on the fact that the development of children's curiosity and learning are interconnected.

A curious person is well informed. By receiving news about people, the country and the world, a holistic perception develops.

With increasing professional qualifications, curiosity is stimulated; without it, there is no professional success.

1. It is worth discarding the opinion that everything a person needs is already known, because in any direction the unknown remains, and there is always something to learn.

2. Don't be shy to ask. Every stupid question removes you from ignorance and brings you closer to enlightenment.

3. It is not necessary to strive for the ideal; it is enough to maintain a balanced state: complement interest with pleasure from new experiences. Development should please you, and then everything will happen by itself.

4. You need to work regularly, albeit little by little, in order to develop appropriate habits. Avoid extremes.

5. Don't give up: Every person has failures, even the great ones.

6. Develop intuition. When combined with fundamental logic, intuition produces amazing results.

Eternal questions like “what’s inside?” we have been asking since childhood. And if a person split the atom, invented electricity and much more, it was only thanks to his curiosity!

Albert Einstein considered the ability to ask questions to be one of the main conditions for success. Curiosity, self-criticism, and stubborn endurance, he said, led him to amazing ideas.

Curiosity contributed to the emergence of Charles Darwin's theory. Thanks to the persistence of the researcher, he was able to become a scientific revolutionary.

Peter I was endowed with curiosity to the highest degree, as history speaks eloquently about. Massive reforms and transformations in the state are proof of this.

For Leonardo da Vinci, curiosity was one of the seven qualities that contributed to the development of his genius, and, as he believed, it could help anyone become a genius. According to Leonardo, he was never satisfied with just one answer: “yes”.

1. Listen to your child’s questions, don’t shy away from them. Do not be silent, do not rebuke the child under the argument of fatigue, his importunity, because questions may completely disappear from his life. Your answers are needed for his experience and development.

2. Allow your child to gain experience. The child’s research activity with your participation can be transferred to a direction where its result will suit both the parent and the child: instead of testing toys for strength - modeling figures from clay, plasticine, dough; instead of scattering sand, sifting it through a sieve; instead of painting on wallpaper, dissolving food coloring in water, and so on.

It is desirable that the baby’s room allows for experiments and does not restrain the child’s imagination. It is necessary to explain to the child that in his experiments you may not be satisfied only with the result, and not with the process itself.

3. Observe and show. A park, lawn, playground, museum, zoo, store, street - any place can become a learning space. It’s good to attend exhibitions and concerts, performances, and invite guests. Ask your child questions, share observations, discuss things that are interesting to him.

4. Encourage your baby's imagination. In addition to teachers and reality, the baby is surrounded by a world of fantasy: cartoons, games, books, his imagination. Allow your child to improvise, “be an adult,” play the role of fairy-tale characters, portray animals, people’s characters. Let the child come up with his own fairy tale. Stimulate his imagination with non-standard plot development: “what would happen if...”, “how would the heroes live?”

TV is the enemy of active knowledge of the world; even the most sophisticated program includes passive waiting. The child understands that any issues will be resolved without his participation. An exception may be watching an educational program together.

5. Incorporate learning into your daily routine. Introduce your child to numbers, ask simple questions: “one candy or two?”, “red or blue?”, “what does it look like?”, “what letter?”, and so on. The purpose of such communication is to awaken interest, which will make the learning process simple.

6.Encourage your child to express his opinion. Change the environment, rearrange toys, put things in order, look for the best option, taking part in a single process.

7. Think of learning as a game. Criticism, ridicule, punishment for failures, coercion against the will - all this will make the child think that learning is a very difficult matter, and can cause isolation and apprehension towards learning.

9. Conduct experiments. An unusual turn of events activates the curiosity of preschool children. This approach will involve reflection, encourage independence, and contribute to the development of ingenuity. Allow your child to see the solution to a problem in several ways in everyday life. Tell us how they study and live in other countries, how they eat. Break the usual, be delighted with the innovations that you create yourself. And be a friend to the child.

Problems of developing curiosity

In modern society, the development of curiosity is determined by the contradictions between:

• the need to develop this quality in preschool age and accepted practice, which does not always contribute to the development of curiosity;
• the need for a theoretical analysis of the problem of developing curiosity in preschool children and its insufficient study in psychological research;
• the possibility of developing children's curiosity in preschool educational institutions and the lack of program guidelines for the pedagogical process.

These include the so-called operational difficulties: insufficiency of the cognitive sphere and the ability to analyze and summarize information, limited judgment skills and cognitive habits.

An example of emotional difficulties is excessive self-criticism, which does not provide psychological stability, the basic basis for self-expression.

Curiosity should be considered as an independent activity: searching for information, full self-expression and interaction with the environment - these are the components on the basis of which positive aspects of character will develop.

The formation of cognitive interest depends on external reasons and individual characteristics of the individual, the task of tracking which is assigned to educators. Much depends on a person's environment: understanding, stimulation, support, communication and mutual exchange are of great importance in the development of personality and the cultivation of curiosity.

Quotes about curiosity

Curiosity is a component of the active mind, which has always worried scientists, writers, and artists.

Edward Phelps called for maintaining the fire of curiosity in yourself, which will not allow the meaning of life to dry out.

According to Anatole France, it is only thanks to curiosity that the world is rich in scientists and poets.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau rightly noted that a person is inquisitive to the extent of his enlightenment.

"Curiosity is the engine of progress!" - statement by Andrei Belyanin.

According to Maria von Ebner-Eschenbach, curiosity is a curiosity that concerns serious subjects, and it can rightly be called a “thirst for knowledge.”

An inquisitive person is always popular in society, it is pleasant to talk with him and it is impossible to get bored, and his many-sided interests and hobbies contribute to the acquisition of new friends. Curious children are characterized by initiative, determination, hard work, perseverance, confidence, and academic success. Thus, the development of curiosity becomes one of the important tasks in modern education.