Excerpt from an interview with astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson.“I’m often asked by parents what advice I can give them to help get kids interested in science," says Neil deGrasse Tyson, "And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period. I don’t care about your economic background. I don’t care what town you’re born in, what city, what country. If you’re a child, you are curious about your environment. You’re overturning rocks. You’re plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you’re doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you." And so then what do adults do? They say, 'Don’t pluck the petals off the flowers. I just spent money on that. Don’t play with the egg. It might break. Don’t…' Everything is a don’t."
They spend the first few years of their lives learning to walk and talk on their own and the rest of their lives being told "No, don't do that, to be quiet, compliant, and sit still. What can we do to encourage children to continue being curious and to keep exploring? To develop a love of learning?
We get out of their way.
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