When I was in 7th grade, my U.S. history teacher gave my class the following advice: Your teachers in high school won’t expect you to remember every little fact about U.S. history. They can fill in the details you’ve forgotten. What they will expect, though, is for you to be able to think; to know how to make connections between ideas and evaluate information critically. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my teacher was giving a concise summary of critical thinking. My high school teachers gave similar speeches when describing what would be expected of us in college:

For children and adults alike, curiosity has been linked with psychological, emotional, social, and even health benefits. “Why?” That’s the question parents and teachers both dread and love to hear from kids. We dread it because, well, sometimes we don’t know the answer—or we’re too lazy or harried to come up with a good one. But we usually do our best, understanding that curiosity is key to learning. But did you know that the benefits of curiosity are not limited to the intellectual? For children and adults alike, curiosity has been linked with psychological, emotional, social, and even health benefits.