Wonder and Awe in Learning and Teaching
Within the realm of education, wonder and awe have been associated primarily with early childhood learning. Nonetheless, wonder and awe need not be confined to "the wonder years." Instead, these emotions bear significance for individuals of all ages, extending to individuals in higher education, even within an educational landscape predominantly characterised by an instrumental narrative.
While wonder and awe are distinct emotions, they often intertwine and complement each other in educational contexts. They achieve this through their shared characteristic of openness towards the world, enabling individuals to perceive the world from a perspective of possibility.
From Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart
On Wonder
"Wonder is the beginning of wisdom" —Socrates
Humans grow up with a powerful drive to learn how things work and why certain patterns and properties exist in the world. By embracing wonder you can engage more fully with others and shield yourself against misinformation.
A natural sense of wonder in early childhood often diminishes as people grow up (research shows that while in earlier phases of life children are often teeming with questions, but as they enter the school system, this well of questions can begin to dry up) yet lifelong wonderers show that we can maintain the habit of asking questions. Adults, like children, can heighten wonder by exposing gaps in knowledge, attending to surprising new information, and acquiring a little bit of knowledge to create the hunger to know more. Try the following:
1. Conduct regular introspections. Make a point of pausing to ask what new insights you have recently gained or what misunderstandings you have resolved.
2. Embrace the proliferation of wonder. The natural world and the world of technology are both full of complex, nested systems. Wondering deeply is not about finding one simple answer. Answers to questions beget new questions, and each offers an opportunity to learn.
3. Adopt diverse ways of wondering. Search engines have their place, but also look to other resources. You can experience extra pleasure in information foraging when you discover a new way of learning more. For example, ask Chat GPT4 to explain something to you like you were a 10 year old.
4. Look for anomalies and puzzles. Zero in on phenomena that seem atypical or unclear – they can provide fuel for wondering. Sometimes, people ignore anomalies as annoying exceptions to a simple explanatory story that they have in mind. But very often an anomaly can be revealing. For instance, you might notice that a particular local tree loses its leaves much earlier than all others. At first, you might just ignore the anomaly, but trees often lose their leaves earlier when they are stressed by poor soil conditions or a toxic substance. In this way, trees can provide useful information about the quality of the local environment.
5. Explore contrasting cases. Examining the similarities and differences between related kinds or concepts can yield unexpected insights. For example, Venus is considered ‘the evil twin’ because it is so different from Earth in ways that are hostile to life. How do planets of the same mass have such different environments?
6. Entertain counterfactuals. Wondering what would happen if something about the world was different can help you understand why certain things work the way they do. For example, what would happen if water was denser as a solid rather than as a liquid? Hint: ice would sink instead of float, which would affect the climate, the ocean currents, and the survival of aquatic life.
On Awe
Dacher Keltner defines awe as "the sensation of encountering something immense that surpasses one's comprehension of the world." Keltner's research suggests that experiencing awe can lead to reduced egocentrism, enhanced well-being, stronger interpersonal connections, curiosity, (which in turn, encourages learning and knowledge acquisition), an expanded sense of time and enhanced creativity.
Psychologist Jean Piaget posited that our cognitive growth relies on two interconnected processes: assimilation and accommodation. During assimilation, we integrate new experiences into our existing mental frameworks. A crucial aspect of awe, however, is its resistance to immediate assimilation, compelling us to grapple with accommodating it. This process involves narrowing the gap between our newfound knowledge and our pre-existing beliefs. Accommodating such experiences often demands the expansion or alteration of our mental frameworks, potentially leading to significant shifts in our thinking, beliefs, and even our self-identity.
Keltner identifies eight sources of "everyday wonder," which encompass exposure to acts of moral beauty, the collective euphoria of significant events, various facets of the natural world, music, visual design, profound mysteries often associated with religion and spirituality, the commencement and conclusion of life, and concepts that challenge our preconceived limits of understanding.
To quote the Greek philosopher Plutarch
The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind
When educators harness the power of wonder and awe, they create a richer and more meaningful educational experience for their students. Universities play a pivotal role in this endeavor by providing spaces for students to encounter profound stimuli, whether through faculty-guided research, global study exchanges (or awe-walk and awe-reading practices closer to home), capstone projects, or reflective opportunities. These experiences have the ability to spark curiosity, deepen emotional engagement, broaden perspectives and foster appreciation, and are a useful starting point for educators who aspire to make their students’ time at university more “awesome”.