07 Mar The Kindest Kind of Curiosity
It had been an eventful morning at the aquarium. Emma’s elementary school class was enjoying a field trip day and I was happy to be there as a chaperone. Emma and her friends had marveled at otters darting around underwater, delicately interacted with stingrays in the touch pool, patiently waited for a sloth named Squidney to wake up (though she sadly never did), observed the graceful movements of sea turtles, and witnessed the charming sight of penguins enjoying their breakfast.
It must have been the sight of those hungry penguins devouring their morning meal that prompted the five students in my group to announce they, too, were hungry. We decided to take a break from the aquarium and go outside to sit on a grassy area under a tree and have a little snack.
The students began opening their lunch boxes. Soon an assortment of apples and oranges and bags of pretzels and crackers filled the space around us.
I decided to start a conversation by asking the group what animal they had enjoyed seeing most. Four hands quickly shot up. Two students said they loved the sloth, even though she never woke from her slumber the entire time we stared into the enclosure. One liked watching the otters chase each other under the water. Emma said she liked the sea turtles and noticed that one had a crack in its shell, which she guessed is why it could no longer live in the ocean.
I looked toward the one student who hadn’t shared. She was busy peeling her orange. Our eyes briefly met before she quickly looked back down again.
“What did you think?” I gently pressed.
“I’m not sure,” she murmured softly. She looked back down and resumed peeling her orange.
And then something beautiful happened.
One of the boys pointed at her orange and said, “I like how you are peeling that orange in one big long piece. That’s amazing.”
The girl looked up. Her face brightened.
She proudly held up the dangling orange peel, saying it wasn’t her longest continuous peel ever but it was still a pretty good one.
For the next few minutes, the students asked her questions about her orange and its peel with genuine curiosity. After each question was asked, they eagerly awaited her response.
Where did she get the orange? (The orange came from her backyard where her family has a grapefruit tree, two orange trees and one lemon tree. They used to have a lime tree, but it turned brown and so her dad dug it up. There is still a little hole where the tree used to be. Last week she buried a few orange seeds into the hole, but nothing has grown yet).
Does she bring an orange every day for lunch? (Yes, but sometimes, when there aren’t any oranges on their trees, she brings ones from the grocery store. The ones from the store never taste quite as good).
What does she think about the white part of the orange? (She doesn’t like it because it tastes bitter).
I sat back and watched as this sweet group of children rallied around this little girl, connecting and supporting her by focusing on what she was interested in talking about.
It was the kindest kind of curiosity—showing her that what mattered to her mattered to them.
Taking a sincere interest in what holds significance for others is one of the nicest things we can do.