Curiosity: What Are They Actually Learning?

Today we’re exploring something that feels simple… but is actually deeply transformative: curiosity.

What does it really mean to be curious outdoors — not as a strategy, not as a checklist — but as a way of being?

In this episode, Lauren sits down with Dr. David Bryan, an educator and consultant with decades of experience across middle school, high school, university, and independent school leadership. He co-founded New Roads School and continues to work with schools and organizations exploring innovation, governance, and learning design.

But today’s conversation isn’t about titles. It’s about posture. Presence. Permission.

So many of us were trained to think of learning as delivering content:

• Clear outcomes
• Clear objectives
• Clear answers

But outdoors, learning doesn’t always resolve neatly.

Questions trail off.
 Interests shift.
 Students crouch down to investigate something and forget the “lesson.”

David speaks about how curiosity flourishes when we give explicit permission to slow down and follow what draws our attention — even briefly.

What does that permission actually look like in real classrooms?

Curiosity grows when teachers:

• Allow students to linger with an object, sound, or place without needing to name its purpose
• Frame outdoor time as “noticing time” rather than “lesson time”
• Name curiosity out loud: “I’m not sure what that is — I’m curious too.”

This shift may seem small, but it changes everything.

When students are being curious outdoors, they are learning:

• How to pay attention
• How to observe
• How to formulate meaningful questions
• Patience
• How to relate consciously to place
• The value of uncertainty
• What to do when they don’t know something
• What to do when they don’t know what to do

Of course, curricular content is present too.

But genuine curiosity often begins in a quieter place:

“Hmmm… I’m not sure.”

And that might be the most important place learning can begin.