#174: Is your school quietly killing curiosity? Carmel McGee on what it looks like for curiosity to thrive (and why this matters).

Joining me is Carmel McGee, a Tasmanian educator and certified lead teacher who has spent much of her career chasing one question: how do we actually create the conditions for curiosity to thrive? Carmel works at Riverside Primary School in Launceston, where she helps build classroom cultures where kids are curious, capable, and courageous. Her thinking has been shaped by some seriously impressive influences, including Project Zero at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and inquiry learning legends Kath Murdoch and Susan Engel. If you've ever wondered how we move students beyond just complying and into genuinely wanting to learn, this episode is for you.

We get into why curiosity isn't some lucky personality trait some kids are just born with, and why it's something we can either deliberately nurture or accidentally shut down without even realising it. Carmel doesn't hold back when I ask her what's quietly killing curiosity in schools right now, and her answer about systems measuring answers instead of valuing thinking is going to make you rethink a few things about your own classroom.

We also get really practical. What does a curious classroom actually look like? What is the teacher doing, and what are the students doing? Carmel breaks down why curious teachers create curious kids, why modelling "I don't know, let's find out together" matters more than we think, and why something as simple as not rushing to fill silence can completely change how your students engage.

And because I couldn't let her go without asking the big stuff, we dig into Carmel's brilliant question: are we measuring what we value, or valuing what we measure? If you've ever felt like the things that matter most in your classroom don't fit neatly into a spreadsheet, you are going to feel so seen by this conversation.

What you'll learn:

• Why curiosity isn't an inherent trait, and how it can be deliberately nurtured or accidentally shut down in the classroom
• What's quietly killing curiosity in schools right now, according to Carmel
• Why curious teachers create curious kids, and how modelling "I don't know, let's find out together" shifts classroom culture
• The danger of measuring what's easy to count instead of valuing what actually matters, like curiosity, belonging, and engagement
• Why wait time is one of the most underused, free tools available to every teacher
• Practical, explicit strategies to get more students contributing, including the "sticky note slam" and extended think-pair-share
• Why less than 5% of questions in most classrooms come from students themselves, and how to change that
• How Carmel approaches modelling a curious relationship with AI in the classroom, rather than ignoring it or banning it outright
• The one tiny shift Carmel would want every teacher to make tomorrow to bring curiosity front and centre

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi there, teachers. Welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. I'm your host, Claire English, and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama, and a big old behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour and classroom manage has left us playing crowd control, which is not something I subscribe to because we're not dancers, we're teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game-changing strategies, and I mean the things that we can actually do and action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm, and dare I say it a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello and welcome back to the Unteachables Podcast. I'm still here at EduTech in Booth, I think it's 1216.

Welcome And Classroom Management Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So if I've seen you there, hello, it was so nice to see you and meet you. Uh, right now I am joined by Carmel McGee, who is a Tasmanian educator and certified lead teacher who has dedicated much of her work to one fascinating question: how do we create the conditions for curiosity to thrive? At Riverside Primary School in Launceston, Carmel works with teachers and students to build cultures where learners are curious, capable, and courageous, which is pretty amazing in today's state. Um, her thinking has been influenced by work with Project Zero at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and some of the world's leading voices in inquiry learning, including Kath Murdoch and Susan Engel. If you've ever wondered how we can move beyond compliance and create classrooms where students genuinely want to learn, then you're going to love this conversation with Carmel. Carmel, welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. Thank

Meet Carmel And The Curiosity Question

SPEAKER_00 1:48

you so much for having me. That was one hell of an introduction. Not feeling intimidated at all. No, you've done amazing things, and I'm so, so happy to be able to talk to you because everything that you work for and stand for and are trying to achieve in schools is right up my alley, obviously. Um, and it's really inspiring to sit with somebody who has such, you know, those kind of passions. Yeah, thank you. Um before we dive into curiosity, innovation, and all of those things, I'd love to start with why you do the work you do. So, what kind of sparked your fascination with curiosity and the way people learn? And was there a particular moment that kind of shaped the work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Um, there was, actually. And I was a baby teacher, a fresh graduate, and it was my very first uh full day of professional learning. Uh, and it happened to be with Kath Modoc, so uh in Tasmania, um, you know, world leading voice in inquiry-based learning. And that day, I think probably left me with a couple of things. The first one was a language. Like I think as a new teacher, I uh was still developing that understanding of what my philosophy was, but I knew that teacher as instructor and knowledge giver was not what I thought teaching was all about. Uh, so I walked away from that uh with this idea of having an inquiry stance. Uh, and it just made complete sense to me. So kids being active participants in their learning and finding ways to create the conditions for them to build deep understanding, both

A First Breakthrough With Inquiry

SPEAKER_01 3:23

of content and the skills and dispositions that they need to be successful. Um, and I think alongside of that, that was it also lit a spark in me as well, like to be that learner myself and to have that curious stance myself, which I think is so important.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Um, so yeah, I guess that was the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I love it. Yeah, yeah, and like teaching as a profession that's reliant on curiosity, and you know, that's so important for us. And that spark, I think I would say the same thing about why I do what I do. Like you just have that spark for something, like you have that experience initially. Um, and I think that's beautiful, I think it's wonderful when you find your thing, your niche in teaching.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And so I think stumble across it so early as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, why curiosity? So, why is it such an important trait for students to develop, not just as learners, but as humans, particularly in the world that we're, you know, they're growing up in the world that we're living in right now. Why is curiosity so important?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Um, you know, many people much wiser than me note that curiosity is the fuel for learning. So the simplest way, that's the simplest way I can say it. And um, you mentioned Susan Engel before, and her work has shaped a lot of what I do as well. Um, and she puts it really plainly like when people are curious, they learn more and they learn better and it sticks for longer. Yeah. Um, rather than me deciding what you're going to learn about and how you're going to learn it, um, if there's that element of curiosity there. And I think you when you see that impact on the kids and you see the difference in the way that they engage, you can't not do it, you know? Yeah. Um, and I think, you know, beyond that, it also is that disposition of

Why Curiosity Matters Right Now

SPEAKER_01 5:07

staying open. Um, and especially now and in the world that we're in, like that idea of continuing to question, continuing to ask, continuing to wonder is really important, uh, especially when there's so much uncertainty. And I think it actually helps to navigate that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Um, and you know, kids are growing up in a world at the moment where they can get an answer to anything in three seconds, which is extraordinary, but it it also makes it more important for us that we're not teaching them, you know, how to find an answer. It's about the questions that they're asking and the quality of the questions that they're asking. Yeah. Um, and having that capacity to be able to interrogate what they see, what they hear, yeah, you know, what they're reading, yeah, uh is crucial, I think.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

So without curiosity or having that curious stance, yeah, yeah, and curiosity by nature is something that is really intrinsic. And if we can get students to be excited about what they're learning and like if they're motivated intrinsically to discover and find things out, and it's also a really high level skill.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Um, so that's the kind of stuff that students they need to navigate all of the things that are happening, and that's the kind of stuff that continues to drive their desire to want to find out more and to continue learning rather than oh, we've finished that now because the teacher's wrapped up, we've stopped talking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

No, I still want to know more and I still want to find out more. Yeah. And I look forward to talking about some like how it looks in the classroom practical things. Skipping ahead. But I want to just keep digging into curiosity a little bit more because you speak about curiosity as something that isn't just an inherent personality trait that some students or people are lucky enough to have, which is really, really good because I've seen a lot of students in my time who appear on the outside to just not want to be, you know, active participants in their learning or to ask questions or to seek different answers. It's something that we can deliberately nurture or accidentally shut down, which I found really interesting reading your work. What do you think is happening in schools at the moment that is quietly killing curiosity? How long do you have? As long as you need.

The Quiet Ways Schools Shut It Down

SPEAKER_01 9:56

You know, by a system that wants to measure answers more than it does value curiosity or thinking.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

As you were talking, I was thinking back to myself early on in my career, and I would always feel really guilty for my year eights were really good at like getting me off track. Yeah. And like, you know, getting me on tangents. But actually, like thinking back, how beautiful to spark an interest in a topic. I'm an English teacher, right? And like conceptually, things are interesting. Like I teach through concepts. So, like, you know, they thought about things and asking questions, and it went off all these different tangents, and you're made to feel almost like you've done something wrong. Because you've now spent 45 minutes of a 75-minute lesson when they have to do exams and they have to do this and they have to perform, they should be writing, they should be producing something physical. You now feel guilty because you spend that lesson on something that actually was genuinely enjoyable for every single student in the room, where they might not feel joy from other parts.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yes, and it's probably genuinely stuck with them as well. Yeah. And that's the learning that they're going to remember.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah. Because they had a little part in it. Yeah. But as you said, like it's just really hard because it's like the time and like the goals. Like, I feel like the whole system then is geared towards us not having the space and capacity for like really true curiosity to thrive.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

That's it. And you, you know, think about the way that a school day is structured, and it's all based around efficiency and moving from A to B at a certain time and completing things by a certain time. Yeah. Um, and you know, we can't change the way everything is structured overnight, but you can change that five or ten minutes in the classroom that makes those students and their ideas feel valued and feel listened to and feel yeah, you know, yeah, little steps.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

No, I love that. I think even just seeing it through that lens is gonna be really like powerful for teachers listening. Yeah, oh wow, like actually when I do have those moments, like maybe I just need to lean into them a little bit more, you know, maybe it's important. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Rather than worrying if your principal's gonna walk past and go, why aren't you doing this? You know. Um, so let's make this practical with what curiosity actually looks like. And I guess we've touched on it already, like, you know, students actually like questioning and asking, and but day to day in the classroom, if I walked into a classroom tomorrow and it was bursting with curiosity and wonder and all of those things that we would love to see from our students, what would I actually see students doing and what would the teacher be what would the teacher be doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, um, I might start with the teacher uh because it rem uh reminds me of Ron Richard's work out of Project Zero. He talks about um, you know, curious teachers make curious kids and that the students in the classroom are mirroring the thinking culture of their teacher. So if they're not seeing curiosity modelled or thinking out loud and modelled, um then it's not going to become a part of their classroom culture. Yeah. So as a teacher, um, like it can be pretty straightforward. It's that idea of saying out loud, actually I don't know, but let's find out together. Yes.

What Curiosity Looks Like Daily

SPEAKER_01 13:09

And this is how we're going to do that. Yes. You know, or um, like we just talked about, being genuine, genuinely interested in the kids' questions, not in a performative, you know, I think I myself included have been guilty of chucking questions up onto a wonder wall and then they sit there and they look pretty, but I haven't gone back to them. Yeah. So actually genuinely working with kids' questions and sharing your own wonderings and highlighting when uh you're wrong or you feel like you've made a mistake or and saying it out loud and just talk sounds a bit funny, feels a bit funny, but just talking your thinking out loud with the kids, yeah, and especially at the moment, I think modeling that curious relationship with AI as well. Yeah. So um, you know, maybe not so much for early childhood kids who aren't exposed to that type of thing, but definitely in upper primary for us. I'm a primary school teacher, but um acknowledging when you might have used it and why, or um actively interrogating it with the kids, like this is the ends that AI has given us.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

What do we think's missing? You know, what might we have found out if we did it differently? Like just modeling that curious relationship, I think, is really important. Yeah. Um, and I think for the kids, uh, you know, if you I'm trying to think about some of the classrooms that I know that have that curiosity thriving. And when you go in, you're hearing their questions more than you are the teachers. You know, I think there's some research that says um less than 5% of questions asked in most classrooms come from the kids themselves. So you're hearing more questions from the kids. Um, and you know, hopefully you're seeing that productive struggle and you're seeing them being comfortable with not knowing sometimes, but knowing and having strategies to help themselves out in those situations. Um, you know, we do a lot of work um with cats learning assets at our schools so kids understanding that uh they're building their capacities as thinkers and as communicators and as collaborators at the same time as learning whatever the content is that I'm learning. Um and things like um, you know, in class discussions, building onto each other's ideas, like, oh, I'd really like to build onto what you just said and having those dialogical prompts handy. Yeah. Um, and I think there's just you can sense it, right? There's like a hum. It might be a little bit messy, yeah, and it might not feel um, you know, it's not very quiet often, and that's okay. Sometimes it is. Yeah. Um, but it is just that productive hum and kids talking to each other about their learning um rather than finding any way they possibly can to switch off and do something different, you know. Um and it's yeah, it's beautiful when you see it.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, I love the the phrase productive struggle.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah. I love it. I don't think it's mine, but I can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

I mean, all comes out in the watching education, doesn't it? Um productive struggle, productive harm, because learning isn't necessarily quiet. Yeah. Sometimes we do need space for quiet. However, like real learning is loud. Like um, yeah, no, I love that. So one thing that you have said that really made me stop and think was are we measuring what we value or valuing what we measure? When I read that, I was like, oh wow, okay, like I really want to unpack that with you because I think we spoke about it before, like when schools aren't really fostering like that true curiosity or that, you know, like real investment from students. We are pretty much putting them in a room and saying, like, what is the answer to this? So can you unpack that a little bit more for me?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

I mean, I feel like it's um it's a question that you never really get to the end of, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, and it sort of sparked for me. I had an opportunity to go and do some study overseas last year, and it was a repetitive conversation that I that was coming up everywhere. Um, and I think as we've talked about, you know, we're really good in education at measuring things that are

Measuring What We Value In Learning

SPEAKER_01 17:33

easy to count. So attendance, test scores, uh, completion, achievement data, all of that sort of stuff. Um, but it's this idea of what happens when we pay close attention to the things that we know as educators are really important, you know, curiosity, belonging, um, engagement, whether kids actually see themselves as capable learners, you know. Um and it's a dangerous trap, I think, because if we start valuing something simply because we measure it, then that creeps in and that's what starts shaping our decisions, and it what's it's what starts um you know forming the priorities and ultimately shifting the culture of your school. Um and so I think if we're not careful, we kind of quietly narrow down um learning to whatever fits in a spreadsheet, which especially today when uh so much of what these kids are going to be doing when they leave us is outside of that. Um, you know, we're doing a real disservice, I think. Yeah. Um and there's some great stuff coming out of Melbourne Uni, like Melbourne Metrics. They're doing some incredible work with um, you know, developing tools for schools to be able to measure these types of things. So there's some beautiful movement. Um and so it's not that measurement isn't important, we know that it is, yeah, but it's just that idea of um how can we measure those different things and how can we help kids to see, you know, the kids that um might often get the report that sits down at the other end, but are incredible communicators of their thinking, maybe they just can't write it down. Yeah, how do we change things a little bit so they feel seen and they feel valued and they, you know, get that sense of achievement as well?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

I think that really then puts the shift back onto like trusting teachers in their own like day-to-day assessment of students. And I think that like there's a bit of fear around that because it's really subjective, and what one teacher's perspective of a student and their like thinking and their learning would be different to another's. And I think there needs to be more trust given to educators around like what they're doing in the classroom and how they're like measuring things and more trust and I would say more collaboration, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

So more opportunities for teams to work together, yeah, and to unpack those different, you know, and more formative assessment, yeah, less of this summative end of the road. Yeah, have you managed to retain all of this information? Yeah, but more how is your thinking changed over time and how has it grown over time? And I think that can be really hard to do in isolation. So having those opportunities to work with colleagues and be those critical friends to each other makes that more important as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, I love that. And I think because of AI and technology and all of the things that are, you know, kind of emerging, it becomes more important than ever to assess the process and the thinking around things rather than the final product. Yeah. Because how can you tell, you know, as an English teacher, students would hand in an essay. How do we know for sure that you know a kid that's a pretty good writer could do that on AI and then make it sound like their own work? And it there needs to be more of an a push to yeah, assess that process and how they're learning and what they're learning.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, and it's that whole idea, I think, of you know, making thinking visible. Yeah. Um, and so any way that we can do that um with kids in their own learning means that you can get to that point. And you're right, you could have two essays, one that used AI and one that didn't, but you don't know. But if you have the process and you can see their thinking and how it's growing, then you know it removes that um danger, I guess, of not knowing at the end.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, can't kind of weasel through that. Exactly. Oh gosh, like teachers have so much to navigate, yeah, don't we? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh so one last kind of final takeaway that I like to give people at the end of my podcast episodes. If Every teacher out there listening was got going to make just a little tiny shift in their classroom tomorrow to nurture that curiosity. You spoke of you know some pretty tangible things before about the language we're using and all of that kind of stuff. What's like one thing that you could get every teacher if you could press a button and get them to do it in their classrooms tomorrow to make curiosity more like front and center? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

And uh there was when I was thinking about this question, obviously there are so many things, but I actually think um maybe, and maybe it's just because it's sitting in front of my mind at the moment, but it's it's the time and the not filling the gap so fast. And so I think um, you know, when we ask a question, or even better, when one of the kids asks a question, um, there's that little gap before answers to, and you can see it in kids' faces, you know, like yes, there's always the two or three kids that are, oh, yep, I've got

The Small Shift That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_01 22:56

it. Um, but I think we're so uncomfortable with just that little bit of awkward wait time because it can feel awkward sometimes, and we rush to fill it. Um, you know, we answer our own question or we jump to the kid who's got their hand up first, or we give them the answer because time. Um so I think it would just be, you know, to leave a gap and to sit in it and to be a little bit uncomfortable, or to say, actually, I don't know, what do you think? You know, and invite the kids into the conversation. Um, and what I love about those little moves is you know, it's not costing you anything. It's not a program, it's not, it's literally just, I'm gonna give you a little bit more time to do the thinking. Yeah. And building that capacity in kids, I think, uh, is even more important now because hopefully something generates an answer for them and they stop to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Rather than taking it as possible and moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah, and I guess if we're thinking about like a win for a teacher, would be a student that doesn't usually share might share. Or, you know, they go deeper on an answer. There I've been doing a lot of work around that actually. Like the three kids have put their hand up and then the rest are quiet. So I've been thinking about like explicit strategies that teachers can use that will foster more discussion. So things like sticky note slam. So, like, you know, every single one of you, like write one word and then pop it up on the board. Or that's why I've been sticky notes today on the on the wall out there because I like, you know, some something really visual, or like on your page, write down one word and then flip it, and then all of a sudden you're getting everybody contributing, and then you can kind of springboard off that into discussions because I read this article and it was like the average wait fight time for a teacher is three seconds, when actually, when you're getting those hands up, you're only getting answers from the students who have the skills to answer quickly, have can access that immediately or are confident, and we just all think differently. So some students really just need might have some brilliant ideas, but just need to sit with it for a little bit longer. Yeah, and it is uncomfortable. It is. You want to fill the silence. My like MO is just filling every single silence that I possibly can because I'm so awkward. So if we

Simple Routines That Invite Every Voice

SPEAKER_00 25:17

can just step back and be really clear with the students, in I'm actually going to give you 10 more seconds, I'm gonna put like a little timer on, or you know, um, even that can start to shift things. It's it's the classic think pair share, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah. Like the um I run a bit of a special assessment at our school called the Curiosity Lab, and deliberately I say to the kids, right, we're doing think pair share, but you're gonna think for 60 seconds. And a minute is a long time when you're in grade four, you know. Um they're getting better at it though, which is great. And then they when they turn to talk to their partner, you know, they've got a certain amount of time, and their challenge is to stay on topic the whole time and to build on each other's ideas. So the more explicit we are with those types of routines, the more they're going to have the confidence. And suddenly instead of the three people that you would usually have, you've spent two extra minutes and you've got 26 ideas.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

I love it, you know. Yeah, and as you were saying before, it's not curious, it's not something that we're born with, it's not like this inherent skill. It sounds like you're developing those skills with your young people and that it's working and you're seeing an impact of that, which is beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, well, interestingly, yeah, like Susan Engel's research. We know that babies are born curious. You just said before you've got a three-year-old. I don't know how many questions do you get asked a day, right? Um, but she spent so much hours upon hours in elementary schools um looking for you know what teachers were doing to make curious classrooms, but she didn't find it because it was as though they come into school in kindergarten. And I was in our kindergarten class just yesterday looking at pre-mentises and having coffees made for me. You know, these kids are bursting with curiosity, but something shifts by the time they get to sort of mid-primary. Um, and so Eddie, I think we've got a um, you know, a responsibility to keep their childhood alive and to keep their curiosity thriving.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, foster that curiosity. I have had such a great time chatting to you, Carl, honestly. Um I will pop any links to any

Protecting Childhood Wonder In School

SPEAKER_00 27:25

of your work or anything that you do if someone wants to learn more about you and the work that you're doing. Even the things that you mentioned, you know, about the project you're working on. I'd love to kind of just link people to where they can find more about that. Um, but it sounds like you're doing amazing work, and I know people are gonna get so much from this conversation. And it was a pleasure meeting you. Yeah, you do. And best of luck for your keynote today. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for coming on to the Unteachables Podcast. Thanks.