At coffee this morning with a friend and my daughter, Mel said: "curiosity inspires learning."

We had been talking about the importance of curiosity in a child's development and the role that teachers, parents and adults can play in awakening curiosity in the young. We agreed that there can be surprising value in pursuing a distraction—which is often an expression of curiosity—rather than shutting it down. The things that make us curious are often the things that we become interested in, and the things that we become interested in are often the things that we become passion ate about.

The conversation reminded me of a blog post that a former colleague had written many years ago. In We Are All Teachers, Sylvie Lapointe identified three stages of learning:

To excel at something, we must first demonstrate curiosity and an openness to learning about a given subject. In our youth, we may explore many interests, picking them up like pebbles on a beach, turning them over, then setting some down while keeping others. We learn best when we have curiosity or when the person teaching us is passionate about the subject.

From among the many subjects we're exposed to, we often pick one or two that we willingly invest time in, becoming masters in the process. For me, one such subject was the BlackBerry, which was my first smartphone. I was fascinated by its potential to enhance my productivity. I read all the Help notes for the device, explored every feature, and used it for a wide range of activities.

When colleagues dubbed me the BlackBerry Goddess, I had reached the Mysticism stage. My coworkers would ask me all sorts of questions about the device. When I knew the answer, I would provide it, and when I didn't, I would search for the solution to their problem and, now, mine. This benefited not only the asker but me as well. I learned more and more about the smartphone, even writing a series of blog posts providing BlackBerry tips.

Sylvie described this virtuous cycle in her post:

Mastery then transcends into Mysticism through the act of teaching and mentoring. When one has achieved mastery in an area, others will seek them out as teachers. When we are asked to teach others we delve even deeper into our field of expertise and as a result we become even more skilled and knowledgeable.

Several times a week, I look for tips and tools to help me better explain concepts to the 5th grade student I'm tutoring. I'm incredibly curious about better ways to teach. In the process, I'm learning. As Maxime Lagacé said, "Curiosity and questions will get you further than confidence and answers."