Megan Murrow-January Blogpost

That feeling that you might get when someone asks you a personal question out of nowhere, or that was so unexpected it makes you pause, at best, turn bright red and feel incredibly uncomfortable at worst. THAT is invasive curiosity. It can be challenging to define using only words, but it’s one of those things that when it happens to you, you feel it in your body. It’s the insensitive hole-poking into the  shield that protects your dignity. In my classroom, I try to model positive curiosity by making more broad statements, or invitations, for students to share what they are ready to share. I might say something like, “You can tell me more (if you want)” or “I’m always here to listen if you want to share.” When students ask me questions, I might say with a smile “It’s personal.” Sometimes I explicitly teach what would be appropriate to ask. Sometimes I facilitate student-led conversations around this (and many other) topics. We come to a general understanding and all agree to uphold it. And of course, I use books to show examples. My most favorite way to do this is to have students act out different scenes from a book while the “audience” observes and shares what they notice.

I plan to create a sorting activity with visuals of diverse situations. The first time we do the activity, I will have already prepared some questions one might ask and have the students sort into three categories —positive curiosity, invasive curiosity, and not sure. I could use some situations that we found in the books we have read (Where are you from? The Suitcase). Then, we will discuss why each question is placed in a particular category and work together to make decisions about any unsure questions. **Before this activity, I will have explicitly taught definitions of positive curiosity, invasive curiosity, caring and constructive choices, personal behavior, social interactions, etc. We can do the activity multiple times, changing the situations, and even having students think of the questions they could ask or should not ask.