The central assumption underlying this project was that classroom activities and teachers’ interaction with children can be more or less ‘wonder-full’; they can be more or less hospitable to wonder, and more or less wonder-inviting and wonder-promoting.
12 November 2016
Furthermore, some activities and interactions may be more likely to promote inquisitive wonder, whereas others may rather promote contemplative wonder. In this project we developped a questionnaire for teachers (Wonder-full Education Questionnaire) to find out to what extent certain wonder-promoting features are present in or characteristic of education in their classroom, and of specific subjects and activities – features such as the defamiliarization of familiar things and the encouragement of imaginative exploration. Further input from teachers was elicited by including a section in which teachers were directly asked (through closed and open questions) to identify the subjects, activities, and experiences that they take to be most conducive to wonder.