Meaning Making
Question: How do we teach curiosity?
We perceive the world both as an individual and also as part of a whole – as what we do in the context of others. We explore our world, we think about it, process it, and form concepts and ideas from our experiences. It might be what we call thinking. Sometimes thinking manifests itself as an internal dialogue (dialogicality) , other times we do this thinking out loud with other people. We are social beings who are dependent upon the knowledge, concepts, and arguments from other people to help form our own concepts.
As we have interactions and experiences in the world, we form social stories that make up the stories of our lives. These stories give us a time and place in the world. They offer context to our life and provide a sense of self. We then use artifacts to record our stories, e.g., pictures, video clips, and written journals. These artifacts provide us with some sense of permanence to our experiences. They provide a form for reminiscing with others. They provide permanence to our experiences and a static context to our oral stories.
Because people are social beings we need a way to share their stories, to record our version of the world and offer our experiences to others. All of this points to a need for a common language. A language produced under social circumstances, with other people.

“We cannot teach concepts through discrete lessons, but we can offer children experiences to help them develop concepts.”
Barbara Miles