Curiosity is always thought to be a positive attitude and teachers usually encourage the students to ask questions in the process of learning. While in my experience of teaching, I find that curiosity does not always have a good effect.

In English, the word “biology” means the study of life. Biology shows how living things grow and change and respond to the outside world. There are various kinds of information about so many different kinds of living organisms that students usually show great curiosity when facing with the flourishing world of biology. Curiosity leads the students into the door of biology.

Biology studies almost anything about living things ranged from molecules to the whole earth. We teach something that we can see with our eyes. We also teach many things that belong to the micro-world, about which the students have little helpful experience or concept from daily life. Students tend to understand new information basing on what they have known. But what they have learned cannot always explain new information very well. In this situation, they always ask many questions to help them understand. It’s not a bad point to ask questions but we cannot give them the answers because they do not have enough basis information to understand the answers. The answers of their questions will lead to new puzzle. What the students need to do is to put down their curiosity and focus on the new information and accept it. It’s OK that something is still not clear. As they learn new things, they will definitely understand the questions sometime later.

In my experience of teaching, I came across this situation several times. The students kept on asking questions at the same time ignoring the new information I taught in the class. I was interrupted a lot and couldn’t finish the lessons. So I set the rule with my students that focus on the new information in class and ask questions after class. It works very well.

Zhu Yujie