If you want to achieve, you need to be curious.
Curiosity leads to finding unanswered questions. Exploring those questions leads to discoveries, as well as more questions to explore.
Explore enough, and you find a way to help the world get a little better (and be successful while enjoying your work).
So why are so many of my students so uncurious?
Curiosity is a muscle to be strengthened, like any other. And 21st-century life seems intent on finding ways to keep us from exercising that muscle.
That means it’s up to us. As educators, in every situation we have to model curiosity. We have to reward curiosity. We have to demand curiosity. And we have to sell our students on the value of curiosity.
Will curiosity improve your SAT score? Probably not directly. But almost definitely it will, at least in the long run. And even if it doesn’t, it’ll improve your life after SATs.