Flow

I recently read about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He is a college professor at Claremont Graduate University.  He came to America when he was 22 after living through the horrors of losing his childhood home during World War II. He has written many books about creativity, engagement, interest, and quality of life.

He once said: “If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.”

This sounds like something I have told my students for years.  There is a cure for boredom. The cure is curiosity; however, there is no cure for curiosity.  So become curious about the things required for school. The more you learn, the more you want to know; and the more you know, the more you will realize you have much more to learn.  Curiosity creates a spiral of engagement, interest, and creativity.  How cool it that?

You might find Csikszentmihalyi an interesting person to study.  I hope you will look at his books and some of his quotes.

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