“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker

This week I started my assembly with a piece of toast – not by eating it, but by asking the girls to consider what had needed to be discovered or invented in order to make it. The list that emerged was long, with one thing leading to another – how to grow and harvest wheat; how to grind wheat into flour; yeast and fermentation; oven to bake bread; knife to cut it with; metal to make knife; toaster; electricity etc etc.

Curiosity lies at the heart of our civilisation. It fires the imagination, and creativity. Without the discoveries and inventions arising from curiosity, one could argue that there would be no civilisation. Curiosity about water, fire, plants and animals, the sky, and everything around us, triggered early humans to produce the food they needed, find new ways of cooking it, as well as making materials and machines that enabled them to move objects, and defend themselves against attack or environmental change. The ability to select and develop crops, fruit, and domesticate animals were founded on curiosity about the diversity seen in nature, and then a realization this could be exploited by focused management. Curiosity is one of the greatest gifts evolution has given us as a species. It is part of what singles us out from other animals.