Classroom Curiosity: The Power of "What If?"
Using curiosity to transform teaching when familiar tools disappear
Imagine walking into your classroom tomorrow and discovering that books never existed: no textbooks on desks, no novels in your classroom library, no reference guides in your cabinet.
How would you teach your lesson? How would your students learn? Where would knowledge and stories live?
This isn't just a quirky thought experiment; it's a doorway to making your teaching practice meaningfully better through the power of curiosity.
As the author of The Book of What If...? and creator of Curiosity-Based Thinking (CBT), I've witnessed how questions like "What if books never existed?" can transform ordinary classroom days into extraordinary opportunities for growth, engagement, and teacher satisfaction.
The beauty of Curiosity-Based Thinking lies in its classroom-friendly simplicity: it harnesses natural wonder through four intuitive steps that turn "What if...?" into "What now?"
Why Teachers Need Curiosity Now More Than Ever
When standardized testing, curriculum mandates, and digital distractions compete for attention as they too often do in today’s schools, curiosity offers teachers a powerful antidote to burnout and student disengagement.
When we explore questions like "What if books never existed?" with our students, something remarkable happens: we all start seeing the familiar with fresh eyes. Those everyday classroom tools we take for granted suddenly reveal themselves as revolutionary, sparking discussions that breathe new life into curriculum standards.
The four steps of CBT create a natural flow from wonder to meaningful classroom action:
Spark Curiosity: Begin with a provocative question that makes minds tingle with possibilities
Explore and Discover: Investigate the question through research, conversation, or experimentation
Reframe Understanding: Connect discoveries to curriculum and reshape thinking
Create Something New: Transform insights into student-led action or creation
Through this lens, "What if books never existed?" becomes way more than an interesting hypothetical.
Now, this curiosity is a catalyst for reimagining how we teach, assess learning, and connect with our students every day.
Three Classroom Revelations from a Bookless World
Before getting to the Curiosity-Based Thinking activities, let's explore three revelations that emerge when we engage our curiosity about a world without books and how they can address common teaching challenges:
1. Alternative Learning Paths Emerge
The Challenge: Reaching diverse learners within standardized curriculum constraints
Without books, we'd rely on different channels for learning such as, oral traditions, apprenticeships, visual arts, and communal storytelling would take center stage. This insight reminds us that knowledge flows through many streams, not just the printed page.
Classroom Impact: This perspective encourages differentiated instruction naturally, validating multiple learning styles while still addressing curriculum standards.
When a 7th-grade science teacher in Missouri explored this question with her students, she discovered that her "struggling readers" became classroom leaders when demonstrating concepts through visual modeling and oral explanation.
2. Absence Illuminates Value
The Challenge: Creating genuine appreciation for learning in an age of information overload
Imagining the absence of books highlights their extraordinary impact: they democratize learning, preserve voices across time, and allow ideas to travel beyond their creators.
Classroom Impact: This appreciation, born from curiosity, transforms how students approach text. Rather than seeing reading as a mundane assignment, students can start to see what a remarkable privilege reading can be.
A high school English teacher reported that after exploring this question, her students' engagement with assigned reading increased dramatically: "They stopped seeing books as homework and started seeing them as time machines."
3. Community Becomes Essential
The Challenge: Building meaningful classroom connections in our increasingly isolated digital age
In a bookless world, knowledge preservation would depend heavily on community, like elders passing down stories or groups creating shared memories through art and ritual.
Classroom Impact: This revelation shows how curiosity naturally brings students together, creating opportunities for collaborative learning that develops both academic and social-emotional skills.
An elementary teacher noted: "When we explored how knowledge would be shared without books, my students naturally organized themselves into knowledge-sharing teams. They were the most organic group work I've ever witnessed."
These insights aren't just interesting thoughts, they're launchpads for classroom practices that can make today's teaching more effective and fulfilling than it was destined to be.
Three Ready-to-Use Activities to Transform Your Classroom Through Curiosity
Ready to put Curiosity-Based Thinking into action? Here are three classroom-tested activities inspired by "What if books never existed?" that you can implement immediately:
1. The Bookless Hour Challenge (Do This Today)
What to Do: Designate a 60-minute "bookless learning period" where students cannot use any text—no books, handouts, or written words of any kind. Challenge them to learn, communicate, or solve problems using only verbal, visual, or kinesthetic approaches.
Grade-Level Adaptations:
Elementary: Have students retell favorite stories using only pictures or act out math concepts physically
Middle School: Task students with explaining a scientific process through only gestures, sounds, and models
High School: Challenge students to debate a historical or ethical issue using only spoken arguments, supported by visual evidence
Standards Connection: While seemingly unconventional, this activity addresses core standards in communication, critical thinking, and content mastery while developing cognitive flexibility.
Teacher Benefit: This temporary constraint lets you observe how students process information when typical approaches are unavailable, revealing strengths that might otherwise remain hidden.
One teacher shared: "I discovered three students who clearly understood the material but struggled with writing. This gave me new ways to reach them."
2. Knowledge Keepers Circle (Implement This Week)
What to Do: Transform a unit review or introduction into an oral tradition exercise where students become "Knowledge Keepers" responsible for preserving and transmitting important concepts without writing them down.
Facilitation Guide:
Assign each student or small group a key concept from your curriculum
Give them time to prepare a memorable way to share this knowledge orally (stories, songs, mnemonic devices)
Form a circle where each Knowledge Keeper shares their concept
Follow with reflection: "How might this knowledge be preserved over generations without text?"
Subject Applications:
Science: Turning the water cycle into a repeatable story with physical movements
Math: Creating rhythmic patterns that demonstrate number sequences
Social Studies: Developing character voices to represent historical perspectives
Language Arts: Crafting metaphors and analogies that capture literary themes
Teacher Benefit: This activity transforms review from passive repetition into active creation, reigniting your own interest in familiar material while watching students engage with content on a deeper level.
3. Visual Knowledge Transmission (Develop This Month)
What to Do: Challenge students to develop a non-text-based system for preserving and sharing knowledge about your current unit. This could become a month-long side project with weekly check-ins.
Implementation Steps:
Pose the essential question: "How would you ensure this knowledge survives without books?"
Have students develop symbols, images, or artifacts that convey key concepts
Create a gallery where students must interpret each other's visual knowledge systems
Connect to curricular studies of historical communication systems (hieroglyphics, quipus, etc.)
Assessment Opportunities: This project naturally generates both formative and summative assessment artifacts, demonstrating content mastery through novel application rather than conventional testing.
Teacher Benefit: This activity often produces stunning creative work that reminds you why you became a teacher: to witness the unique ways students process and express understanding. These visual artifacts also make compelling displays for parent nights or administrator visits.
The Curious Teacher: Renewing Your Professional Practice
The transformative power of questions like "What if books never existed?" extends beyond student engagement to teacher well-being. Teachers who implement Curiosity-Based Thinking report three significant professional benefits:
Renewed Subject Passion: Seeing familiar content through your students' curious explorations reignites your own fascination with your subject matter
Instructional Creativity: The constraints of curiosity questions push you beyond comfortable teaching routines, developing your professional creativity
Authentic Assessment Insights: Observing how students approach knowledge differently reveals understanding (or misconceptions) that traditional assessments might miss
As one veteran teacher put it:
"After 22 years in the classroom, I was going through the motions. Curiosity-Based Thinking didn't just engage my students, it engaged me again."
Start Your Curiosity Journey Tomorrow
Curiosity-Based Thinking doesn't require special equipment, extensive training, or precious prep time. It simply asks you to invite wonder into your existing curriculum through good questions and the courage to explore them.
I invite you to try just one of these activities this week. Notice how it shifts your teaching experience, opens unexpected learning pathways, or brings moments of classroom delight that remind you why you chose this profession.
Remember: curiosity isn't just about asking "What if...?"—it's about discovering "What's possible in my classroom right now?"
What will your curiosity help you and your students discover tomorrow?
Thank you for your curiosity and let me know how I can help you spread the curiosity!
Stay curious!
Matt
Matthew Murrie is the author of The Book of What If...? and founder of What If? Curiosity, an organization dedicated to transforming education through curiosity. He works with schools around the world to implement Curiosity-Based Thinking into curriculum and professional development.