Children have an innate curiosity that often surprises us in the most unexpected ways. As a parent, I’ve grown accustomed to my second grader working on basic addition and subtraction, but I never expected her to take an interest in advanced calculus—until a couple days ago.
While I was working on some math, a page filled with complex derivative calculations was left on the table. It contained the steps for finding the second derivative of y = e^(x²) - 11. To my surprise, my daughter picked up the page, studied it with genuine curiosity, and asked me about it. She didn’t understand the math, of course, but something about the symbols and structure intrigued her.
What happened next was even more interesting—she carefully tucked the page into her backpack, eager to show it to her friends and teacher at school. She was fascinated by the fact that numbers could do more than just add and subtract, and she wanted to share that excitement.
This small moment made me reflect on how children’s natural curiosity should be nurtured rather than dismissed. Even though she’s far from solving derivatives, her interest in something so advanced made me realize that exposure to higher-level concepts at a young age can spark a love for learning.
Who knows? Maybe this small moment will be the first step toward a future in STEM, mathematics, or science. Sometimes, all it takes is a spark of curiosity to open a world of possibilities.
