If there’s one man who knows the value of following your curiosity and intuition it’s Apple’s Steve Jobs. Jobs is in the news again with the announcement yesterday of his new position as chairman of the board for Apple. Check out the great chart the New York Times created showing how Jobs has put his curiosity and intuition to good use creating everything from personal computers to the iPod to the iPhone and more. Over the course of his career, Steve Jobs has patented more than 300 groundbreaking products that have made our lives easier and revolutionized the way we interact in the world. As Jobs said in his commencement speech to Stanford, “Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later.”

Art Speaks. Join the Conversation.

Jennifer Poleon, Digital Communications Manager

I am a museum nerd. I work at an art museum and I love museums of all kinds – art museums (of course), history museums, house museums, science museums and on and on. Whenever I travel I search them out… and sometimes they find me. Over the past week I travelled to Boston for a wedding and much to my elation the wedding took place at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum, a cool little car museum. During the trip I made the time to go to three museums and found myself getting excited each time I saw a road sign, map marker, or billboard advertising another museum on my journey. It was when I found myself swooning over a billboard for a Zippo museum that: 1) I realized I need to get this museum fascination thing under control and 2) I began wondering exactly what is it that makes my heart skip a beat whenever I see a museum.

Then I had my aha moment. It’s curiosity. Museums not only allow me to explore my existing curiosities (such as art museums), they also allow me to build new curiosities and discover things about the world that I may otherwise never be interested in or exposed to (did you know there was a car built in 1906 that included a drawing room and a toilet?)

The capability of museums to spark our imaginations, new interests, questions and curiosities is not only exciting but essential. Tony Wagner author of The Global Achievement Gap, lists curiosity as one of the Seven Survival Skills for today’s students. Wagner states that employees “have to be new and improved knowledge workers—those who can think in disciplined ways but also those who have a burning curiosity, a lively imagination, and can engage others empathetically. Clay Parker, the president of the Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards states “I want people who can think—they’re not just bright, they’re also inquisitive. Are they engaged, are they interested in the world?”

Regardless of whether it is at an art museum, science center or your local historical society get out there, go to a museum and be curious.

Art Speaks. Join the Conversation.

-Jessimi Jones, Educator for Teacher and School Partnerships