The Joy of Encouraging Active Minds

Carl Sagan once said, “Bright, curious children are a national and world resource. They need to be cared for, cherished, and encouraged.”

Carl Sagan once said, “Bright, curious children are a national and world resource. They need to be cared for, cherished, and encouraged.” Sadly, in today’s culture of conformity and one-size-fits-all public education, they rarely are. Countless young people lose their childhood curiosity as their peers belittle their “nerdy” interests while most schooling—focused on rote memorization and socialization rather than knowledge and understanding—ruins their passion for learning. 

Fortunately, a resilient few hold onto their inner spark of curiosity. In spite of great pressure to the contrary, they activate their minds, looking at the world with the joy of expectant discovery. Their passion for learning is contagious, and few things are as rewarding and fulfilling as feeding such hungry minds with new information, insights, and opportunities.

I recently had this pleasure at the Active Minds conference in Atlanta, Georgia, organized by the Foundation for Economic Education and the Prometheus Foundation. There, I met upwards of fifty bright young minds supplementing their high school and college educations. Some were local, some had come from across the United States, and still more had come from as far as Argentina, Syria, and even Nepal. All had come in search of a rare thing in any country—a place where active-minded curiosity is welcomed, respected, and encouraged.

The conference presented these passionate teenagers with a feast of topics few get to learn about in school, from economics to moral philosophy to the beauty of flexible career paths. Rarer still, the speakers were passionate about their subjects and reveled in the opportunity to delve into them almost as much as the students. 

For my part, I got to speak on one of my favorite areas of interest since childhood—space exploration—and the audience loved it. I was swamped for the rest of the event by young people (and some adults) who wanted to dig deeper into the subject with me, or just to tell me how much my presentation fascinated and motivated them. The whole experience was a win-win trade for the students and me: They got to explore a new topic, and I got to indulge in one of my lifelong passions.

I also had the fascinating opportunity to lead the students in a Socratic discussion session about political theory. This was an intellectual challenge for everyone involved, because Socratic discussions consist of questions designed to provoke thought in the other person. You can’t merely state your opinion—you have to think of a searching question. This requires you to think about your ideas in much greater depth, encourages your audience to question their implicit assumptions, and gives them the self-esteem boost of figuring out the right answers for themselves.

Curiosity is all about asking questions. If you want to encourage active-mindedness in others, push them to ask questions about the world, themselves, and their ideas. When they ask “why” about something, don’t brush it off; answer if you can, or if you can’t, learn the answer with them. It may take extra effort, but the knowledge that you’ve helped someone think and grow will be more than worth it in the long run.

Many of the Active Minds attendees are staying in Atlanta for Objective Standard Institute’s LevelUp 2024 conference, where they will learn about a host of other topics, from the history of philosophy to personal health. I, along with my wife Angel, will speak there about the value of approaching romantic relationships as a form of win-win trade. 

Events such as Active Minds and LevelUp are vital for giving bright young people a welcoming space in which to indulge their curiosity. Such a mindset really is a “world resource,” and, more importantly, the key to individual flourishing. If that’s something that appeals to you, subscribe to this newsletter for updates about my upcoming speaking events, and keep an eye on Objective Standard Institute’s upcoming events for future LevelUp conferences in America and Europe.