On Curiosity and Courage

There’s a question I have been carrying with me throughout the summer and into the start of this school year: What does it mean to be truly driven from within? I feel the answer to that lies in cultivating intrinsic motivation and intellectual risk-taking, and this fervor for finding that which genuinely drives you stems from my own experiences as a student. In reflecting on my own journey through school, I have come to better understand how curiosity and courage truly intertwine to create authentic learning.

My high school experience was in a public high school in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where I was taught the difference between learning for others and learning for oneself. I encountered teachers who diminished, rather than encouraged, my curiosity. There was the Latin teacher whose unapologetic misogyny turned me confidently away from classical languages. And the chemistry teacher who made me feel like a “dumb blonde” because my math placement didn’t align with my science aptitude, missing entirely that I was learning as much from exchanging knowledge with classmates as I was from her lectures. 

As a good student, I was largely left alone—no mentoring, no one pushing me to dig deeper into my potential. And yet, despite these experiences, my love of learning never dimmed. In fact, it grew stronger because it became deeply personal. Learning wasn’t “cool” in my high school, but I couldn't help myself. Curiosity is simply part of who I am.

That experience of having to find my own path taught me what was missing: a community that celebrates authentic intellectual passion and gives every student the mentoring and encouragement I was hungry to get.

This is precisely what I intentionally work everyday to build and maintain at Marlborough. Walk through the halls and you will see students pursuing independent research not because it is required, but because they are genuinely fascinated by finding answers to the questions that keep them up at night. Elle Dershewitz ’25 came to mind as soon as I wrote that. Dr. Alice Siu from Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab came to speak during an All-School Meeting in October of 2024. Elle was so interested in the idea of talking across difference that she dedicated her entire Honors Research Project to it. And, after graduating, she organized a political mixer with our students and Loyola students, using the deliberative democracy framework to facilitate meaningful conversations about immigration reform. All of this because one idea captured her imagination and our fabulous faculty who recognized her passion and helped her turn curiosity into action. 

We celebrate the student who takes one, two, maybe three drafts to settle on a thesis statement for her Honors English paper because she keeps discovering something that captivates her more deeply. We cheer for the student who asks the question that stumps even her teacher, because we know that is where real learning begins. We are constantly iterating and redesigning curricula and assessments to ensure that we are rewarding process and growth, not just final products, because we understand that intrinsic motivation flourishes when students feel ownership over their learning journey.

This is what sets Marlborough apart: every student gets to discover not just what they’re good at, but what genuinely moves them. And they are surrounded by a community that says, “Yes! Pursue that! We will support you every step of the way.” When curiosity and courage become the norm, truly extraordinary things can happen.