Nurturing curiosity and the instinct to seek solutions are perhaps the most important contributions education can make.
Paul Berg
Nobel Laureate, Chemistry, 1980
Nobel Laureate, Chemistry, 1980
During his high school, Prof. Paul was fortunate to meet, Sophie Wolfe, a stockroom supervisor for supplies in Chemistry, Physics and Biology classes. Please note that she was not a teacher. She wanted to become a scientist and her love for young people led her to start after-school science clubs. She, instead of answering the questions, encouraged students to find the answers themselves. Such answer-finding exercises often turned into small research projects for students which involved small-scale experimentation in her personal laboratory which she maintained and/or visiting library. Prof. Paul shared in his Nobel introduction webpage - during that period the satisfaction he derived from experimentally solving a problem was "a heady experience for him, almost addicting".