Thinking Curious
We know that stories often serve to reveal truths that can impact our lives for good. Thinking Curious is the place where we unpack abstract ideas found wrapped up in stories to discover the enduring truths they illustrate about our human nature, common sense, living well and the pursuit of our purpose. Thinking Curious is brought to you by Purposed Pathways to Learning and hosted by cognitive development practitioner and critical thinking coach, Jessica Stearns.
Episodes
Who knew a conversation over a cup of coffee could percolate new ideas for a podcast? Stranger still, that the podcast would focus on fairy tales and short stories as sources for lessons in human nature, values, and virtues…
In this episode, we explore the importance of virtues in our lives and how cultivating them ca...
"... my fairy-tales were just as much for adults as for children, who only understood the ornamental trappings, but only as mature adults can they see and perceive the contents. That the naive was only one part of my fairy-tales, that humour was the actual zest in them" - Hans Christian Andersen’s journal entry from June 4, 1875
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The Little Red Hen is a fable with a moral that is helpful. However, the character of the Little Red Hen has been maligned and her story demoralized. In this episode, we are going to take a look at the author and her life, along with the moral and theme of this little fable, to see if we can set the record straight.
T...
Welcome to episode five of our short story series, continuing our analysis of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” In Part I, we focused on internal and external characteristics and the contrast of expected behaviors attributed to the little girl and the bears. Today, we’ll take a look...
Welcome to episode four of our short story series. In this episode, we begin Part I of our look at the seemingly simple story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” The story was first published anonymously as "The Story of the Three Bears" in an 1837 volume of Robert Southey’s writings called The Doctor. The story’s characters and plot morphed through the ye...
Welcome to episode three of our short story series. In this episode, we take a trip through the intense, gothic short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” by Edgar Allan Poe. Published posthumously in 1856, the story prompts us to ask, “have we given away our responsibility to think for ourselves?” Poe’s protagonist, an unnamed “young man”...
“Have you read a story when you were younger, and later, read it again, and discovered something more profound than what you had understood at first?” In this episode of Thinking Curious, I discuss my reflections after re-reading the 1837 Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” I’ll share my thoughts on Andersen’s clever use of imma...
Welcome to episode 1 of Thinking Curious. The Feast of Epiphany when we remember the gifts the Magi or Wisemen brought to the child Jesus marks the beginning of the season of Epiphanes. In the spirit of the season, our first episode features a discussion of the classic short story, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. First published in 1905, this treasured tale hides an often-overlooked ...
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