Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

Jeff Ikler
  • 5.0 (32)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Curiosity sits at the intersection of creativity, effective human interactions, problem-solving and purposeful change. Unfortunately, the pace of life — at home, work, and school — often sidetracks our natural curiosity. So, let's see the familiar from a different angle or something new as a possibility to consider.

  1. 1d ago

    Making the History of the Blitz Come Alive for New Audiences

    Guest Jack Green has been fascinated by history since childhood. That lifelong interest has taken him on a journey across the UK and Europe, exploring places connected to 20th-century history. He is particularly drawn to locations where the past is still visible today, especially those that bear the scars and traces of the Blitz, a key part of British History during the Second World War. Summary The Blitz was a sustained strategic bombing campaign by Nazi Germany against the U.K. during World War II, lasting from September 7, 1940, to May 16, 1941. It was intended to break British morale. In this conversation, Jack Green explores the Blitz through the physical remnants still visible across London and other cities—from bomb-damaged churches and a surviving fireplace to air-raid shelters and memorials. Jack explains how he uses short-form social-media videos to bring these stories to younger audiences. His essential point is that history becomes more meaningful when we connect with the actual places and firsthand experiences of the people who lived through it. Links Tiktok - The Past Brought to Life Instagram - The Past Brought to Life The Blitz: The British Under Attack by Juliet Gardiner Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain by Joshua Levine     Referenced (images at https://www.queticocoaching.com/blog) St Dunstan in the East Church Garden St. Mary le Strand church Vincent Street fireplace in Westminster The Vincent Street Fireplace (click on this link)

  2. Sep 29

    What is Wolf Conservation Really About – Wolves or People?

    Guest Diane Boyd began working with wolves in Minnesota in 1976 and continues to do so today. She has authored more than 50 publications on wolves, including her recent memoir, A Woman Among Wolves. Her work has focused on wolf ecology, conservation, and resolving wolf-human conflict. Summary Diane Boyd's lifelong study of wolves has taken her from a young, "starry-eyed" researcher tracking and collaring wolves to a scientist focused on the human dimensions of wolf conservation. She argues that wolves are neither demons nor angels, but simply another remarkable wildlife species. Boyd emphasized the importance of understanding wolves' social behavior and how human actions affect their populations. Her essential point is that wolf recovery and management are ultimately about people: changing perceptions, challenging myths, understanding fear, and helping the public engage with the science. Our conversation discusses several questions: • What Do We Really Understand About Wolves? • Are Wolves Really the Animals We Think They Are?• What Can Wolves Teach Us About Ourselves? • Why Do People Fear Wolves? • Can Science Change the Way We See Wolves? • How Do We Open Minds About Wolves? Social Media https://www.dianekboyd.com/home Referenced Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth A Woman Among Wolves by Diane Boyd Research • Noxon Elk Study: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5ce8pKyGRMQ Key Findings & Data According to recent annual project updates from Montana FWP: Herd Stability: Despite hunter concerns, data indicates that the elk population in the area is stable to slightly increasing. Primary Predators: While wolves get significant attention, the data shows that mountain lions and black bears actually account for the highest predation rates on both adult elk and newborn calves. Wolves account for a smaller fraction of the kills. Calf Survival: Elk calf survival rates have averaged around 32% over a longer span, but recent years have shown spikes closer to 50%, which is strong enough to maintain or slowly grow the herd. Non-Predatory Mortality: Predation isn't the only pressure; a notable portion of monitored calf mortality is also attributed to malnutrition and starvation during tough winter months. The "Private Land" Shift: The tracking data reveals that elk alter their behavior to avoid heavy threat environments, often shifting their seasonal distribution away from heavily hunted public lands onto secure, private land pockets. • Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation: https://rmef.org/media/scientists-students-study-a-changing-montana-elk-population/

  3. Sep 22

    What Happens When Young Women Stop Counting Themselves Out?

    Summary Sarah Jakle teaches high school girls practical civic and public-policy skills, along with neuroscience-based tools for confidence, resilience, and leadership. Her central point is that young women often "count themselves out" at critical moments because of imposter syndrome, anxiety, and social pressures. By learning to recognize their inner critic, engage their "inner best friend," and regulate their nervous systems, they can move toward opportunity rather than away from it. Guest Sarah Jakle is the Founder and Executive Director of DemocraShe, a nonpartisan national nonprofit empowering historically underserved high school girls to be our future leaders, voters, civically engaged citizens, and elected officials. Previously, Sarah served as the Get Out the Vote Director for the California National Organization for Women and as the National Outreach Director for Field Team 6, leading efforts to mobilize women and innovative voter registration. Sarah has a Bachelor's from Yale (Phi Beta Kappa), a Master's in Social Work from USC, and a Master's in Public Policy from UCLA.  She was a 2025 Movement Builder Fellow with How Women Lead and was a Fellow with Obama's Organizing For Action. Social Media & Referenced info@democrashe.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-jakle-535617240?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios https://www.facebook.com/sarah.jakle.3?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr https://www.instagram.com/sarahjakle?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr Learn more about the "Inner Best Friend," which is one of the main DemocraShe skills. https://www.instagram.com/innerbestfriend?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. For more about Grounding

  4. Sep 15

    What If Curiosity Is the Most Important Thing We Can Teach?

    Guest Amirah Cummings is the founder of KIO: Kids In Orbit™ and the creator of Kionaut, a learning ecosystem that helps young people cultivate curiosity, think like innovators, and develop the mindset to shape the future through STEM, storytelling, and meaningful exploration. Summary Amirah Cummings is building KIO: Kids in Orbit™, an educational ecosystem designed to help children learn how to think, not just what to think. Rooted in multilingualism, storytelling, technology, and curiosity, KIO aims to help young people become capable, curious, compassionate problem-solvers who can navigate an unpredictable future. Rather than asking children what they want to be when they grow up, Amirah believes education should cultivate who they are becoming right now, giving them agency and encouraging them to ask bigger questions. Her approach combines story-driven learning, augmented reality, literacy, STEM, and mission-based activities in which students must apply what they have learned to solve problems or create something. She is particularly interested in using AI as a thinking partner rather than an answer machine. Kio's "Think with AI" feature prompts AI to guide exploration, encourage deeper questioning, and help learners discover questions they have not yet considered. Amirah argues that traditional educational structures and metrics often fail to cultivate this mindset. In a rapidly changing world, she believes curiosity, adaptability, self-knowledge, and the ability to think differently will be more important than simply mastering a prescribed curriculum. The Essential Point Education should prepare children not for a particular future career, but to become the kind of thinkers who can create and navigate an unknowable future. Curiosity and agency, she argues, are more valuable than simply accumulating knowledge. Social Media kiolearning.com kionaut.com @kiospaceforce @kionaut Amirah's email: amirah.cummings@gmail.com About Jeff Jeff Ikler is the Director of Quetico Leadership and Career Coaching. "Quetico" (KWEH-teh-co). He works with leaders in all aspects of life to identify and overcome obstacles in their desired future. He came to the field of coaching after a 35-year career in educational publishing. Prior to his career in educational publishing, Jeff taught high school U.S. history and government. Jeff has hosted the "Getting Unstuck—Cultivating Curiosity" podcast for 5 years. The guests and topics he explores are designed to help listeners think differently about the familiar and welcome the new as something to consider. He is also the co-host of the Cultivating Resilience – A Whole Community Approach to Alleviating Trauma in Schools, which promotes mental health and overall wellness. Jeff co-authored Shifting: How School Leaders Can Create a Culture of Change. Shifting integrates leadership development and change mechanics in a three-part change framework to help guide school leaders and their teams toward productive change.

  5. Sep 8

    431: The Treachery of Mathilde Carré—Who Are We When Reality Tests Us?

    Guest For more than 25 years, Dr Nigel Perrin has been fascinated by the history of Occupied Paris and those who secretly fought the Nazis. He has shared his unique knowledge of the city's hidden spaces and places with thousands of private clients. He is the author of The Spy Who Betrayed, a biography of Mathilde Carré, and Spirit of Resistance, the story of a British agent in Occupied France. Summary Historian Dr. Nigel Perrin explores the extraordinary and disturbing life of Mathilde Carré, a French resistance leader whose wartime career defies easy categorization. Carré, later known as "the Cat," had no espionage experience before World War II, but the German occupation gave her an opportunity to reinvent herself. She helped create the Inter-Allied Network, which became one of the largest and most sophisticated resistance networks in occupied France. Yet Carré's commitment to the resistance was deeply intertwined with her own ambitions, fantasies, and desire for recognition. When she was captured by the Germans, that carefully constructed identity collapsed. Within 48 hours, she was cooperating with her captors, eventually helping destroy her own network and betraying 35 agents. She even became romantically involved with her German interrogator, Hugo Bleicher, before later helping British intelligence deceive the Germans and escape to London. Perrin's research avoids easy psychological or moral conclusions. Carré never expressed genuine remorse and spent the rest of her life trying to rehabilitate her reputation. Her story raises an unsettling question: when fantasy collides with reality under extreme pressure, who are we really? It also challenges the notion of a unified French "Resistance," revealing a fragile collection of improvised networks that depended on trust, luck, and trial and error. The Essential Point Mathilde Carré's story is ultimately less about her being a resistance spy and traitor than about the collision between the person she imagined herself to be and who she proved to be when reality tested her. Her story also forces us to confront an uncomfortable question: What would we do under the same pressure? Social Media LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nigelperrin http://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelperrin> Book links: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Nigel-Perrin/author/B002B4NPHS https://www.casematepublishers.com/9781036144555/the-spy-who-betrayed/ Inquiries: np@parisoccupied.com Mail: np@parisoccupied.com "Your Paris" by Ted Hughes

  6. Sep 1

    What If Undesirable Student Behavior Is First Seen as a Message?

    Guests Tomelle Greenfield holds a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and a Master's degree in Applied Behavior Analysis. As a Strobel Education Consultant, behavior specialist, and co-developer of the ROOTS Framework, she partners with schools to build proactive, relationship-centered systems that improve student behavior, educator confidence, and lasting outcomes.    As a former teacher turned speaker and happiness coach, Kim Strobel helps schools, businesses, and organizations prioritize happiness and well-being so they can overcome fears, discover joy, activate limitless potential, and boldly pursue their dreams. She is the author of Teach Happy. Summary Tomelle and Kim argue that schools need to rethink how they understand and respond to student behavior. Rather than treating behavior as a problem to be managed after it occurs, they see it as communication and believe schools should create conditions that prevent dysregulation in the first place. Their ROOTS approach brings together practices that are often treated as separate initiatives—including trauma-informed practices, social-emotional learning, restorative practices, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, Multi-Tiered System of Supports, relationship building, and classroom management—into a coherent system. A central theme is the importance of relationships and regulation. Dysregulated students cannot learn effectively, and simply removing them from class or imposing consequences does not teach the skills they lack. Teachers, too, need support in learning to regulate themselves and model those skills for students. Tomelle and Kim believe schools need to move from "doing" to "being": these practices should become part of the everyday culture, not another set of initiatives. Consistent coaching, common expectations, adult support, and preventative systems are essential. Ultimately, their message is that healthy schools begin with healthy relationships—and that connection and accountability can coexist. The Essential Point Behavior management shouldn't be something schools do to students after problems arise; it should be woven into how schools operate every day. Relationships, regulation, consistency, and prevention create the conditions in which students—and teachers—can learn and thrive. Social Media & Referenced Roots Behavior Framework The First 100 Days of School Connections Over Compliance

  7. Aug 25

    How Might We Rethink What Success Looks Like in Schools?

    Guest Dr. Tara Bishop has led the Perry Central Community Schools as superintendent for six years, but she's been part of the school community her whole life. Tara expands innovative career programs and grant-funded community services while cultivating a collaborative culture that supports teachers and administrators as the heart of every school.   As a former teacher turned speaker and happiness coach, Kim Strobel helps schools, businesses, and organizations prioritize happiness and well-being so they can overcome fears, discover joy, activate limitless potential, and boldly pursue their dreams. She is the author of Teach Happy. Summary Dr. Bishop describes Perry Central Community Schools as deliberately rethinking what education should prepare students to do. Rather than treating college as the only pathway to success, Perry Central gives every student access to career and technical education, internships, project-based learning, and opportunities to develop skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, adaptability, and communication. Students choose pathways but can change direction, while internships and capstone experiences are tailored to their interests and aspirations. One striking example is a Habitat for Humanity project in which engineering students design a house, construction students build it, and the completed home goes to a local family—giving students authentic experience, technical knowledge, empathy, and a sense of purpose. Dr. Bishop acknowledges that innovation exists within significant constraints: standardized testing, traditional college expectations, limited resources, and teachers' lack of time for collaboration. She also emphasizes that innovative learning cannot replace foundational knowledge; students need something to draw upon when solving problems. Ultimately, she argues for an educational system that honors individual strengths, connects learning to meaningful purposes, and gives teachers the support and freedom to make that possible. The Essential Point Dr. Bishop's essential point is that schools should stop defining success by a single pathway and instead help each student discover how their particular strengths and interests can contribute meaningfully to the world. That requires both strong foundational knowledge and authentic opportunities to apply it. Social Media & Referenced Perry Central Community Schools www.StrobelEducation.com www.KimStrobel.com The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler

  8. Aug 18

    Constraints: How They Can Lead to Innovation

    Summary The episode explores how constraints can become a powerful catalyst for innovation rather than an obstacle to it. Drawing on my experience leading an innovation initiative in educational publishing, I describe "in-the-box innovation," a systematic approach that modifies existing products and resources instead of relying on unfettered brainstorming. The episode argues that solutions are often contained within the problem itself—a principle illustrated by a high-school program designed to address the shortage of teachers of color and by the World War II Corsair, whose dangerous landing problem was solved by altering lift on the opposite wing rather than redesigning the aircraft. Constraints, Jeff argues, clarify priorities, reduce the number of competing possibilities, and force creative thinking. He concludes by applying the principle personally, noting that limiting the information he consumes through social media has improved his attention and comprehension. The central idea Constraints aren't necessarily barriers to innovation—they can be the very conditions that make innovation possible. By limiting our options, constraints force us to focus, rethink what we already have, and discover solutions that might otherwise remain hidden. Connect / Referenced Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein Systematic Inventive Thinking Podcast interviews with Systematic Inventive Thinking

See All (456)

5
out of 5
32 Ratings

About

Curiosity sits at the intersection of creativity, effective human interactions, problem-solving and purposeful change. Unfortunately, the pace of life — at home, work, and school — often sidetracks our natural curiosity. So, let's see the familiar from a different angle or something new as a possibility to consider.

Information

More From Education Podcast Network

You Might Also Like