I think it's the beginning, the middle ground and the end. Curiosity fuels everything, and goes along with the courage to think independently.
I should say this about teaching. In my installation address as GG, it was entitled “A smart and caring nation”. I said if you remember only three words of what I say today, they are “Cherish our Teachers”, because apart from our family they have the most important influences on us. I said if we had three hours together in the Senate chamber I'd tell you 100 stories of teachers, coaches, mentors who have made an influence in my life for the better. That's why I stress so much the business of education as the heart of everything, including in this world when data is available at our fingertips. Curiosity and being able to ask the penetrating kinds of questions, that, actually, is the role of the teacher today. It's not to be the fountain of all knowledge but to provide the methods of inquiry, etc.
This is where Canada, I think, has very considerable advantages. We have a good public education system. It can be better, but we want to make it better. Instilling curiosity and learning how to learn is pretty fundamental. Our number five daughter did her doctorate in educational psychology. She has a learning disability. She works now as a senior research scientist for a company spun off by her Harvard professor, who supervised her thesis on how the mind learns, combining that with the digital revolution. It's wonderful to see how we can develop customized curricula that deal with the specific needs of a specific child, one with a disability and another one who's vitally enriched. For me, that's a wonderful new opportunity opening.
The simple profit from that kind of curiosity, which is at our fingertips and which I've been speaking about tonight, is putting this on an international scale. We gain so much by developing those collaborative networks around the world.