Questions, Questions, Questions

I have always been that person at meetings or lectures who would genuinely get annoyed at people who would raise their hands when the administrator or presenter asked if there were any questions. I know I wasn’t the only one who shared this feeling, but I was oftentimes too ashamed to admit that I may have had a question too. I would try and rationalize to myself, “If you were paying attention, then you wouldn’t have any questions.” Perhaps I didn’t want to appear weak to the others in the room, or that the fact that I didn’t have any questions granted me some type of superiority over those who did. Now that I am a teacher, however, it makes my blood boil when I have students that seemingly refuse to ask questions when I know for a fact that they have some.

Looking back on my thoughts and actions, I always had trouble putting into words what I wanted to inquire about; I didn’t know what questions to ask. It had never occurred to me that this may be difficult for me because I have “never been properly taught how to question, nor encouraged to do so (Berger, 2024, p.3).” After reading through the first few chapters of Berger’s A Beautiful Question, I found myself inspired and motivated to lower my guard and start asking more questions. For some background, I will be entering a new teaching position this fall. I will be going from a standard 6th grade classroom to a 7th grade math position that is more focused on project-based learning. Such a big transition in not only grade level, but teaching style, has me feeling as if I am overflowing with questions. I still find myself not even knowing how to formulate the correct ones to ask. When tasked with creating a list of questions within 5 minutes, my mind naturally went to the challenges I perceive happening in this new environment.

During these 5 minutes, I strangely was able to come up with my first several questions rather quickly. By the time the 5 minutes was up, I felt each question get more and more vulnerable and focused. This mirrors the idea where “students may begin with wide-open, divergent ‘what-if’ speculation, but they gradually use their own questions to do ‘convergent’ thinking as they get at the core of a difficult problem (Berger, 2024, p.17)” It seems that letting myself know that it was okay to ask questions made it easier to do so. This is a skill that I want to ingrain in my future math classes. I want my classroom to be a place where you ask questions, not memorize facts. I want to find ways to reach their sense of curiosity and exploration, while at the same time removing their apprehension to attack the unknown.

I have many students who have the mindset “there’s no reason to fill [my] mind with information that can be so easily looked up (Berger, 2024, p.24).” It is as if they have become complacent with the fact that they don’t know everything, because they can get whatever information they need with a 5 second Google search. We’re at the point where I can’t tell if a student did their homework, their parents did it for them, or they solved every question using Google or Photomath. This has me questioning how I can fight this or how I can use their own tools against them and make them start asking their own questions. If I can achieve the same inspiration with them that I had after reading Berger’s words, then I may just have a chance.

References:

Banko, N. (2024). Question quickfire [Photograph]. https://static.wixstatic.com/media/347c2f_f24a2ea937c847fc8f06e8dc82f34628~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_1110,h_584,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/347c2f_f24a2ea937c847fc8f06e8dc82f34628~mv2.jpg

Berger, W. (2024). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Bloomsbury.

Wix. In class [Photograph]. Wix. https://static.wixstatic.com/media/11062b_2fd9a15321cc4800b9475feeb9ed2f1c~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_1110,h_740,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/11062b_2fd9a15321cc4800b9475feeb9ed2f1c~mv2.jpeg

Wix. Interaction in class [Photograph]. Wix. https://static.wixstatic.com/media/11062b_398fe0d876544f9a9b947fa716d0c1f7~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_1110,h_740,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/11062b_398fe0d876544f9a9b947fa716d0c1f7~mv2.jpg