What's the point of questions? This is asked not as an accusation, nor as a subversion of itself, but as an inescapably ironic process of inquiry. Questions are powerful. Very powerful. World changing. Yet their ubiquity seems to also enervate them. Can we question questions? And if the point of a question is to ask the question, can we come to an answer about questions that doesn't open up for more questions?
But first, a story: I was sitting in a Sunday School class a year or so back, doing my best not to nurse my professional grudge against most (though certainly not all) Sunday School teachers*. It never is a personal grudge, but, having not only gone to college specifically to learn about different methodologies, studies, and theories of teaching, I have also completed nearly a decade of teaching. Students seem to appreciate my class, insomuch that I dare say that I'm probably a fairly good teacher, and one thing that I have practiced for that time is carrying on a conversation about a text or a theme. In other words, my day job is what the volunteers do on a bimonthly basis. Much like my poor father, a lifelong musician, has to unobtrusively plug his ears when an enthusiastic but incapable singer performs a special musical number during Sacrament Meeting (another Mormon hallmark), I have to try to turn off my internal critic and my "teacher sense" during, well...most of my weekly church meetings.
So there I was, sitting in the second row, let's say, next to my wife as the stake Sunday School president (part of the presidency? I can't remember) taught the Sunday School lesson. It was meant to be a partial training for the adults on how to conduct a class according to the new curriculum that had just been rolled out by Church headquarters, and the point of it was to help these adults become familiar and comfortable with a more inquiry-based teaching model. To demonstrate this, the brother said in a soft voice (because in church we always use soft voices and that's a different essay), after having refused a microphone because he thought he was loud enough (despite our geriatric ward members disagreeing), that he was not going to say anything during the class. "I'm only going to teach with question, okay? Did you know that you can teach an entire lesson using only questions? Did you know you could do that by starting every sentence with 'Did you know'?"
Oookay. So, yeah, that was a less-than-pleasant lesson, since this brother went ahead and practiced what he preached. He delivered very few statements, but the class was...bad. Let me be blunt and say that it was a lousy class. Personally, very glad it's over.
It's all well and good to "teach using questions", but only when the questions are good and worth considering. And worth answering.
And that leads me back to my opening question: What's the point of questions? This brother didn't understand them--obviously--because the uptalk at the end of the sentence isn't what matters about the question. It isn't the punctuation, it's the purpose. A good question needs foregrounding, it needs context, it needs its own purpose. This is one of the reason that back-of-the-chapter questions feel lifeless when you're reading a textbook. The questions aren't there to enhance understanding, in part because there's no interaction between you and the book. It's a one-way street.
But there's more to questions than simply the sensual shape of the question mark: Its the infinitude of them that makes them potent. Almost every answer, which hopes to tamp down on the power of the question, opens itself to its own further questions. Sure, some questions can be satisfactorily answered ("When did T. rex live?" can be answered, to a certain degree of specificity), but even the most basic of questions can be followed up with additional ones. (If you don't believe me, talk to a toddler. She'll give you plenty to chew on pretty fast.)
Questions, then, are their own strange power source. They're inexhaustible yet...in some ways, I suppose...fruitless. But that isn't accurate, either, because we know how things change by asking questions. The whole missionary thrust of the LDS church is questions based, as was its founding through Joseph Smith. The question of correct government led to the War for Independence. Questions push back against injustice and erroneous ossifications of the status quo. They obviously have a purpose, a result. But is that what the question is for? Is the question as grammatically straightforward as "To be or not to be", or is there value in simply being able to ask?
Do questions need to have a reason for them to be worth asking? Are questions enough to push us toward answers? Mistakes, much like miracles, have been made by the wrong person asking the wrong question--or ignoring the most correct answer. They're powerful, which means they're dangerous. Should they be encouraged? Guided? Avoided? And, as a teacher, how can I teach students a mature, appropriate way of dealing with this great power? I'm not interested in destroying what they believe, but questions have that potentially erosive ability. How should I balance that with the desire to help them become better people--a process that I can't see happening unless we look more closely at the important questions of reality?**
I can't say for certain, though, fittingly enough. I guess I can simply say, "I don't know. But I think that's a good question."
----
* It should be noted that, in LDS congregations, the Sunday School instructor--indeed, every responsibility and role of the local ward--is a lay position, staffed by volunteers. The sheep teach the sheep, in other words, for even the pastor (bishop) is employed elsewhere and donates his time to the spiritual well-being of the members who live within the boundaries of the ward.
** There's a fallacy called "complex question fallacy" in which you overwhelm someone with asking too many questions. I think I did that here.
But first, a story: I was sitting in a Sunday School class a year or so back, doing my best not to nurse my professional grudge against most (though certainly not all) Sunday School teachers*. It never is a personal grudge, but, having not only gone to college specifically to learn about different methodologies, studies, and theories of teaching, I have also completed nearly a decade of teaching. Students seem to appreciate my class, insomuch that I dare say that I'm probably a fairly good teacher, and one thing that I have practiced for that time is carrying on a conversation about a text or a theme. In other words, my day job is what the volunteers do on a bimonthly basis. Much like my poor father, a lifelong musician, has to unobtrusively plug his ears when an enthusiastic but incapable singer performs a special musical number during Sacrament Meeting (another Mormon hallmark), I have to try to turn off my internal critic and my "teacher sense" during, well...most of my weekly church meetings.
So there I was, sitting in the second row, let's say, next to my wife as the stake Sunday School president (part of the presidency? I can't remember) taught the Sunday School lesson. It was meant to be a partial training for the adults on how to conduct a class according to the new curriculum that had just been rolled out by Church headquarters, and the point of it was to help these adults become familiar and comfortable with a more inquiry-based teaching model. To demonstrate this, the brother said in a soft voice (because in church we always use soft voices and that's a different essay), after having refused a microphone because he thought he was loud enough (despite our geriatric ward members disagreeing), that he was not going to say anything during the class. "I'm only going to teach with question, okay? Did you know that you can teach an entire lesson using only questions? Did you know you could do that by starting every sentence with 'Did you know'?"
Oookay. So, yeah, that was a less-than-pleasant lesson, since this brother went ahead and practiced what he preached. He delivered very few statements, but the class was...bad. Let me be blunt and say that it was a lousy class. Personally, very glad it's over.
It's all well and good to "teach using questions", but only when the questions are good and worth considering. And worth answering.
And that leads me back to my opening question: What's the point of questions? This brother didn't understand them--obviously--because the uptalk at the end of the sentence isn't what matters about the question. It isn't the punctuation, it's the purpose. A good question needs foregrounding, it needs context, it needs its own purpose. This is one of the reason that back-of-the-chapter questions feel lifeless when you're reading a textbook. The questions aren't there to enhance understanding, in part because there's no interaction between you and the book. It's a one-way street.
But there's more to questions than simply the sensual shape of the question mark: Its the infinitude of them that makes them potent. Almost every answer, which hopes to tamp down on the power of the question, opens itself to its own further questions. Sure, some questions can be satisfactorily answered ("When did T. rex live?" can be answered, to a certain degree of specificity), but even the most basic of questions can be followed up with additional ones. (If you don't believe me, talk to a toddler. She'll give you plenty to chew on pretty fast.)
Questions, then, are their own strange power source. They're inexhaustible yet...in some ways, I suppose...fruitless. But that isn't accurate, either, because we know how things change by asking questions. The whole missionary thrust of the LDS church is questions based, as was its founding through Joseph Smith. The question of correct government led to the War for Independence. Questions push back against injustice and erroneous ossifications of the status quo. They obviously have a purpose, a result. But is that what the question is for? Is the question as grammatically straightforward as "To be or not to be", or is there value in simply being able to ask?
Do questions need to have a reason for them to be worth asking? Are questions enough to push us toward answers? Mistakes, much like miracles, have been made by the wrong person asking the wrong question--or ignoring the most correct answer. They're powerful, which means they're dangerous. Should they be encouraged? Guided? Avoided? And, as a teacher, how can I teach students a mature, appropriate way of dealing with this great power? I'm not interested in destroying what they believe, but questions have that potentially erosive ability. How should I balance that with the desire to help them become better people--a process that I can't see happening unless we look more closely at the important questions of reality?**
I can't say for certain, though, fittingly enough. I guess I can simply say, "I don't know. But I think that's a good question."
----
* It should be noted that, in LDS congregations, the Sunday School instructor--indeed, every responsibility and role of the local ward--is a lay position, staffed by volunteers. The sheep teach the sheep, in other words, for even the pastor (bishop) is employed elsewhere and donates his time to the spiritual well-being of the members who live within the boundaries of the ward.
** There's a fallacy called "complex question fallacy" in which you overwhelm someone with asking too many questions. I think I did that here.