It seems ironic that the biggest thing standing in the way of our growth as a society is ourselves. I say that because we are taught from an early age that it is not acceptable to question the way that things are. This comes from many adults getting easily annoyed by the questions of children. When children are very young, they ask many questions as they try to get a better understanding of the world they live in. While to some people that is a wonderful thing to experience, it is something that too many adults try to stomp out of kids. This is to get rid of the inconvenience. This is not what we should be doing, we need to work on nurturing the question making because that is what creates critical thinkers. I am very glad that I have maintained my ability to question, especially because it allows me to be a better educator. It has allowed me to think more critically as an adult and has given me the ability to be more reflective of my practice. I got to experience this when I participated in a quick write activity. I used five minutes to come up with as many questions as I could in relation to my practice and what issues I want to address. What I noticed in that session was that most of my questions were themed around my role as a teacher. The focus was mostly on changes that I could make in order to help students better reach their potential. To me, this happens because of a need to be reflective. This has caused me to think a lot about my students in respect to fostering their ability to question things.
Note. Photo of Quickfire Questions used for assignment. Own Photo.
Issue 1: We don't ask for questions.
While reading through Berger' book, A More Beautiful Question, it really galvanized my desire to help foster students to not only question things, but question them more. One thing that made me really contemplate this was thinking about how we structure our schools and workforce. We don't want questions, we want answers. A society has been created that doesn't show as much respect to questioning things because all we are looking for is solutions (Berger, 2014). This is something that I want to improve in my classroom. My focus is going to be on creating more inquiry based activities that allow my students to do most of the thinking. This way, I am mostly there to facilitate and provide context. I want to do this because this is an important skill for students to have. Many students don't remember the content they learned in classes years later, but they do remember the skills they learned to differing degrees. If we can shift our focus to improving these inquiry skills in students, we are setting ourselves up for better success in the future.
Issue 2: We teach failure and not iteration.
Another thing that this book got me thinking about when it comes to my classroom is the idea of failure. Not only are we currently teaching kids that it is only important to speak if you have an answer, if they don't have the correct one, they are ridiculed (Berger, 2014). So many students refuse to ask questions simply because they are afraid to be wrong. This made me think about how I conduct questioning in the classroom and has made me consider making adjustments to help alleviate this stress. One thing that I want to emphasize to students is that it is ok to be wrong. I usually do this using myself as an example, but I think that I can stress this more. If I do this, then I can attempt to break that barrier. I also would like to provide options for students to question without needing to feel called out. An option could be something like a question box.
I am a firm believer that if these things can be incorporated into my classroom, I can help foster a more inclusive and supportive environment for my students. I will also be able to provide them with more guidance to think critically and question the world around them.
References:
Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Bloomsbury.
コメント