Asking the right questions...

 Asking the Right Questions

During my high school years, I had a tendency to drive my science teachers crazy. I would complete my lab reports before conducting the experiments, crafting conclusions based on data I hadn't yet acquired and seeking meaning from those premature conclusions. Predicting the experiment's focus wasn't challenging—I'd analyze the setup, correlate it with our class lessons, and deduce the expected results, often aligned with what our teacher or the textbook intended us to derive from the task. While the purpose of the activity might have been to reveal these results, I didn't consider it a genuine experiment because the outcomes were known, and the conclusions were drawn repeatedly over years and decades. Needless to say, I struggled to engage with this task.

What I believe I struggled with was the absence of a real question. By a real question, I mean a query that hasn't been answered before—something new and novel, perhaps an issue society is still grappling with. How would my lab report appear if we conducted an experiment where the outcome wasn't predetermined long before execution?

A similar process unfolds in my English classes. We thrust students into debates and discussions on issues long settled, involving books and texts published for decades or even centuries. Currently, in my 9th-grade class, we are reading Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." While it's a commendable book and was highly controversial 60 years ago, what does it teach us now about racism and race relations? What questions and debates can arise as we read this text? How can we use it to comprehend contemporary racism instead of focusing solely on its historical manifestations 50-60 years ago? We discuss the book, analyze symbols, and students write papers about racism in the past, leaving with a sense of the time period and gratitude for societal progress.

However, we need students to push society further. Books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" have contributed to our improvement, allowing us to see societal moments and envision a better world. To dream of better worlds, we must pose questions that current knowledge can't answer—questions without readily available solutions.

This is challenging for teachers and has been challenging for me. We've grown up in a world where teachers possess knowledge, and students lack it. We are expected to lead, guide, and inspire, but the reciprocal—students imparting the same to us—is rarely discussed. By asking questions without immediate answers, we reposition ourselves in our educational space, leveling the playing field. For some teachers, this can be an uncomfortable experience. Nevertheless, we must move beyond this to nurture students capable of creating the worlds we aspire to see.