Questions…Do you ever stop asking them?
It was late on a Wednesday afternoon when Lina came home totally exhausted. Otto noticed how tired she was and casually asked how her day went.
Lina replied, “It was very draining, so many questions, sometimes it just gets so difficult to think up what to say in math class.”
Otto seemed concerned. “Then why don’t you tell the kids to just stop asking so 
many questions?”
Lina tried to clear up any confusion. “They’re not the ones asking the questions. I am. It’s the way I teach.”
That still didn’t make sense to Otto. “You teach them the skills and then you question them to see if they understand what you’ve taught. If they don’t understand, then you teach it again. Correct?”
“You’re partially correct.” was Lina’s answer. “I teach them the skills and then as I’m working with a student if I feel they are not quite sure with what I’ve said, I’ll ask them guided questions to get them to come up with the skill that I taught. A lot of ‘What if…’ questions like, ‘What if you tried it a different way, what would you choose?’ or ‘What do you notice about all the other answers you completed?’ There are times when I totally talk about something different, but related, to try and get them to understand a simpler version of the same problem.”
Otto remembered the difficulties he had as a student. “Why don’t you just give them the answer? Won’t they eventually learn the skill?”
“They might, over the long run. But in the interim, they will just take the easy way out. They learn that If they say ‘I don’t know.’ long enough then the teacher or their parent will give them the answer so there’s no need to learn. However, if the teacher or parent keeps asking them leading questions then they will construct the knowledge themselves. It makes them more independent.”
“But what about those students that just don’t get it?” Otto questioned.
Lina relented. “For those few, I will give them an obvious answer such as, “I’ll give you a hint; it starts with ‘d’ and ends with ‘ivision’. Most kids will at least get to say the correct answer. Or, I will teach them the skill again using a different method. It’s coming up with all those questions that is so draining.”
Otto quipped, “Education is just not the same as it was when I went to school. You sat in rows, the teacher told you what you had to learn, and you learned it. If you didn’t learn it, you had to take the class over again in the summer. Easy peasy.”
Lina’s eyes began to close and she yawned. “I’m not sure if that was easier for the teacher. Besides there is a lot more children have to learn nowadays than when we went to school. Right now what I would like to learn is the best way to take a nap.”
Otto watched as Lina slowly drifted off to sleep in her favorite chair. He placed a blanket over her to keep her comfy. As she rested, he thought about all of the techniques Lina had talked about and wondered if those same techniques would work with some of his trainees at work. That would be an interesting question for him to answer.
