existing pedagogy, nor is it something that teachers can be trained to
master during an inservice day. It
requires a continual focus on creating
a classroom that is about thinking
rather than just about absorbing
information. Of course one always
thinks about something—learning isn’t
content-free—but the ultimate goal
isn’t to acquire knowledge (which
can always be looked up). “Knowing
the right answer is overrated,” says
Eleanor Duckworth (1987, p. 64), professor emerita at Harvard University.
It “requires no decisions, carries no
risks, and makes no demands. It is
automatic. It is thoughtless.”
Thus, every time we ask students
“What was the name of the town in
which the characters in this story
lived?” we leave less time for questions
like “Why do you think the characters
never left home?” Every minute stu-
dents are forced to spend memorizing
the definition of a word (“What does
nationalism mean?”) is a minute not
spent wrestling with ideas (“What
would the world be like if there were
no countries?”) It’s important to “push
beyond the factual,” says Dennie
Palmer Wolf (1987), but unfortunately
“extended stretches of questioning in
which the information builds from
facts toward insight or complex ideas
rarely take place” in many classrooms.
By the same token, if we’re asking
meaningful questions but still using
tests (which primarily evaluate stu-
dents on the number of facts they’ve
crammed into short-term memory)
rather than authentic assessments of
their understanding (Kohn, 2015),
we’re giving them a gift with one hand
only to take it away with the other.
Deep questions help kids stay
curious, grow increasingly resourceful
at figuring things out, and become
active meaning makers. By structuring
learning around such questions, we
take the first step toward creating an
environment that is not merely aca-
demic but also genuinely intellectual.
Whose Questions?
It makes sense to create thoughtful
questions for students, but it’s even
more important to elicit their questions. Teaching, like parenting and
managing, is greatly improved by following a four-word admonition: Talk
less, ask more. And better than asking
subject-matter questions is the process
of encouraging kids to come up with
the questions that matter to them. If
this practice is more the exception
than the rule in our classrooms, it may
be because it requires us to give up
some control.
There is a purely practical justification for asking students what
they’re curious about: Even a gifted
teacher can’t always figure out the
right question to ask a given student
at just the right time, as Duckworth
(1987) pointed out. Thus, she added,
it’s fortunate that “children can raise
the right question for themselves if
the setting is right” (p. 5). As a result,
“they are moved to tax themselves
to the fullest to find an answer.” By
inviting their questions, we unleash
Deep questions help kids stay curious, grow
increasingly resourceful at figuring things
out, and become active meaning makers.
