Educational Leadership - September 2015

Why Do Students’ Questions Matter Most?

We have trained students so well to be question answerers that by the time they reach middle school some think their job is to be mind readers. Kenneth Vogler (2008) estimates that “teachers ask about 300–400 questions per day and as many as 120 questions per hour.” Researcher Susan Black (2001) reports that teachers’ verbal questioning of their students is second only to teacher lecturing.

Yet when students stop asking questions, they begin to abdicate responsibility for their learning. Instead, they sit back and let someone else do the thinking for them.

Don’t get me wrong.

There is definitely a place for teacher questioning.

But most of the time, teachers ask questions they already know the answers to, leaving little space for original thought. Often, a student can get the answer by putting it into Google or SparkNotes. Asking even high-level questions doesn’t necessarily mean getting high-level answers that students came up with on their own.

We are kidding ourselves if we think our questions alone turn students into critical thinkers. But if we ask students to ask questions that they care about, we get a truer sense of their understanding. It’s a lot harder to fake an authentic question than it is to copy an answer from some Internet site.

Barbara Bess, whom I taught with years ago, has a motto: “The brilliance is in the question” (Tovani,

2011). One day when I was observing,
I heard her say, “No one is going to
cure cancer by repeating some fact
that the experts already know. It will
be a researcher’s question that leads
to a new discovery. As literature
researchers, what is your question?”
Instead of spending time honing
our questioning skills, it’s time we
help students hone theirs. Giving stu-
dents opportunities to practice ques-
tioning will help them way beyond the
classroom. People who wonder set a
purpose for themselves. They know
asking questions will propel them to
continue reading and learning. Ques-
tions give learners a tool for picking
out information that may be useful.

In addition, learners who ask questions are able to isolate their confusion.

Questions force them to articulate what their confusion is instead of merely saying, “What? I don’t get this!” Learners can then work to repair their confusion by seeking more information. Asking questions gives learners control.

When I think about the students I am preparing to run the world, I want them to seek information and articulate their confusion. I want them to be propelled to study more and to have strategies that help them stay with challenging material. What I don’t want is for them to repeat information that everyone already knows—what a waste of time. I much prefer that my students tell me what they wonder so I can guide their learning.

It gets boring asking the
same old questions over
and over again. If I’m bored
with my instruction, most likely stu-
dents are bored, too. Recently, after
observing one of my classes, a col-
league said, “It must be nice to not
have any discipline problems so you
can teach.” Although students occa-
sionally act out in my room, I rarely
have long-term discipline issues. It’s
not because I have a no-fail classroom
management plan. My secret, I think,
is focusing on my students’ questions.