What’s wrong with questions?

Why ask questions?

When my brother was a teenager, my mother would ask him a million questions about what he was doing, where he was going, who was he going with. You know. The usual “mom questions.” And my brother’s response was: “Questions! Questions!”

As annoying as mom questions are (just ask my son), I’ve come to appreciate questions, in general. The jobs I spent the bulk of my life doing—waitressing, teaching, mentoring, and now coaching—all depend heavily on me asking the right questions. (And having a pencil. I actually got by sometimes without the pencil, but the questions were crucial.) Questions help us build relationships, and they often serve as small doors when we are feeling stuck. So, it’s worth giving them a little thought.

Questions can open conversations. They also offer opportunities for clarification, much needed because it’s so easy to misinterpret each other, especially given the way we communicate these days. (As bad as it is now, can you imagine how much worse—yes, it could be worse—communicating by text would be without questions?) And, in relationships, the questions we choose to ask—and not ask—are just as important as the answers we get. We can learn a lot about people by noticing what they’re curious about. We can learn a lot about ourselves that way, too.

Great teachers have taught through questions. Socrates didn’t give lectures—he asked questions—giving us the Socratic Method. And Ramana Maharshi, who I mentioned in the post, “Why not?”, reached Enlightenment by exploring a single question: Who am I?Questions can be powerful levers, which is why they’ve been at the heart of my work as a teacher, mentor, and coach.

When I was teaching, how students answered my questions gave me insight into what they understood and could apply, and where there were still gaps in their knowledge. And student’s questions—as well as their lack of questions—let me know if they were engaged in learning. Because to learn, you need to be continually raising questions and actively searching for the answers.*

Novice students often think learning means memorizing and spitting back information. Memorization has its place in learning, as it can increase the speed of accessing information. But it needs to be supported by an understanding that’s deep enough to allow and inspire creativity—the adaptation of what’s been learned for use in new situations. That’s why math teachers tell students to “show your work.” I think that education is less about getting the answers, and more about becoming better at asking the right questions. But if you’re a novice learner, how do you know the right questions to ask? That is, how do you know what you don’t know?

What stages do learners go through?

Research has shown that, when first beginning to learn some skill or body of knowledge, a novice begins in a state of unconscious incompetence. This means they don’t yet know enough to know what they don’t know. So how can they be expected to know what questions to ask?

I experienced this when I retired and had to figure out how to draw down from my retirement fund. I approached my retirement fund like an animal. While I was working, I was “an ostrich with its head in the sand.” Didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. And when I retired, every time I spoke to the representative, I must have had that “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” look. I could feel my brain shut down and my eyes glaze over. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and I didn’t know what questions to ask. I finally said, “Please talk to me like you’re talking to a fool, because, when it comes to retirement funds, that’s what I am.” Humbling, but true.

Eventually, I moved into the second stage of learning, conscious incompetence, because I started becoming aware of what I didn’t know and could at least ask some questions. But I still haven’t gotten to the third stage, conscious competence, where I would know but still need to act methodically. I’ll keep you posted if I ever get there.

The fund representative, though, is (I hope!) in the final stage—unconscious competence. In other words, he’s such an expert that his knowledge has become second nature to him, and he’s no longer even consciously aware of what he knows—like driving, when you’re an experienced driver.

If an expert (the rep) wants to explain something to a novice (me), they need to unpack what it is they unconsciously know by becoming re-aware of what they know so they can see the situation from the novice’s (my) perspective, and the novice (me) won’t shut down.**

Parents do this unpacking all the time. For example, they’re not even aware of what they’re doing when they tie their kids’ shoelaces, but they need to become aware of it when it’s time to teach their kids to tie their shoelaces themselves.

So, in defense of teachers everywhere, not only is it usually not the case that those who can’t do, teach, but it often is the case that those who can do, can’t teach. So there! 😊

How do we get to Stage 2?

Moving from unconscious incompetence (Stage 1) to conscious incompetence (Stage 2) is tricky, and it’s where learners often give up. Since questions are admissions that we don’t know, and novice learners don’t know what questions to ask, they often don’t ask because they don’t want to look—and feel—stupid. Feeling stupid threatens our identity—and our self-esteem and self-confidence suffer. It’s risky. That’s why teachers, who know how important it is for students to ask questions, assure them that there are no stupid questions.

Since stupid suggests a permanent state of intellectual lack, I agree that there are no stupid questions. I do think, though, that there are foolish questions, because foolish suggests a more temporary situation. When we’re young—chronologically or experientially—we’re foolish. We act impulsively; we lack wisdom. Just think about some of the things you did in high school.  So, yes, there are foolish questions. How could there not be?

Since few of my students distinguished between stupid and foolish, I used to tell them that there are stupid questions—and that I know because I’ve asked them. This usually made them laugh and took some of the pressure off. But I explained that stupid questions were really just foolish questions, which were to be expected and, in fact, necessary for them to learn.

So, we get from Stage 1 to Stage 2 by listening actively and asking whatever questions—foolish or otherwise—come up.  In other words, we get to Stage 2 by being willing to look foolish. And I think the best way to get over the fear of feeling foolish is not by never being foolish, but by getting comfortable with it. I tried to help my students do that. I think there’s a lot of freedom and usefulness in it.

___________________________

* This is true now more than ever. AI has made answers easily accessible, but we still have to know the right questions and follow-up questions to ask. Asking follow-up questions, I think, is what distinguishes people who use AI optimally from those who don’t. Because asking them means the user has critically assessed the quality of the answer in terms of accuracy and comprehensiveness, and, if either of those fall short, is requesting elaboration. Think of it as Q & A with AI. Because education is not just about “getting answers,” it’s about learning. These are two different things. Engaging in dialogue—with AI, a book, a person, and ourselves—is how we learn. If we don’t ask questions—if we’re passive—information doesn’t take root and grow and learning doesn’t take place.

**If you’re an instructor and are interested in research on learning, you might like Ambrose et al.’s How Learning Works (2010) or (2023). If you’d like to know more about unpacking your own expertise, check out Pace and Middendorf’s Decoding the Disciplines (2004).