Tag: NPR

Ask Your Own Questions

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much. Francis Bacon

An interview on NPR put my thoughts into high gear. They rushed by like cars on the autobahn as I remembered times in my life when I made decisions that I didn’t question hard enough. I got into a lot of trouble in those situations. The interview was with two people who were talking about teaching students to ask questions. The idea intrigued me. Could I teach myself to ask questions? So I ordered the interviewees’ book: Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. The authors (and interviewees) are Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. They are the codirectors of the Right Question Institute.

The Question Formula Technique first came about when the authors were working with parents in a low-income community. The parents explained that they didn’t get involved in their children’s education or in their children’s school because they didn’t know what to ask. Therefore, Rothstein and Santana gave them some questions to ask. Soon the parents came back for more questions. This situation sent the authors on a long journey to develop a system that would teach students to figure out for themselves questions to ask in any situation.

Students asking questions didn’t seem unusual until I thought about my own classroom experience. Normally the teacher asks the questions and the students answer the questions. With the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), students learn how to come up with their own questions. Their questions can then be applied to an endless variety of uses: write a research paper, the basis for a project or the substance of a unit of study.

Not being a teacher, it sounded like a difficult thing to get students to ask questions that would be useful for further study. However, the case studies of students in actual classrooms that Rothstein and Santana presented to illustrate each step of the process revealed that asking their own questions helped students learn better. Those who questioned much learned much.

The QFT has four steps:

  1. Ask as many questions as you can.
  2. Categorize the questions as closed or open-ended questions.
  3. Prioritize the questions.
  4. What are you going to do with the questions? What are the next steps?

The most difficult part of the process is deciding on the Question Focus, or QFocus, which is  what the students ask the questions about. The QFocus has its own set of parameters:

  1. It has a clear focus. It is an issue, topic or area of concern that is brief and simply stated.
  2. It is not a question. The purpose of the QFocus is to get the students started asking their own questions.

According to the book, it takes about 45 minutes to teach the QFT to a class of students. Just for illustration purposes, let’s take a QFocus and work the technique right now.

Question Focus: Santa Claus

Step 1: Ask as many questions as you can.

Who is Santa Claus?

Where did he come from?

Does he really climb down a chimney?

What does Santa Claus do the rest of the year?

Why does Santa Claus only give toys to good little boys and girls?

What behavior is so bad that Santa Claus won’t give a child a toy?

Step 2: Categorize the questions as closed or open-ended questions. This step includes a discussion of the types of information open and closed questions will draw out and an exercise to change questions from one type to the other. For the purposes of this exercise, the questions will be marked with “c” for closed and “o” for open, but not re-worded.

c/o    Who is Santa Claus?

c        Where did he come from?

c        Does he really climb down a chimney?

o/c     What does Santa Claus do the rest of the year?

o        Why does Santa Claus only give toys to good little boys and

           girls?

c/o    What behavior is so bad that Santa Claus won’t give a child a

           toy?

Step 3: Prioritize the questions.

1. Who is Santa Claus?

2. Where did he come from?

3. Why does Santa Claus only give toys to good little boys and girls?

4. What behavior is so bad that Santa Claus won’t give a child a toy?

5. What does Santa Claus do the rest of the year?

6. Does he really climb down a chimney?

Step 4: What are you going to do with the questions? What are the next steps?

Write a research paper about Santa Claus.

Before I read this book I thought that questions usually denote confusion. However, I realize now that working the steps of the QFT transforms confused thinking into focused thinking. I hope you can see how useful this technique would be not only for students, but for adults as well. For instance, suppose you were concerned about an issue like immigration, the national debt, the mortgage foreclosure crisis, or the state of education. These are complicated issues, overwhelming issues. Develop your own QFocus and work through the QFT. Use the resulting questions to focus your research and clarify your opinion.

The last chapter of the book is titled “Questions and Education, Questions and Democracy” in which Rothstein and Santana make a strong case that the ability to ask good questions leads to better informed citizens who are more likely to participate in the democratic process. How much more vibrant and effective would our government be if the voters asked questions and informed themselves instead of relying on the media and candidates’ sound bytes for information? Our constitution gives us the right to ask questions; the Question Formulation Technique developes our ability to ask questions.

So what do you want to know about? Santa Claus, climate change, vegetarianism, a facet of economic theory? Determine your Question Focus. Work the Question Formulation Technique and write some questions. Have fun finding the answers.

Confessions

I have a confession. I am an NPR junkie. I listen every day to my local public radio station, KSTX, and shows like “Fresh Air”, “Talk of the Nation”, “The World” and “All Things Considered”. Today I heard a news story about a complaint made to a school concerning Bible verses on banners at football games. A group, Freedom from Religion, asked that verses be banned from banners. That infuriated me. For one thing I am a Christian and I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. For another thing, I live in the United States. We still have the First Amendment, don’t we? Whether I’m a Christian, a Mormon, a Jew, or a Muslim, I have the right to say whatever I want to say.

The school district buckled under, separation of church and state, you know. But the school isn’t forcing the students to put Bible verses on their banners; it is their own idea. And that’s First Amendment rights. Not church and state.

Many Christians will lament that there is a war on Christianity in our country. We can’t mention Jesus, can’t wish a Merry Christmas, can’t pray before public events. We blame the government and groups like the Freedom From Religion. But I think the blame rests first with ourselves.

I live in an area of my city that has a high population of Jewish believers. There is a synagogue on a major road that leads to my subdivision. On the Jewish sabbath and other holy days, it is not unusual to see Jews walking to worship, crossing four lanes of traffic, pushing baby strollers, sunshine or rain. They are walking while all the rest of the world is whipping by them at forty-five miles an hour, if they are obeying the speed limit. The Jews are counter-cultural. They have ample evidence that there is a war on Judaism. And yet, they walk as their religion dictates while the world does what the world is going to do.

So the war on Christianity. My theory is that if everyone who called, or even thought, themselves to be a Christian, even if it was just Christians who actually went to church, if all of those Christians stood up and lived as Jesus modeled and taught how to live, our culture would look very different. There would be visible evidence in things like Bible verses on  football game banners, praying out loud before a public event, using the name of Jesus seriously and not as a thoughtlessly tossed pejorative, and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas during the appropriate time of year. More than that it would be treating others as I would have others treat me. It would be considering the interests of others above my own interests. It would be exhibiting a character distinguished by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,  and self-control. The war on Christianity? Game over or, at least, changed.

Even as I write these highfalutin words, my conscience is pricked. Just yesterday, I had an opportunity to pray out loud before a non-church meeting. Christians were present as well as non-Christians. I was confident I would not be chastised and yet I failed to pray as if I was talking to God.  I failed to pray in Jesus’ name. I failed.

My challenge to myself and to you, dear reader, is to be counter-cultural. If you are a Christian, live as you believe Jesus would have you live no matter what is going on around you. Let the traffic whiz while you walk. Let the world do what the world will do. As for me, I will follow my Lord Jesus.

[click here to see the news story about the football banners mentioned above]