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What Do You Wonder?
Posted by Stanley Communications on 4/8/2021 8:00:00 AM
When a fourth grader found frogs in the storm drain at the local park and brought the frogs into the classroom, the critters generated a lot of excitement and interest; the children asked more than 100 questions about the frogs! The teachers and students grouped the questions into categories and overarching questions, then discussed the most intriguing ideas and the ones that were most relevant. For example, What do frogs eat? How will we keep them alive? How and when might we release them back into the wild?
Inspired by our universe, and the beings and their creations within it, curiosity ignites. Questions tumble forth. How come…? Why? What if…? How? This past month, Stanley British Primary School’s faculty and staff focused on the importance of asking questions in our lives and in our classrooms and how we facilitate learners asking questions. Here is what we shared and uncovered combined with a few thoughts from some of our favorite educational writers and psychologists:
Why is asking questions in our lives and in our classrooms important?
Asking questions motivates us. Asking questions gives purpose to what we are experiencing. If it is a meaningful question, we will be excited to start investigating. It makes us alive! As Katie Russell, former K-1-2 teacher, says, “Questions are what guide my learning as an adult. They are what give my life meaning. I love the freedom to explore my own questions at whatever depth is right in that moment. Some questions are fleeting and some questions are a lifelong pursuit. But my questions really are guiding where I put my focus and energy.” Questions launch us into learning more. As Sumant Bhat says, “Questions can serve as invitations to exploration and learning. They can provide choice versus a singular approach.” A good question inspires us to learn more.
We ask questions to learn more about a person and connect. Through asking questions we deepen our understanding of each other and of what it means to be human. As Samantha Boggs, Director of Community Engagement, shares, “Sometimes I feel hesitant to ask someone a question because I feel like I should already know something about someone. But I think people like to be asked questions so I’m leaning into asking questions is okay. It's nice to hear the answer from that person.” Kathy Mueller, 7th grade language arts teacher, adds, “It’s an invitation. Our questions can invite someone into conversation.” Mona Akabari, front desk administrator and greeter, shares, “When you’re genuinely interested to know the person, the questions just keep flowing like a river.” Through asking questions we learn more about others. When we take the time to listen to their answers and their stories, we understand and connect with them, and we can learn more about ourselves, too!
Asking questions broadens our perspectives. Sydney Oswald, middle school Teaching Fellow, says, “Questioning can challenge assumptions and help us gain perspective.” Sumant Bhat adds, “Observation and questions are both tools to safeguard us against rushing to conclusions. They pump the breaks and avoid the trap of becoming an expert too quickly and oversimplifying something. They keep things divergent, allowing a broader understanding of something.” Grace Reilly, 8th grade science teacher, shares, “Asking questions is important because it’s how we are able to disrupt the systems that are in place and challenge what is going on in the world and all the systems of aggression that exist and why they exist.”
We ask questions to find out information and for clarification. When we do not understand, asking questions can illuminate the issue or situation. We ask questions to gain more facts and details, and to understand more fully. As Cris Tovani writes in Questioning for Learning in Educational Leadership, “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.”
Questioning deepens understanding. Donna Meallet, middle school PE teacher, says, “Asking questions allows you to go deeper into the subject. It leads to deeper understanding.” As John Muir Laws explains in The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, “By asking a rich question, you engage your brain to explore more deeply and to focus on a chosen topic…Asking questions deepens your engagement with the subject and broadens your focus to stretch beyond what you already know. This helps develop your curiosity and your ability to seek out the edges of your understanding.” Ultimately, questioning allows us to grapple with complex situations.
Questioning is lifelong learning. Questioning is unending: “Now that you’ve learned this, what questions do you have?” There are more and more! Often the more we know about a topic, the more sophisticated and abundant our questions become. Questioning leads to learning, leads to more questioning; we are lifelong learners when we feel compelled to question. As Simone Bracket, Head of K-1-2 shares, “It feels like it lightens my load as an adult when I don’t feel like I need to know everything just in general in my life. Instead, when I can approach the world as though there’s always something more to learn and even something I know well there’s always something to round it out. So I never have to feel like I’m failing by not knowing everything. I can always ask questions and in doing so round out my world more. In doing so, I have more to impart and there’s always more to find out. That’s a more exciting way to view the world rather than, ‘You’ve reached this point and you should know everything and there’s nothing else to learn.’”
How do we facilitate learners asking questions?
Make time and space for questions. We provide opportunities for children to do what comes very naturally to them – wonder about the world around them and ask questions. As Harvey Daniels writes in The Curious Classroom:
- Actively and regularly solicit kids’ wonders
- Make time for children to pursue their questions
- Allow ourselves to be interrupted
As Valentina Reiling, 3-4-5 teacher says, “I feel like younger kids are really good at asking questions and if you gave them time, they would never stop. So take that time to honor those questions!” What are learners wondering about?
Create a safe place. Learners need to feel like they can trust their teacher and peers in order to share and question. As Katie Russell says, “I’m thinking about teaching as hosting a gathering and facilitating conversations and experiences. Teachers are facilitators who create safe environments where students can take risks, find their edge and stretch and grow. Questions help guide their journey and reflection helps students transfer their experiences to other settings.” Learners need to feel that asking questions is the norm in the classroom.
Provide rich curricula and materials, so that questions are generated. Questions are not formulated in a vacuum, or in nothingness. As Grace Reilly, 8th grade science teacher, says, “I have found that it is important if you’re aiming for the student to create questions that they may have to have something very rich to create questions about, whether it’s a picture, or a story, or an artwork, or a fact. Whatever it is that you’re looking at needs to be very rich and have many questions that are able to be made about it so there are many possibilities for students.” Learners need to feel inspired and interested in the curriculum and world around them in order to have something about which to ask questions.
Help learners see connections. Grace Reilly reflects, “We work in my class having students develop the skills to ask higher level thinking questions. For me questions are all about connections you’re able to make and wondering and pondering and troubling those connections. So helping them as a class come up with a list of different things you could connect what you’re talking about, can help get at the root of those questions and then they can go from there and how to build those connections and make questions between them.” Valentina Reiling adds, “When we observe, we hold our new understanding against our old understanding and the place where those two meet is a place of questioning.”
Let their questions provide the framework for learning. When learners pursue the questions that they have generated and are excited about pursuing, there is an energy and focus in the classroom. As Jacky Marino and Devin Burkhart, former 3-4-5 teachers, share, “As we launched our biography research unit, it was one of those days when the lesson flowed. My, oh my, was there a load of connecting, questioning and synthesizing that took place. The kids were eager, and learning potential reached its peak! We started with a mini lesson centered around researchers and asked, ‘What is the job of a researcher?’ and ‘How does a researcher start researching?’ From these questions, we discussed the spark of all research which is...CURIOSITY! What then comes from curiosity? QUESTIONS! The kids came up with lists and lists of questions to guide their research and to give them purpose while synthesizing information in their books.”
As John Muir Laws writes in Observation and Intentional Curiosity, “A question provides structure within which to organize observations and related thoughts, and it prompts you to look for other details that are germane.” Leslie Maniotes writes in Guided Inquiry Design, “Identifying an important focused question is essential for personal learning and deep understanding to take place in the inquiry process. For students, a meaningful question is, what do I care about and want to learn about?”
Design lessons that have questions as the objective. As Sydney Oswold, 6th grade Teaching Fellow, says, “Asking questions is a skill that you can practice. I ask students to come up with an open-ended question. I say the question can’t be answered by a single word, a number, or ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and that if you asked three different people the question you would get a different answer from each person. Learners need modeling and practice asking questions.” Susan Engel in The Hungry Mind writes, “Question asking can become the goal of an educational activity, rather than a happy by-product. Teachers can develop activities that invite or require students to figure out what they want to know and then seek answers.” When launching curriculum units, teachers can ask what questions learners have about the concept being uncovered.
Create a place to honor their questions. Valentina Reiling shares, “Design a place to hold their questions and put them and use them to continue the lesson or unit. I think that is going to empower them to keep asking questions too – when their questions facilitate the learning that’s going to happen.” And Harvey Daniels in The Curious Classroom writes, “Create a keeping place for kids’ questions, return to it often, and keep it fresh.”
Model asking questions. We model asking questions and embrace our own natural curiosity - I wonder how…? I wonder why…? I wonder if…? Katie Russell says, “Consistent modeling of genuine questions seems like a powerful way to inspire others to ask genuine questions – modeling uncertainty, not knowing...Asking questions is contagious. Especially with consistent questions that apply to various situations like ‘Why do you think that?’ and ‘How did you do that?’ Eventually students will internalize the questions and ponder them on their own, and perhaps, ask others the same or similar questions. Hearing the same question for three years in the same class, and nine years at Stanley, helps those questions become a habit of mind for students.” And as Harvey Daniels says in The Curious Classroom, “Be open to being amazed!”
Teach about the different types of questions. Not all questions are the same. We not only allow questions to surface, but also teach children how to ask really good ones. We model and explicitly teach children about the different types of questions, the questions that are related to different depths/levels of thinking. Is it a basic question, getting at facts and recall? Who was it that…? How many…? Or are the questions accessing higher levels of thinking, delving deeper and perhaps having more than one answer? Do you agree with...? What are the pros and cons of...? How many ways can you...? What would happen if? Can you create a …to do…?
As 8th grade language arts teacher David Marais writes, “Eighth graders were beginning their study of the Holocaust and its lessons, based on curriculum from Facing History and Ourselves. To help prepare for the work ahead, students learned about asking various levels of questions. Eighth graders used Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street as an example text. They discussed the first level, Factual Questions, focusing on information that could be gleaned directly from the story – who, what, when, where.
Next, students practiced asking Inferential Questions about the text, such as, ‘Why does the author feel scared of other neighborhoods?’ These questions draw on context and background knowledge and rarely have definitive answers.
The final category, Universal Questions, requires students to think about the big issues we face in our world, such as ‘Why do people in the world today still stereotype and judge others?’ With an understanding of all three kinds of questions, eighth graders set forth to critically analyze the complex and challenging material – and it prepares them to do the same for the world around them.”
Valentina Reiling shares, “I think in some ways learners need to go through the process of starting with basic questions and kind of grounding them in the context and then, from the basic, more simple, questions, the questions can grow deeper and deeper.”
Create opportunities to share questions. Share questions at the beginning of class, during class, and to wrap up a lesson. Share questions at the beginning of a unit of study, during a unit of study, and at the end of a unit of study. And as Harvey Daniels writes in The Curious Classroom, “Create sharing opportunities within and beyond the class.” -
In conclusion
After observing the frogs that a student found in a storm drain, and generating a list of more than 100 questions about the critters, we discussed how to investigate and find answers to our questions. We had to figure out what kind of frogs we had and what they would eat, and if and when we could release them back into the wild. We accessed books in the library and online resources, and we called the local amphibian expert at the local zoo, who was very helpful, and told us that we would have to wait until the spring to release our temporary class pets back into the storm drain. We fed our frogs crickets and observed and enjoyed them in the classroom for several months. We eventually even got to observe tadpoles! From observing this new phase of a frog’s life, we generated many more questions! As we notice, it is often in the next moment that we ask questions, search for answers and strive to make sense of the world.
What do you wonder?
As Cris Tovani writes in Educational Leadership, “If you must be the question asker, I challenge you to pose this single, simple, beautiful question to your students—no matter the content, no matter the learning goal — ‘What are you wondering?’"