"Truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away. Puzzling." - RMP

For me, the “Art of the Question” is a large part of what teaching is all about. Even the most seemingly fixed truths often warrant further curious exploration. Learning can happen in cycles, delving into the depths of knowledge by circumnavigating available information in a question-driven vehicle. As pre-service teachers we stand at the precipice of a whole new life of professional questioning, looking into the vast and sublime possibilities and challenges of the future.

Descend... into the maelstrom...

Perhaps the most effective classroom discussions I have observed have been an organic (even messy) mix of teacher-driven, student-driven, teacher-response, student-prodding, all-exploring. In a recent class, undertaking the continuation of a NYS CC module, the teacher brought back the previous day’s work regarding the student-generated claims for an upcoming writing assignment. The teacher-driven review prompted students to generate their ideas textually through review questions, and then the teacher called upon the students to share their claims to check and advise. Students riffed their questions not only off the teacher but also off of their classmates. Through adroit questioning, the teacher was able to measure the students current level of understanding of the task at hand, subtly suggesting directions to strengthen their work before moving on to another student.

Through skilled and crafty questioning, the secondary English classroom may become a knowledge engine. As Christenbury states, “talking and answering and asking questions can help clarify our own ideas, not only to others but also to ourselves” (335). Producing knowledge cannot dispense with the hard necessity of realizing it into intelligible forms, often through questioning and answering. We should strive for a cyclical or, even better, a spiraling mode of questioning: students question à teacher questions or responds à all consider à repeat. But, we should also resist overly formulaic discussion structures or environments because, as per Christenbury, “few people—students and teachers—actually approach knowledge in an orderly, paced way, moving smoothly, as the sequential hierarchies would imply, up from one level to another” (339). The hardest part will likely be the first few years, as we fashion our own styles as new and developing teachers.

error...error...

What type of teachers will we be? I’m still hoping to focus on discovery, as per Christenbury. I will work towards designing a classroom in which organic student discussion and interest may direct the lesson and student engagement. To teach students from where they are, as opposed to any “should bes” will take time and incredible effort, but that is what we are signing on for as teachers (94-5). I hope to structure classes where the teacher guides and facilitates but students and teachers discover all together and generate excitement and community around learning.

Good questions not only intellectually poke at secondary knowledge, but they also stand to provoke experiential inquiries and exploration into what is temporarily unknown by students. Experience is the real facilitator for accumulating wisdom, which John Dewey recognized in calling for schools “to develop through experience into productive citizens.” Further, such exploratory experience in the classroom will help students engage in Bloom’s different types of thinking (Giouraoukakis 15). What is questioning really but probing deeply into our collected and personal realms of thinking. Beyond questioning in the classroom, we must help students learn how to capture, structure, and present the production of their inquisitions through writing, speech, and newly evolving modes of expression.