November 1, 2023--There are several kinds of questions that teachers ask. Agenda questions which are not questions at all but rather intended to direct students toward the answer the teacher is looking for. There are questions that disguise the power of the teacher when they are framed as questions but are really commands intended to norm students toward compliance. Rhetorical questions that are not for the students to answer but rather for the teacher to answer through a mini lecture. Questions that reveal the confusion of the teacher when the lesson is falling apart, and they ask students to tell them why. And there are questions that stimulate critical thinking or deep reflection on a topic.
Question asking is one of the central tools of teaching. As such, some questions are intended to invite learning and deep examination while others are in the service of the teacher. There is another type of question that I’ve been thinking about that when practiced with intention is solely dedicated to student learning. I call these questions, open and honest. They are similar to essential questions as articulated in lesson planning guided by Understanding by Design (Ubd). But they are different in important ways as an open and honest question invites investigation but isn’t as goal directed as an essential question. Like an essential question the power of an open and honest question lies in the difficulty of answering but unlike essential questions the source of authority and agency rests with the student, not the objective of the curriculum.
What is an open and honest question? How and when might it be a good question to ask during an instructional session? Open and honest questions emerge from the writing of Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage and Renewal. They are the cornerstone of a professional conversation around an emotional or spiritual challenge or problem faced by an educator. They are geared toward inviting the heart and soul to show up and offer its wisdom. Open and honest questions are premised on the belief that people are already whole and thus there isn’t a need to fix, advise, or save. However, there is a need to peel back the layers of social norms and expectations that cloud deep knowing. An open and honest question is asked without a sense of what the answer might be. It is agenda free. Examples of open and honest questions include: what does your heart tell you? if the challenge you are facing was a book, what is the title? what landscape best describes your feelings?
I’ve been thinking about questions, especially open and honest questions, because they have lately been a feature of my teaching and student questions. In two separate classes the topic of coaching and mentoring emerged at the center of our conversations. We investigated what makes for a good question that enlivens the discussion beyond questions anchored in the formal evaluation rubric. What questions might bring the fullness of the educator into the conversation, their head, hands, and heart? We noted that there are technical problems faced by educators that require technical questions-suggestions when coaching. And there are ineffable questions of the heart that require questions grounded in mystery, metaphor, and storytelling.
We did some free writing and small group conversation around this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke in his Letters to a Young Poet essay:
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
I find this image of living-questions compelling. It suggests to me a relationship, a conversation, a sense of agency within the question. The question is not static, it is alive with possibility and the potential to crack open learning in new and unexpected ways. This is what an open and honest question leans toward. It invites the person receiving the question to consider answers or insights that hadn’t occurred before, even as the answer often originates from deep inside the person. It is not dependent on an external source of authority or affirmation.
There is a cautionary note to open and honest questions. The best ones invite the learner into deeper and deeper exploration of the topic under investigation which often also means some form of self-investigation. In this case, emotions and the spiritual aspects of self can occupy center stage over the technical and intellectual. The newness of open and honest questions for many students can also be confusing and disorienting. Questions without answers is not the norm in most of their educational spaces throughout their time in schools. A case in point. Midway through a course, I ask students to answer a short survey giving me feedback on whether the course is advancing their learning. One student responded to the question: what questions, wonderings or uncertainties do have about the content of the course? in this way.
I have many [questions], but I believe those questions are the point of the course. The course is raising more questions than answers for me, the biggest of which is, each week I uncover more and more problems with the ways in which we evaluate teachers. However, we are not in a world where evaluation is going away. So, what is a better solution?
Given the course content on teacher evaluation systems, there is a technical answer to the question: What is a better solution? But this question, as asked, deserves more than a quick transactional answer. What happened next in class was a divergence from my lesson plan and a full-class conversation on the question itself. If an answer existed, that became less important than personal and professional investigations of a better solution. Where is there room in teaching and learning for questions that can’t be answered, but can be experienced as a form of self-opening and deepening of heart wisdom? What if the skill of open and honest questions were valued as much as the more technical and transactional questions many teachers ask? What are the questions you are asking your practice that are agenda free, other than liberating your inner wisdom?