The Interrogative Imperative
One of the most central dimensions of learning is the capacity, and freedom, to ask questions. In fact, being able to pursue the interrogative imperative, to which many facets of our being give expression, is fundamental to the development of human nature and a healthy sense of identity.
Some researchers have estimated that comparatively speaking, human beings learn far more in the first three to four years of life than is learned throughout their remaining time on Earth. As any one who has children, or spends much time around children, knows, asking questions is one of the primary fuels propelling this early journey of exploration, and, generally speaking, adults get tired of answering questions long before children get tired of asking them - which the latter rarely do.
Unfortunately, a great many things change as children get older, and among these alterations are a variety of strategies which are invoked by parents, society, and school that are designed to contain, constrain, and/or prevent children from continuing to ask questions at the same rate as may have been permitted during the first 3-4 years of life. This is an extremely ironic phenomenon within democracies which, theroretically, prize freedom, education, and the pursuit of knowledge.
Within schooling, there are many techniques that are utilized in order to curb the natural tendency of human beings to inquire about the experiences arising out of such exploration. For instance, appointing teachers to be the medium through whom all inquiries and answers must travel means that children are at the mercy of the biases, prejudices, limitations, understanding, needs, and agenda of the individual through whom inquiry must be filtered.
Rules about whom can talk to whom, or when, or how, or why, or where, and about what, tend to structure much of what goes on in schooling. In addition, the very structure of most classrooms often is such that everything is arranged so that seeking, processing, analyzing, and evaluating of virtually all information needs to funneled through the person at the front of the classroom - that is, the teacher.
Now, this arrangement of things may be in accordance with how teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, and departments of education wish things to be, nonetheless, if so, how these individuals and agencies wish things to be is in order to curtail, constrain, and contain the kinds of inquiry which are necessary for substantial learning to occur. No scientist, inventor, artist, writer, or entrepreneur tends to operate very successfully within a jungle of rules and regulations which are designed to place severe limitations on the acquisition, and use, of information concerning the why, what, where, when, or how of experience.
Yet, many educators suppose that by serving as filters for what can be asked and answered with respect to life, they not only are performing a necessary and unavoidable function, but, as well, in doing this, they are preparing children to be curious, inquisitive, analytical, independent, creative, resourceful, free adults. However, none of these educators can provide convincing proof with respect to how the latter qualities will arise, naturally, out of the former, authoritarian methods.
One should not interpret the foregoing comments to me that learning must operate as a laissez-faire enterprise. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between, on the one hand, establishing principles that will permit relatively free markets to arise that will enhance the creation, exchange, use, and distribution of quality, heuristically valuable, as well as non-exploitive information, and, on the other hand, insisting that central, authoritarian, artificial, and arbitrary command structures dictate and control all policies.
In short, there is a certain inconsistency in using education to extol the virtues of capitalism, freedom, and independence of thought, while, simultaneously, using methods that are socialistic, authoritarian, and intended to stifle independence of thought. This is like speaking out of both sides of one's mouth at the same time, and about as coherent.
Many schools of education recommend that teachers allow at least three seconds to expire following the asking of a question. Supposedly, this will give students sufficient time to digest the question and come up with an appropriate response.
However, studies have been done which indicate that, on average, teachers wait only one second before repeating a question, or rephrasing a question, or asking another kind of question, or moving on to someone else in order to get a response. Moreover, studies also have been conducted which estimate that, on average (and once one has factored in such things as lunch, class-breaks, and study halls), that teachers are asking a question about once every 5-6 seconds throughout the day.
There are many reasons why teachers can't seem to shut up. (1) They believe - and without any real proof to substantiate such a belief - that their questions play a crucial role in a student's learning; (2) they believe students will be lost - again, without any real proof to back this up - in the absence of any intervention of curriculum strategies and techniques that are given expression through processes such as posing questions; (3) they believe - yep, no proof here either - the questions which teachers pose are far more important than the questions which students pose or would like to; (4)they fear losing control of the learning process because they would not know how to proceed or feel comfortable under such circumstances; (5) they tend to fear (and, here, there is lots of evidence to substantiate their concerns) that as a result of what they perceive to be losing control of the learning process, other teachers, the principal, members of the school board, and parents might react negatively, and, consequently, this would prove to be problematic for their career aspirations ... and lets forget about the clients whom educators are supposed to be serving; (6) like many people, teachers find silence threatening and believe their words are the only glue holding things together.
Teachers talking, together with: pre-packaged class periods separated by bells/buzzers; a set curriculum to be covered; examinations (both national and local) to be prepared for; homework, and, the punitive use of grading, all effectively undermine a students opportunity to ask important questions about: truth, purpose, identity, freedom, democracy, justice, community, values, and life - except in accordance with someone else's agenda (teacher's, principal's, school board's, superintendent's, department of education's) concerning such matters.
Even were teacher's to give students much more time to think about, and respond to, questions which the former raise in class, the type of questions being asked makes a great deal of difference to what ensues. Here, too, the modality of questioning, knowingly or unknowingly, places constraints on the learning process.
For instance, lower-order questions are geared to elicit specific, simple, short pieces of information about what, why, when, where, who, and how. These questions tend to be devoid of any need for critical analysis, evaluation, reflection, problem-solving, insight, creativity, subtlety, or the like. By contrast, higher-order inquiries reverse the foregoing set of priorities - seeking to explore the many issues and problems lying beneath the who, what, why, where, when, and how of lower-order questions, or even whether what we believe the who, what, why, where, when, or how of something is, in fact, the case, or the problems surrounding the methodologies which are used to examine such matters.
Many teachers tend to utilize lower-order questions to a much greater degree than higher-order questions. Moreover, if and when the latter sort of questions are asked, then, generally, these higher-order questions are intended to give expression to what the teacher or school system wishes to emphasize rather than what may of most value to the students, and, thereby, control the access routes to learning and inquiry.
Studies have been done which demonstrate that when educators explore material which is relevant to the on-going lives of individuals, students tend to learn more as well as become engaged in the learning process in a more committed, intense, and productive manner. Now, what could be more relevant to the on-going life of an individual than the manner in which matters of empowerment, history, equality, justice, fairness, methodology, values, prejudice, bias, political agenda, economics, presuppositions, philosophy, identity, trust, control, self-esteem, honesty, relationships, and so on, are being given expression within a classroom or school, but rarely - very rarely - will students be permitted to pursue these issues freely, openly, critically, and without risk of interference or punitive sanctions.
Instead, almost all of a student's time is structured for them in arbitrary, irrelevant, artificial ways over which they have little, if any, control. There is not time for real critical inquiry or learning how to do conduct such an inquiry.
As a result, differences between: information and understanding; knowledge and wisdom; description and explanation; authoritative and authoritarianism; critical thought and indoctrination; regurgitation and reflection; justice and inequities; objectivity and bias; or, need and desire, are all conflated and confounded or glossed over. In all too many classrooms and schools, little, or no, time is given for sorting any of these issues out in a considered, patient, thorough, and fair manner that will serve the interests of the student rather than the interests of the teacher or the school.
Most educators will acknowledge that one cannot force someone to learn. Consequently, they all tend to ask the same question: how can we get students to want to learn?
Yet, study after study comes back, indicating that the answer to the foregoing question is to empower students to have control over what they are learning so that it is relevant to their lives and, in the process, they are permitted to critically engage such material according to their aptitudes, interests, needs, purposes, and circumstances, as well as in an open and unencumbered manner. When this is permitted to occur, students not only learn, but they enjoy working at, and struggling, with the difficulties which learning, inevitably, entails.
Unfortunately, many, if not most, educators, ignore such findings. Instead, they proceed in a direction that is diametrically opposed to what has been established, again and again, both empirically and clinically, for more than seventy years.
Educators who are not prepared to ask tough, probing questions of themselves, will never permit their students to learn how to ask such questions. Many educators would rather betray those students for whom, supposedly, they have various duties of care, than look in the mirror and acknowledge the enabling role which they play in serving as guardians and administrators for a schooling system that consistently seeks to terminate, limit, and corrupt the dimensions within human beings that gives expression to the interrogative imperative.
Whatever the ultimate potential of human beings may be, the accomplishments of science, technology, art, literature, creativity, law, exploration, and spirituality have come on the wings of questions that have taken people to inventions, places, insights, developments, creations, and heights that no one previously had conceived. Beauty, healing, understanding, joy, freedom, and self-realization have been some of the species which have taken flight through the use of such wings.
Yes, there have been avenues of inquiry which have had problematic, if not destructive, consequences for human beings and the rest of creation. Yet, through the medium of the interrogative imperative, we also have learned to recognize such possibilities as well as sought for - and, sometimes, found - solutions.
There is considerable arrogance in so-called educators who believe they should be the primary regulators and keepers of the interrogative imperative. Moreover, asking questions for which one, supposedly, knows the answer is presumptuous, controlling, and self-centered.
Such an arrogance presumes one knows the truth of the things about which one asks. It controls the avenues to determining whether or not the presumption is justified. And, it is rooted in a self-serving process that treats the interests, ideas, needs, and values of the teacher as if these were the center of the universe, while relegating the interests, ideas, needs, and values of students to near extinction.
How ironic, yet depressing, is the fact that, all too often, education which, supposedly, is about inquiring into, and learning about, the truth of things, becomes the vehicle through which the interrogative imperative in so many students is destroyed, distorted, or co-opted to serve purposes other than the ones for which it exists. Furthermore, many - perhaps most - human problems have their roots in this sad state of affairs.
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