In kindergarten shades of the question-house begin to close in. Teachers ask students questions. This begins the minute children arrive in kindergarten or primary school. 'What is your name?' Roles are clear in primary school. The teacher asks the questions and the children answer them. 'What shape is this?' 'What colour is it?' 'What is in that picture?' 'What is it doing?' 'Why do you think it will do that?' 'Where is your jumper?' 'What are you doing there, Joel?'.
Young children are programmed to ask questions - because that is a primary way that a human child learns. They use language to learn from others, instead of having to acquire everything slowly and painfully from their own experience. They can ask also questions of themselves and of others, to test out the answers they are given.
A teacher many of her pupils remember, Ellen Christensen, used to hand out the history notes to her final year students for them to copy and swot up out of class - so that class-time could be spent starting at Point A in the supposed history lesson and then going anywhere in the world or off it. She also ran 'Walking Clubs' where teachers and students went hiking and talking together - exercise for body and mind - hours of glorious questioning and discussion. This surely is education rich and rare. To find out what you need to know, and learn to wonder about what you need to know, are as important as answering other people's questions.
- Put some one-volume general knowledge books in the classroom, with one book set as the main reference. Tell the class that in two weeks there will be a Serious Pursuits session. What is this Serious Pursuit?
- A panel of two or three teachers will ask questions around the class on general knowledge from the set book. They may ask another adult in from outside too, for moral support and for information back-up, and they tell the children what sort of additional expertise there will be. There may be a doctor, or an engineer, or journalist, or someone who lived in Poland, or who trekked around the world, or who trains horses, or is a great-grandmother.
- The first child who can answer a teacher's question correctly then has the right to ask the panel of teachers any question at all - except personal ones; for example, they could ask, 'What are the Prime Minister's policies on education?' but they could not ask, 'What do you think of the Prime Minister's policies on education?'
- The teachers continue to ask their questions around the class to ensure that every child has a chance to answer and to ask a question back.
- If no students can answer a general knowledge question, then all the class are set to try to find the answer before a follow-up session two weeks later.
- If none of the adults can answer a child's question, then the teachers have to find an answer by the follow-up session.
The children's questions are unpredictable. I have heard ten-year-olds ask: Spell brontosaurus. Where is Popacatapetl? Why do we die? Is astrology true? What does the sun burn? What will happen when oil runs out? Where does money come from? Why should it matter if we don't wash? Why do cats like fish? Why can't we eat in school? Why do people like being naughty? What does daggy mean? What are those yellow weeds outside the office? Does the world have to get worse? Where does Kylie Minogue live now? Why can adults swear and children shouldn't? What does Mr Keating get paid? Why aren't white people called Pinkskins and Spottyskins and Muddyskins when that's what they look like? Did God or the Devil make germs? Is God real? Could we have a school dance like they do at ... ?
When these panel sessions are held no more than once a term, to retain the stimulus of novelty, they are memorable events. Children are more motivated to learn and ask. One way to encourage thinking is to start where the children's minds are. You don't know that until you find out. And to find out where their minds are, don't ask them questions. Let them ask you.
Valerie Yule, 57 Waimarie Drive, Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia (tel 9807 4315).
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