Questions

“Dr. Block, can I ask you a question?” she said.

I had just left a class I felt to have been an utter failure. We had been discussing John Updike’s The Centaur, a novel I have loved over the years, and had decided an appropriate text from which to teach in a Foundations of Education class occupied by first and second year students who were interested in becoming teachers. During the semester I had made a point to emphasize how difficult the teaching profession was, and how very hard it was to be a teacher. To this end, besides studying the ideas concerning education of several influential American educators (John Dewey, Franklin Bobbitt, Jane Addams, Robert Hutchins, etc.) I had offered several case studies of student-teachers who had struggled mightily in the classroom in their attempts to become teachers. One of the two chose to leave the profession after a particularly difficult and unrewarding student teaching experience. I had recently given students an article I had recently published in The Journal of Teacher Education, one certainly not for the weak of heart, entitled, “Why Should I Be a Teacher?” a serious portrayal of the difficulties immanent in the teaching profession. In the essay, I had suggested that teachers must be brave because the work is so hard and the rewards so intangible, so rare, and so uncertain.

The Centaur is the story of a teacher, George Caldwell who struggles with the demands of the profession because he is such a good teacher. Like his mythological counterpart, Chiron, Caldwell means to bring the children out of darkness, but in twentieth century Olinger, Pennsylvania, this darkness seems pervasive and unending. “Knowledge is a sickening thing,” Caldwell responds to poor Judith Lengel, who almost in tears says, “I get so sort of sick and dizzy just trying to keep it all straight.” Caldwell’s father had been a minister, but on his deathbed had asked, “Will I be eternally forgotten?” This doubt spoken by a man of faith plagues the son: the essential doubt troubling the man of faith calls into question the very solidity of the world. When Al Hummel comments “These are bad days,” Caldwell responds, “It’s no Golden Age, that’s for sure.”

I had given students sufficient time to read the book, and asked them to keep a reading journal (though regretfully I didn’t give instruction how this practice might occur), and I offered the class a study guide which I asked them to fill out and bring to class. I had during the semester engaged students regularly in discussion about the assigned essays and book chapters exploring issues concerning the foundations of education: philosophy, history, politics etc. I expected that by this time in the semester, everyone would be familiar and ready and prepared to engage in some intellectual discussion of The Centaur.
I was wrong. In this class I was confronted by deep wells of silence. All I could hear in that classroom were the echoes of my own voice as I called down into the dark cavernous abyss. I felt not unlike the student teachers described in the two book chapters I had assigned: confused, lost, frustrated, and upset. But I had been teaching for thirty-nine years!! I felt angry and discouraged. I consciously reviewed my Bloom’s taxonomic levels of cognitive behaviors, tried to adjust the nature of my questions to his categories, and in my questions to move up and down along Bloom’s hierarchy searching for the stimulus to some conversation only to confront the silence. I said aloud (foolishly, because I knew no response would be forthcoming!), “What is wrong with my questions? Why won’t you respond? What questions would you prefer?” In silence they stared beyond me.

And so, when I departed class and walked toward my office, I felt that this had been an empty class, and that the time and the book had been for naught. When I considered what had occurred in that classroom all I could admit to myself was that nothing had happened. And then Anna snuck up behind me and said tentatively, “Dr. Block, can I ask you a question?” Anna was a student in the class from which I had just fled. “Sure,” I responded, (“Please,” I thought, “give me some insight into what I had done wrong in that class. By your question please help me be a better teacher!”) Hugging her books to her chest she asked, “Have you ever read The Sun Also Rises?”

Not exactly what I expected and certainly not what I wanted, but at least it was a question! I said, “Yes, I’ve read the book several times. Why do you ask, Anna?” She looked ahead, waited a second or three, and then wondered, “What’s the point?”

Now, this was an interesting question, and I realized that depending on how I ascribed a certain emphasis to the words, I could interpret it in at least one of two ways. First, Anna could be asking what was the point of reading the book at all! This emphasis called into question the very nature of the life I had chosen, but I was not prepared to engage in that discussion at this time and place. The philosophical implications of that question were so enormous that I feared venturing into this terrain even the smallest step. I wasn’t ready to explaining my life in front of the Student Union Building. I decided not to deal with the implications of that particular emphasis to the question. I asked Anna for further clarification. “What do you mean, Anna, what is the point?” “Well, she said, “What is the point of the book?”

Ah, I considered, I know where I am. Hannah wanted to know what was the meaning of the book; what was the book’s theme? I have been here before. And if I could give my response to her in say, a single sentence or brief paragraph, I think she would have been very appreciative. After all, points are those places to which we head: arriving at some point justifies the effort, or at least, completes it. Without the point, too may hold, effort is meaningless. Dubious as to the point of The Sun Also Rises, Hannah was wondering if she had wasted her time reading the book. Without a point there would be no justification for her activity. “Why did you read that book? she might be asked. “I don’t know,” she might respond. “It was a waste of time, actually. I don’t know what the point of it was.” On the one hand, if Hannah didn’t get the point, then there was either something wrong with her or with the book; her question to me whether the book had a point led her away from her own potential failings.

I know that Hannah’s is a pedagogical problem; Hannah learned to read that way—to get the point—in school. She learned this in part because in schools teachers ask all of the questions praising students for correct answers and voicing disapproval to students for wrong ones. Standardized and multiple choice tests are forever asking what is the main idea in this selection. Students are constantly sent out seeking the hidden meaning of texts. Reading is seldom considered an open activity engaged in for its own sake; students are rarely taught how to make meaning of the texts they are assigned to read. Students are not taught how to interrogate the texts they are assigned; rather, reading is performed in order to “get the point” so that some question posed by someone else might be correctly answered. The question students most ask in school is “Teacher, will this be on the test?”

On the other hand, Hannah’s question suggested a limited repertoire of questions. She was expressing the only question that she had been taught to be legitimate: what is the point? And this too is a pedagogical problem: we have organized education so that students only proffer answers rather than ask questions.

But I think that this is far more than a pedagogical problem: I think we are confronted in Hannah’s question with a social issue of some consequence. Hannah’s question suggested that she has learned that she should be focused on ends and not means. This is a paradox because if we mean to create life-long learners, a statement inherent in every mission statement of every educational institution of which I am aware, then Hannah should be learning about means and not ends. But “what is the point?” is a question about ends and not about means. I thought back to Phaedrus, in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: there he says that the top of the mountain defines the sides, but it is on the sides that life grows. Hannah’s question concerned the point—the peak—and was blind to the sides.

I said, “Hannah, perhaps the book doesn’t have a point.” I tried to make a joke: “If books had points, then they would hurt people.” Hannah didn’t laugh. I continued: “But perhaps you might ask a different question.” “Like what?” she asked. “Well, what kind of world does the book portray? Would you want to live in the world of The Sun Also Rises?” “No,” she said. “Well, why not?” “Well, all they do is drink, and screw around, and criticize each other?” “Well, why do they do these things.” Her face wrinkled a bit. “Well, I don’t know,” she offered.

This is a standard response. I tell students that it is not true that they do not know, but it is certainly the case that they don’t trust what they do know, or that they do not know that what is running through their mind is what knowing is about. A question is the beginning of knowledge. “What do you think?” I asked. And for just a few precious minutes, as we walked down the block on one of the first days of a too-brief Spring, Hannah and I discussed Hemingway’s novel. I think Hannah learned a few things about The Sun Also Rises and maybe even about asking questions. And I learned that the failure of the class hadn’t been all my fault. And I think I learned a bit about a new set of questions I might ask the next time I teach The Centaur.

What is my point here? Our students seek answers, or even worse, they seek the answer, but they haven’t the foggiest idea how to ask the questions. After all, almost all of their worth as students has been derived from bubbling in answers to questions on standardized short answer tests. Much of the time they are the targets for answers to questions they have not asked. I suspect they do not know even that they are authorized to ask questions. In schools, at least, the question is merely the route to an answer, and if they do not have a ready answer, then they revert to silence and await the next question. Or if the answer is too ready, then they do not want to expend much energy to give it. They have not been yet taught to ask another question or to turn an answer into a question.

There is a story about a man spends all of his wealth to purchase a chest filled with answers. When he opens the chest he discovers pieces of paper and on each one is a sentence: “Eat breakfast,” “Marry him,” “If you must,” “Seventy-six.” “Now,” the man excitedly cries, “I have the answer to all things!” But what good are the answers without the right question? Our students don’t know how to ask questions because they have been taught to seek only the answers.

But I want to say right here and now that this is not merely a pedagogical condition: I do not intend to join the horrid chorus of critics who decry the state of our schools, our teachers and our educational system. Rather, I think that this issue is a social one as well. We have created a society that is not interested in questions. We have come as a society to expect and to value only the answer; we have placed all of our faith in the answer and none in the question. It is an instrumentalist stance we take: the answer always tells us what must be done. Paradoxically, it is the question that inspires movement and requires that something be done, and it is the answer that makes independent movement unnecessary. The question leads us out to we know not where, and the answer draws us back into the familiar.

The question implies an unknown, a sense of mystery. There is a dangerous excitement in the question. Finally, our society has lost its pursuit of the delight of the mystery, magic and enchantment replete in the question. Questions open the world, and answers close it down. Questions inspire movement, but answers render further movement unnecessary. Questions are the enemies of falseness, but the answer falsely promises fulfillment. We are told that when the genome project is complete that we will know everything there is to know about the human being. All questions about human behavior will be finally answered. But I do not believe this at all: will the map of my genes tell me know why I have fallen in love with one and not another, and what I should do about it? Will it tell me why today for breakfast I want oatmeal and not eggs? How will knowing my genetic map improve my sense of humor or compassion? The question acknowledges that there is more to know, and the answer puts an end to curiosity. The question opens the world to speculation, and the answer closes it to wonder. There is nothing beyond the answer, but by the question the world is open to possibility.

We must as a society restore the sense of mystery and enchantment to life so that the first thought is of the question and not the answer. There is nothing wrong with answers as long as they do not silence the question. The genome project itself was begun by a question, but its beauty seems despoiled by its promise of the finitude of the answer. What good is the answer without the right question? Why would I want to end all of the mystery and remove from the world all enchantment?

And so I want now to honor Hannah’s question, “What is the point?” It is a start, and I hope my responses to her the beginning of our education. We opened the world on our walk from a class that I thought had closed it.