One of the quintessential images of children is some sort of sharp-eyed child who incessantly pesters adults by asking why everything is how it is. What is endearing in small children, at least to many of us, is often annoying in those who are older. Yet it remains fundamentally true that we do not learn without some sort of investigation. If we want to find answers, we have to begin with questions. When we see people who obviously do not know what someone is saying–and I must admit this happens at least sometimes with me–and we see them refuse to ask because they are afraid of looking ignorant when their far off gazes and lack of interaction demonstrate clearly their ignorance, what we see is a failure of education. When teachers ask questions, those questions are a test of the knowledge (and interest) of students. When students ask questions, they reveal the interest of the student in learning, and far from being despised, theses sorts of questions are often welcomed. How, then, do we encourage the right kind of questions?

I say the right kind of questions because there are definitely the wrong kinds of questions to ask that will likely receive a great deal less patience and support from anyone in a position of institutional authority. Attitudes are important, and making sure that someone knows that the attitude in which questions are being asked is not a hostile or threatening one matters a great deal in receiving a positive response. Still, if someone is seeking to dispel the fog of ignorance that envelops the best of minds, that response ought to be celebrated. Ignorance is a widespread problem and we all are ignorant of many things, so the desire to reduce the spread of that ignorance is a sign that someone desires knowledge and insight, and that is a praiseworthy desire. Many of us wish such a desire on the part of people to ask questions and learn were more widespread even if it can be a difficult task to teach others so that they may understand.

Still, something happens to the bright and inquisitive child between the age of two or three where it is thought to be at least somewhat adorable and cute that so many questions are being asked about the way that things are and the zombie-like faces of the mid-elementary school child whose vacant expressions indicate a lack of understanding in what an adult is saying coupled with a lack of interest in asking for a simpler explanation. What is it that poisons that curiosity and that interest and that willingness to ask? It can only be a result of something within the educational system itself. This can result when people face embarrassment or punishment for asking questions, ridicule for seeking to desire knowledge because they are not cool enough to be content with ignorance like their more popular peers, or face adults that not only do not know the answers to the questions that they are asking but do not even seek to inform themselves or take interest in answering them. How to resolve this is a serious issue, but not necessarily an easy one.

After all, it must be readily admitted that the desire to dispel one’s ignorance does not merely spring from the bottom up. It is not merely the learner who desires to reduce the spread of ignorance in their mind by asking a question. The asking of a question is information that dispels the ignorance of the person teaching and instructing who does not know what his audience knows or remembers or can recall or is interesting in hearing. Questions, like so much else in this world, are information that allows someone to recognize that something being said has received attention on the part of listeners. Most of us who speak and write in the desire to teach others do not do so merely because we like listening to the sounds of our own voices (although this may be true for many of us as well), but because we genuinely desire to help others learn, and when they ask us questions they indicate to us what sort of things that they need to know in order to understand what we are blathering on about. This can be to the benefit of both the speaker and the hearer, as the question gives information even as the speaker can answer the question and better inform the listener.

For the ignorance that envelops the minds of people is not only the sort of technical ignorance of information that is filled by instruction, but also the ignorance of the state of the minds and hearts of others. Just as we can only learn by being taught by something or someone, so too we can only learn of what someone is thinking about or feeling about, or whether there is any thinking or paying attention going on, by the information that is provided from those people. It is not only the teacher or instructor that has information to provide, but also the learner, whose questions offer worthwhile feedback to the instructional process going on. Communication is a two-way street, and where people are encouraged to ask questions to express their desire for more information, a communion between the learner and the teacher can take place in that both people get the information they want and need. It is to be deeply lamented that this sort of useful and beneficial feedback is so regrettably rare.