Column:
An approach Alex Trebek would appreciate
Published Aug. 28, 2009
Let's talk about learning. That's what we are here at MU to do, right? How do we do our learning here? Reading plenty of books and papers, memorizing lots of facts, concepts, theories and formulas, that sort of thing. Then we are tested and have to use the information we've read and memorized for the moment to fill in the blanks, bubbles or blank pages. This might be in the form of simple recall and recognition or complex analysis and synthesis, depending on our course and teacher, but it all can be grouped together as memorization and recitation.
Certainly this is one way to learn, but it is not the only way. With all the emphasis our education puts on memorizing given information, another very important method of learning has been terribly neglected. There is so much emphasis on giving the right answers, we have not been taught to ask the right questions. I don't know about you, but I can't remember ever being taught how to ask questions.
It might seem like a strange position at first, but I want you to stay with me here because the right question has so much more power than an answer. An answer is invariably something fixed, a limited window into knowledge, but the right question is like a wide gateway to knowledge. And it's not just any knowledge you can track down with a question, but the very knowledge you are seeking. An answer is just idle information, sitting and waiting for when it is needed, but the right question is a dynamic thing, calling out for knowledge and wisdom to come near.
Let's look at our system of only memorizing the answers to others' questions. It might be compared to a ride on a subway train. Yes, you're moving very fast and being constantly stimulated as you pass light after light in that long tunnel, but there is only one place that train will take you. The constant stimulation quickly becomes quite dull and holds no more attention for you. It might, in fact, lull you to sleep while the train flies along. When learning is reduced to mere memorization, we receive the constant flow of information from books and lectures, but we receive it only in a passive way and so we ride along just waiting for the stop where we alight.
Now compare a system focused not on answers, but on asking the right questions. Imagine you have reached your stop and walk up the stairs into the bright — or smoggy — city street. From here you know you are looking for a certain place, but you've never been there before and don't have the address. Maybe all you have is a picture or which part of town to look. So you start heading that way. Every move you make is intentional, and your eyes are searching for that building. You won't travel nearly as far or as fast as you had on that subway, and maybe you'll have to backtrack a few times, but now you know that place. You've seen the town and now have a familiarity with that area that you hadn't known before. You've been engaged and active in finding what you started out looking for, and found some other things you didn't expect along the way.
So let's talk about our learning. Which do you value more, answers or questions? Truly answers will help you pass your tests and exams, but it is the ability to ask the right questions, to be active and direct our own learning, that we should value.
