TURNING THE QUESTION

I taught high school chemistry and physics for almost two decades. Most people grimace when you mention stoichiometry, kinematics or cellular respiration. However, the struggle is rarely with the content, but usually with thinking patterns. With enough practice, I could teach almost anyone how to balance an equation, but the harder lesson was always teaching a sixteen-year-old to ask good scientific questions and how to work through them. They mostly just ask to go to the bathroom, for extra credit or what will be on the test. When children are young they ask questions incessantly, but by the time they became teenagers many of my students stopped asking out of curiosity and understanding and instead asked only from compliance.

One of the core practices of science education is inquiry. Teaching through inquiry requires an investigative approach to teaching and learning where students are provided with opportunities to explore a problem, search for possible solutions, make observations, ask questions, test out ideas, and think creatively. In summary, more questions, and less answers. More doing and less memorizing. This practice is supported by almost every educational entity; however, it is not always embraced. I suspect this is because inquiry sounds great in theory but is much harder to pull off effectively. Sure, there are limitations with supplies, pacing calendars and standardized tests. However, the main reason teachers don’t always embrace inquiry, at least for me, is because it is hard to let go of control. Discovery takes more time. It isn’t a straight line. You can’t be certain where a student will land, even if the data promises the learning will be more impactful. If we are so afraid to do this in science class, where questions are not only permitted but required, it is no wonder we often struggle to do this in places of faith. Discovery takes more time. It isn’t a straight line. You can’t be certain where someone will end up.

It would be easy for me to forget or minimize the struggle in giving up control and allowing people to wrestle with a question long enough to find their own answer, except for the fact that I’ve also parented toddlers. Toddlers constantly insist on doing it themselves. Letting them do this assures frustration, because I can get whatever “it” is done so much faster. Thankfully, I let my own toddlers struggle, or else I’d still be tying my son’s shoes or doing my daughter’s laundry. I have three degrees in education, but it still floors me to realize that we learn more from questions and struggle than from answers.

Inquiry isn’t just for science class; it is the beauty of a good mystery novel or crime show. No one wants to read a book or watch a show that is too obvious or with a twist too obscure. The satisfaction lies in our efforts to figure it out, not to just watch the story unfold from the sidelines. Inquiry explains why I watch Only Murders in the Building, listen to Crime Junkies or pick up the next Louise Penny novel. In an article by the BBC on why people are so obsessed with true crime shows, the BBC informs us that our fixation on these shows is less about the criminal misdemeanor and more about our nature. “We instinctively want to discover the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’”. Our brains are hard wired to discover and ask questions. Good writing (be it a TV show, podcast, or mystery novel) allows us to figure it out rather than to simply be told. Inquiry invites us into the story as a participant rather than just a spectator. Russian playwright Anton Chekov gave us four classics and also this quote” The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them”. Inquiry is a best practice not only for science, but also in art.

I think Jesus may have sided with Anton Chekov. In the gospels, Jesus asks at least 307 questions. He is asked 187, but only directly answers a few. Jesus knew something about teaching, maybe that is why Mary called him Rabonni (great teacher). What if faith, like education, was more about questions than answers. More about figuring it out and struggling rather than perfect performance. What if healing is found mostly in exploring the questions rather than seeking answers? What if learning is more about asking the right questions rather than bubbling in the right circles? What if why matters so much less than how or the next right step?

One problem with inquiry is that older students have forgotten how to ask good questions. Adults are even worse. When my own kids were young, they constantly bombarded me with whys all day long.

Why are owls nocturnal?

Why do I have to take a shower?

Why does that cloud look like a bear with a tutu on?

Why does gum stick?

Why is twelveteen not a number?

Eventually, after years of hearing moms and teachers and everyone else responding with answers like “Later”, “Because” and “I don’t know”, those “why” questions stop flowing. By the time my students hit high school, I had to pry scientific questions out of them and bribe them with candy, stickers, or bonus points. Even then, most didn’t ask very good questions. Their questions still sounded a lot like my 5-year-old, asking questions that start with why.

Why questions are really hard to answer.

I can tell you how neurons fire. But not why. I can calculate the speed of light. But not tell you why things get all crazy when you start moving that fast. I can tell you how far away the moon is. But not why it ended up there. I can observe altruistic behaviors in animals, but not tell you why they protect each other. At least not with certainty. Why questions are hard to calculate, observe and measure.

A decade ago, I attended some training put out through the Smithsonian Institute and they taught us how to “turn the question”. Turning the questions means taking a why question and pulling out variables and finding something students can do or investigate. For example, if someone asks “Why does water boil?” That is a tough question to investigate. However, students could test what temperature water boils, if hot water boils faster than cold water, if different liquids boil at different temperatures, if adding something to the water makes it boil faster, and so on. Turning the questions helps get you unstuck. Pretty much the trick and thing the instructor stated that I dutifully jotted down in my lesson plan book and still remember a decade later was this:

“How can the question be turned into a practical action or something useful?”

I am a girl coming out of a long season of questions and especially whys. Most of which have nothing to do with science, but more on the lines of my faith and my heart. The whys weren’t really getting me anywhere, except for more questions. I took a page from my lesson plan and wondered how I could use inquiry on my heart. I attempted to turn those hard questions into things I could explore or looked for places to apply practical actions. I leaned into curiosity and found that just like in the classroom (and with toddlers) turning questions can be more frustrating, and certainly takes longer, but it makes a much bigger impact.

Several years ago I had brain surgery to cure a chronic pain condition. I have trigeminal neuralgia which at the time sent painful electric shocks through my skull hundreds of times a day. The pain was bad enough that I let a surgeon cut a hole in my head in an attempt to find relief. Surgery was supposed to heal me but in the immediate year that followed surgery, the pain got worse instead of better. I tried literally everything to lessen my pain. I visited neurologists, chiropractors, pastors and an acupuncturist. Eventually, I decided if I couldn’t fix the outside of my brain then maybe I could fix the inside. Chronic pain pushed me to ask dozens of impossible questions. A few started with why, but I also wanted to know how to move forward. I thought maybe a therapist would be able to answer my questions for me. I could not have been more wrong. She did not give me answers. Instead, she gave me a hundred more questions. She gave me space week after week to ask them and struggle through them. Of course, the questions came with tools and strategies that made sitting in them so much easier. Which is good because the questions keep getting harder. The questions and not the answers that have helped me heal. Eventually my pain has eased. Healing and discovery take time. They aren’t a straight line. The answers weren’t the answer, instead, I’ve found it is often the question and curiosity.

Each time I find myself stuck it is usually because I’m looking for answers instead of questions. Or I’m simply asking the wrong ones. When I can’t get past the why questions, I’m learning to stay curious, to turn my own questions and ask what is the next right thing I can do from here? Jesus was a master of turning the question but in a different way. When people asked him questions, he often answered with another question. (I’m sure his friends swore under their breath each time he did this). For example, in Matthew when his disciples asked where they could get enough bread, he responded by asking them “How many loaves do YOU have?” He gave them the next right thing and an opportunity. He asked hundreds of questions, but he only asked one three times.

Do you love me?

Jesus knew the answer to this, but he still asked it, not once but thrice. Sometimes questions are an invitation to find our own answers. To know. To make amends. The answer was of course yes even after Peter had really screwed it up. Sometimes I wonder why a kind and gentle Jesus didn’t just tell Peter that all was forgiven. That surely Jesus understood that Peter and the disciples were scared and afraid and grieving. He could have simply given him a vision for the man he wanted Peter to be. Just promise Peter that he is a rock. But first, Jesus presses, and turns the question on Peter. He asks. Jesus did not need the assurance, but Peter did. And he knew he wouldn’t be physically present for long and he needed Peter to really believe it. That kind of knowing doesn’t come from telling, it comes from asking. Over and over and over.

Sometimes I know the right answers, but I don’t know how to feel them. Maybe there is something to answering the same questions over and over and over again. To inquiring. To struggling. To finding the answers for ourselves.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Dr. Michelle Hurst is an educator and writer in Texas. She has been featured online at sites including Writerly Magazine, Grown and Flown and The Mighty. She has her first book of essays, These Three Remain, coming out this May. Her favorite topics to write about are faith, chronic illness, hope, relationships and middle age. You can read more at http://www.michellewallishurst.com