Asking questions can make you smarter?
You’ve doubtless overheard a frustrated Mom in the grocery, mildly scolding her child, “Why must you continually questioning me over every little thing? You’re driving me crazy!” While it’s true that kids can be trying with their million and one questions, teaching kids to ask questions can be a gift that lasts a lifetime.
People who make their living as researchers are continually asking questions. In fact, it’s the only way they make progress. If Louis Pasteur had not been a careful and diligent questioner, we would not have pasteurized milk today. Asking questions forms the very basis of all the sciences.
Think about the computer scientist or engineer. Typically well educated and even brilliant people, they are also notoriously inept at expressing ideas in terms the ordinary person can understand. So how does the information in their heads get disseminated to the general reader, so that use may be made of their research? This is where the technical writer stands as the liasion. Good technical writers are always unabashed questioners. It’s the only fool-proof technique to find out just what this fabulous software or hardware does, how the consumer may use it and translating the information into layman’s terms.
Even if you’re not a researcher, asking questions is an excellent way to learn about other people’s ideas in any social context. Don’t be a know-it-all. It makes you a dull conversationalist. Remember that, just as you have expertise in certain subject areas, other people have different areas of knowledge as well. Asking questions of others allows you to learn something new or simply make a new acquaintance. Questioning also gives someone else an opportunity to teach, or can draw a shy person out into the crowd.
Children are born with natural curiosity about the world around them. Don’t squelch this natural urge to know more. The child who is encouraged to question in the classroom is a child who learns. Experienced educators know this. If a child accepts everything that is told to them as fact, they’re not going to develop good reasoning and thinking skills, to their detriment.
So when you think your kids will drive you over the edge with the very next question, remember that asking questions is a good way to develop critical thinking skills, logical thought and natural curiosity. They just need a little guidance to steer them towards asking questions that won’t drive you nuts! “Why can’t I have a candy bar?!”
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