We Need to Ask Kids More Questions that Don’t Have Answers
Or better yet, have them ask the questions
“Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not solve an old problem, they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed.” — Ken Robinson
On Questions and “Real-World”-isms:
As a student, I’ve been asked a lot of questions throughout the years. What is the value of x? What is the difference between an adverb and an adjective? How do you balance the equation H2 + O2 — -> H2O? What is Article II of the U.S. constitution? And these questions all have definitive, right answers.
And when my fellow students and I aren’t being asked questions, we’re often being told things about the real world. In the real world, you will have to work in groups. In the real world, you will have to meet deadlines. In the real world, you won’t always have a calculator (this one is no longer true, by the way).
But all this question-asking and real world-instructing is paradoxical. Because in the real world, we won’t be asked questions that have definitive right answers. We’ll be answering, and asking, questions that don’t have answers.
The Value of Unanswerable Questions and Unsolvable Problems:
In the real world, humans are trying to solve problems that have previously been, or maybe will always be, unsolvable. In math, there are the Millennium Problems. In astronomy and physics, there is the question of what dark matter is, and whether the multiverse exists. In philosophy and neuroscience, there’s the problem of what defines consciousness. And these are only a few of the problems and questions we’re dealing with. There’s also the question of how we develop general AI (and whether this is something we even want to do), of whether life exists on other planets, of whether existence has a deeper meaning.
Working to answer difficult questions — and asking new ones — is a hallmark of human progress. When we ask and answer questions, we are able to gain a better understanding of our world and act accordingly. And even when we are unable to answer the questions we’ve asked, thinking about them and testing our hypotheses still builds up our collective understanding.
This question-asking permeates into the workplace as well. At work, people often have to solve complex problems that don’t have clear-cut answers. They need to consider multiple perspectives, address the gaps in their knowledge, and balance resources in order to make decisions successfully. In fact, the importance of problem-solving skills will only grow in the future, as AI and technology become more abundant. And as technology allows us to progress further and faster, workers will have to deal with new, complex questions and problems.
We need to prepare today’s kids to be ready for this. And in order to do this, we need to start asking kids questions that don’t have answers — which will require us to stop thinking of schools as solely places where kids acquire knowledge, but also as places where they build skills, where they learn how to explore and engage with topics that haven’t yet been fully understood, even by adults.
How to Incorporate Questions into Education:
So how do we do this? I say, we can start slow. Schools and teachers can start incorporating more complex questions into their curriculums. Questions that don’t have right or wrong answers. Here are a few examples, although there are surely lots, lots more:
- What is art? Should, or does, art have a purpose in today’s society?
- Where, and how, do we use mathematics and physics in daily life?
- Does history repeat itself? Why or why not? Do we truly learn from our past mistakes?
- How do societies and cultures rise and fall?
I also think it would be helpful to set up environments that are conducive to exploring these questions. That means letting kids explore them in a nonrestrictive, stress-free manner. Personally, I think projects and ungraded discussions are a key way to accomplish this.
It is also important to understand that this approach may require a bit of adjustment, from students as well as schools. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have some awesome teachers who have asked questions and explored topics in their classes that weren’t cut and dry, often through discussions and simulations. And at first, being used to usually being asked simpler questions, I was a little disoriented. “Why are teachers asking us to solve problems that generations of adults haven’t solved?” I asked myself. But upon further reflection, I realized something: my teachers weren’t expecting us to be able to solve these problems perfectly, they just wanted us to explore and talk about them a little, to encourage us to be comfortable when we don’t know the answer to something.
The Value of Discomfort:
It’s no secret that today’s kids have to work through discomfort. They have to deal with the pressure of grades, competition, and college admissions. In fact, this discomfort is often seen as a good thing, in that they are learning to deal with stress and “not knowing.” However, I think that we often fail to embrace another kind of discomfort — the discomfort that comes with exploring topics or questions that we aren’t sure about. The “not knowing” we kids often face in school usually revolves around “not knowing” if we did well on our last test or not — it is not the kind of “not knowing” that truly encourages us to push past our intellectual boundaries, to be able to discuss unsolved problems. Instead of encouraging a discomfort regarding our grades, schools should encourage a deeper, more human discomfort — one that comes with facing the unknown, something rudely abundant in this universe of ours.
And let’s not forget, it’s the next generation of leaders, artists, inventors, scientists— the next generation of humans — that are currently sitting in today’s classrooms. So let’s challenge them by asking questions they don’t, and maybe can’t, know the answer to. But let’s do more. Let’s encourage them to ask such questions on their own —questions which explore the depths of our oceans, questions which extend to the very edge of our universe, questions which challenge our understanding of what it means to be human — and reunite us with an integral element of our humanity in the process.
