A Good Question
If I were asked to name the chief fault of the average teacher, I should
say, "Asking questions that can be answered by 'Yes' and 'No.'" Among my
acquaintances was once a teacher in a secular school whose method of
questioning was invariably this. He would have before him the statements
of the text-book, copied out with painstaking care, and would develop
the subject thus: "Is it true or is it not true, Mr. A----, that"--and
here would follow the statement or definition of the text-book. The
ambiguous answer, "Yes," was amply satisfactory. Unfortunately, when
such teachers gain a foothold in the Sunday-school, they are not so
easily dismissed as from secular establishments.
Now, a good question merely furnishes the starting-point, and pushes
the scholar out along the course toward some goal of truth; but in a
question that can be answered by "Yes" or "No" the teacher himself
ambles amiably up the track, and condescendingly allows the scholar's
monosyllable to pat him on the head after he himself has reached the
goal. A question that can be answered by "Yes" or "No" merely
formulates the truth as it exists in the teacher's mind, and invites
the scholar's assent to it; a good question, on the contrary, provokes
the scholar to formulate truth for himself.
Now, it is much easier to express what we see to be true than to get
any one else to express original thought. There is also, to the
unwise, more glory in laying down principles to which others must
agree than in getting others to lay down principles to which we must
agree. It will always be true, therefore, that the lazy and the
pompous will have no aim beyond educing monosyllabic answers. Most
teachers, however, are earnestly desirous of the best, but do not know
how to frame wise questions. What must be said to them?
First, that they must not go to school before their scholars. Expert
questioning is not learned in the class-room, but in the study. A
lead-pencil is the best teacher. A sheet of paper is the best
drill-ground. As I have urged before: Let the Sunday-school worker who
aspires to the high praise of a good questioner sit down persistently,
after studying the lesson, and write out a set of questions. Nay; on
each point, so far as he has time, let him write several questions,
criticise them, fancy what kind of answer each will be likely to
elicit from the scholar, and choose what appears the best question.
Try it on the class, and learn valuable lessons from the result.
This method, laborious as it is, must be kept up until skilful
questioning has become instinctive. That there may be hope of this happy
result, by the way, the written questions must never be used in the
class,--only the memory of them, and the drill the preparation has
given. It surely will happen, sooner or later, that the careful student
of practical pedagogics will be able to get along without writing,
merely formulating fit questions in his mind as he studies the lesson.
After a time he may dispense even with this, and look simply after the
points to be presented, trusting to extemporaneous question-making.
Not wholly, however. The best questioner in the world gets into ruts.
The best forms of questions ever invented are worse than the worst if
they are used with dull reiteration. No one can devote careful
attention to the form of his questions without falling in love with
some particular way of questioning; and this will not always be the
best way, but will probably be the most original way. A form of
question that is irreproachable the first time will be unendurable
used six times in succession. It is necessary, then, even for the
trained questioner, to revert now and then to his old lead-pencil
drill, in order to study variety.
But how may the uninitiated know a good question when they see it, or
make it? As said already, it must not be such that a lazy monosyllable
may answer it. As said already, too, if one is in doubt, he has but
to try it on the class, and note results. But further. A good question
will be likely to have something piquant about it, if the subject
admits. For instance, "James was killed, Peter was freed; why was
that?" is better than saying, "How do you account for the fact that
while the apostle James was beheaded, the apostle Peter was delivered
from the hands of his persecutors?"
Furthermore, the difference between a poor question and a good one may
often be a mere matter of length. "Why did the Christians at Antioch
keep the inferior leaders for work in the city, but send away the most
prominent men in their church to labor as missionaries?" That is
abominable; it should be, "Why did the Antioch Christians send away
their best men?"
A good question will contain as much as possible of the personal
element. "What do you understand by the phrase 'remission of sins'?"
is much better than "What is the significance of the phrase 'remission
of sins'?" Because the personal question puts the expected answer in a
more modest light, the answer will be more unconstrained and full.
And, by the way, there are few forms of questions more zealously to be
avoided than the form I have just used, "What do you understand by--?"
It is the unfailing resource of the poor questioner. A verse will be
read, a phrase quoted, a doctrine or a principle named, and then will
follow, as the night the day, the tiresome old formula, "What do you
understand by this, Miss A----?" One would be quite safe in declaring,
at any particular instant during common Sunday-school hours, that
one-fourth of the Sunday-school teachers of the world were repeating,
with united breath, that Methuselah of a query, "What do you
understand by this?"
Again, a good question must be swift. It must come so quickly that
there will be no time to get out of the way. Some questions that, if
written out, would not be bad, are prolonged in the utterance of
over-deliberate teachers like foggy illustrations of the law of
perspective. Good questions leap. You feel their buoyancy as you read
them or hear them. It is like the huntsman springing into the saddle
and shouting, "Come on!" No one with an atom of thoughtfulness is dull
to the exhilaration of spirited questions. They have inspired all the
wise thinking of the world.
And, finally, good questions should be absolutely clear. There is one
thing in the world that must always be faultlessly perspicuous and
distinct, and that is a marching order in time of battle. Now, questions
are the marching orders of our scholars' brain regiments, in a battle of
infinite moment. Let them ring clearly as ever bugle-call was sounded.
Questions mumbled, hesitant, caught up and patched over, confused and
slovenly,--what wonder if these get slow and mumbled answers? A question
clearly put, not only proves that the questioner has clear ideas, but
it wondrously clarifies the ideas of the answerer.
Good questions, then, are thought-compelling, varied, short, personal,
piquant, unhackneyed, brisk, and clear. Do I ask too much? Nothing
that all may not acquire, if but a tithe of the zeal and labor claimed
by the trivialities of a few years are spent upon these issues of
eternity. Let every teacher consider what characteristics of a good
questioner he may add to his pedagogical outfit.