QUESTIONING
In all teaching much depends upon the skill with which the teacher
stimulates and guides the class by means of the questions which she
asks. Occasionally one finds a teacher who seems to think that the
sole purpose of questioning is to test the knowledge of her pupils.
She asks hundreds of questions which can be answered merely by an
appeal to the memory. This sort of testing is valuable for review,
but it does not necessitate thought. When a teacher habitually asks
these fact questions, the children respond by trying to remember the
words or the facts given in their books.
A type of question still less worthy is the direct question,—the one
that can be answered by yes or no. The teacher who asks, “Is Albany
on the Hudson River?” does not expect the children to think. If they
are fairly bright, they will probably guess from her inflection
whether the answer is yes or no. In any event, after one guess has
been made there is only one alternative, and the pupil who answers
second often deceives both the teacher and himself into thinking that
he really knew the answer. The question which suggests an alternative
is in effect the same as a direct question with its alternative
answer of yes and no. “Does the earth turn on its axis from east to
west or from west to east?” is no better than to ask, “Does the earth
turn on its axis from west to east?” Indeed, the alternative question
in the example given is worse than the direct form, since it suggests
a wrong answer which may make sufficient impression to confuse the
pupils when the question arises again.
The leading or suggestive question is much used by teachers who
attempt to develop with children generalizations for which they have
no basis in knowledge. It is perfectly possible to have children
give some sort of expression to the most profound generalizations
of science or philosophy, if one is only skillful in suggesting
the answers which they are to give. As an example of this sort of
questioning, the following is taken almost verbatim from a teacher
who thought she was having her children think about the growth of
plants. “Did you plant your flowers where the sun would shine on
them? Do you think plants would grow in a very dark place? What do
plants need to help them to grow? When the ground gets dry, what will
you sprinkle on the ground to help the plants to grow? What do plants
need besides light to make them grow? Would your plants grow if it
was very cold? What do plants need besides light and moisture to make
them grow?” If such a series of suggestive questions is asked, the
responses will be prompt and the waving of hands most vigorous, but
surely there has been very little necessity for thinking on the part
of the children. This brings us to the crux of the whole problem. A
question in order to be most stimulating must be of sufficient scope
to demand that the experience of the children be organized anew with
reference to the problem under consideration.
The teacher who wants to test the quality of her questions ought
frequently to ask herself whether her questions are of sufficient
scope. If all the children can answer every question asked
immediately, the questions have not been very successful from the
standpoint of provoking thought. It takes time to think. The question
of large scope will be followed, not by a wild waving of hands,
but rather by a period of quiet reflection. The teacher who was
trying to have her pupils think about the conditions of plant growth
should have asked one or two thought-provoking questions instead of
the larger number of suggestive questions. She might have put the
following questions: What have you known any one to do to get good,
strong, healthy plants? Would it be possible to change any of these
conditions and still have the best plants? What is necessary for the
growth of plants? If questions similar to the above are asked, one
might naturally expect children to relate and to compare experiences,
in fact, to solve the problem by bringing to bear as best they could
the facts concerning plant growth which had been observed in their
experience. If the teacher wants the children to get some adequate
idea of a mountain, in their work in home geography she might tell
them about it or read them a description; but even after the best
description she would want to question them in order to have them
think about the facts which had been given. She might ask: How long
do you think it would take a man to walk to the top of a mountain?
What would be the difficulties in getting to the top? If you stood on
the top and threw a stone, how far down the mountain do you think it
would go?
To ask good questions takes careful thought and planning on the part
of the teacher. A half dozen thoroughly good questions often make a
recitation a most stimulating exercise in thinking, while the absence
of this preparation on the part of the teacher not infrequently
results in the ordinary listless class period, which may actually
be harmful from the standpoint of the child’s intellectual growth.
It would be well for every teacher to ask herself the following
questions when she is dissatisfied with the results of her teaching:
Were my questions clear and concise? Did they challenge the attention
of all the members of the class? Did the children need to think,
to organize their experience with reference to the problem in hand
before they answered? Was the sequence good? Was it possible for
every child to answer some of the questions? Did each child have a
chance to answer? Did the children ask questions?—When children are
active mentally, they will have questions to ask.
In asking questions much depends upon the novelty of the form in
which the question is put or of the issue which is presented. The
writer has enjoyed asking several groups of teachers why they teach.
The answers have been most varied, and on the whole indicate the real
attitude of these men and women toward their work. A very different
response is secured, however, when you ask the same groups to define
the aim of education. They will all profess that they hope to realize
the aim of education in their teaching, and that it is because they
hope to participate in the development of socially efficient men and
women that they teach; always provided you have asked a question
concerning the aim of education. The difference in the two situations
is accounted for by the difference in the wording of the question. In
the one case these teachers really asked themselves the question—why
do I teach? They answered in terms of their experience. Some taught
for money, some because it was a respectable calling, some for want
of anything better to do, some because they liked children, and some
because of their appreciation of the significance of education in
our modern democratic society. In the other case, the answers were
given in words conveying ideas which were supposed to be those most
acceptable to the teacher.
It is often helpful to state the opposite of the common expression
of a generalization and to suggest that you are willing to maintain
this point of view. The best lesson that the writer ever conducted
on induction and deduction was begun with the statement: “Induction
always begins with a generalization and moves to the consideration of
particulars. Deduction always begins with a particular and moves to
a generalization.” The class was excited because the usual form of
expression had been reversed, and, before the period was over, did
some thinking about the commonly accepted definitions of induction
and deduction. These definitions had really been nothing but a lot
of words to juggle with, rather than the embodiment of clear ideas.
This method of shock through the unfamiliar form of the question,
or by means of a statement which challenges attention because it
is seemingly contrary to the accepted formula, is one of the surest
means available to the teacher who would stimulate thought.
It may be objected by some teacher that the form of question
indicated above gives little or no place to the necessary reciting
from books; that when one wants to discover whether the pupils have
studied carefully the content of a text, the one way to be sure is
to ask the fact question. In reply, it may be said that questions
which call for the use or organization of facts demand not only the
knowledge demanded by the fact question, but the more significant
use of these data. It is true that some teachers still hear lessons.
On the whole, there is too much telling of what the book says and
too little teaching. The skillful teacher, in the assignment of her
lesson, will give the children problems concerning which they can
find information in their books. The recitation will demand the
answer to the questions that have been put previously, as well as to
such other questions as may be necessary in the development of these
problems. If the book is to be given a larger place, the recitation
may be topical. Here, again, the large topics which are assigned
should demand not a repetition of the headings and paragraphs of the
book, but rather the outline furnished by the teacher, or, better
still, made by the class; should necessitate a reorganization of
the material of the text. There is little use in trying to furnish
children with the knowledge of an encyclopedia. They will forget all
except that which has become part of a system or scheme of ideas
which have meaning and significance because of their organization.
It is true that facts are the raw material of thinking, and it is
equally true that those facts which have had some place in our
thinking are the ones which we retain for future use.
Aside from the form of the question, the teacher must consider the
technique of questioning. One of the most common mistakes is to call
on the bright children almost to the exclusion of the less capable.
The writer has repeatedly followed closely the distribution of
questions among the members of a class, only to discover that often
from one fourth to two thirds of the class were not called upon at
all, and that generally three fourths or more of the questions were
addressed to a very small number of children. Most teachers would
find it interesting to keep a record for a few days of the number of
questions assigned to each child. Such a score would help to explain
the lack of interest and backwardness of some pupils.
One hesitates to suggest that questions should not be given to the
pupils in any regular order from the beginning to the end of the
class by rows of seats or otherwise. Of course the teacher who does
this notifies the members of the class that they need not be troubled
about the work until their turn comes. Almost as bad, from the
standpoint of maintaining the feeling of responsibility by the whole
class, is the method of asking questions which prefixes the question
with the name of the child who is to answer. When the teacher says,
“George, will you summarize the points which have just been made,”
John, Henry, Mary, Catherine, and all the rest realize that there
is nothing for them to do. The teacher should rather announce her
question, and then wait long enough for all to be active before
calling on any one.
Another source of lack of attention is found in the question which is
repeated. Children soon come to know whether they must listen when
the question is first put, or whether they may wait until the second
or third statement before they will be called upon. There is another
weakness often shown in repeating questions, viz.: the question is
varied in form, which, in some cases, leads to confusion in the minds
of attentive pupils, or the different forms used enable the child
to guess the answer which is desired. To repeat questions is to
acknowledge either that the form in which it was first put was not
good or that the children were not expected to attend to the first
statement of the problem. Either alternative will be avoided by a
thoughtful, well prepared teacher.
The besetting sin of most teachers is the practice of repeating
the answers given by children. If the recitation is a place where
children are to discuss their problems together, then every answer
should be addressed to the whole class, not to the teacher. The
teacher who repeats each answer cannot expect the children either to
recite to the class or to pay attention to the one who is speaking.
Here is another chance for an interesting experiment. Score one
every time you repeat an answer, and then try to see how soon you
can eliminate this bad habit. It is often helpful to stand or sit in
some part of the room not directly in front of the class. The fact
that the teacher is among the class, one of them at least in position
in the room, will make it somewhat easier for children to talk to
the whole group. This habit of repeating the answer really grows
out of the feeling which so many teachers have that the function of
questions is to test for facts, and that in the recitation the answer
should be addressed to the teacher and given by her to the class so
that all may be made aware of the correct answer. The position which
has been maintained is that the main purpose of questioning is to
stimulate thought. Even if questions were mainly useful as a means of
testing for facts, it would still be unwise to repeat the answers.
Questioning by the teacher which does not lead to the asking of
questions by pupils is unsatisfactory. If the children are thinking,
really trying to solve the problem at issue, they will have questions
of their own. If any single test were to be applied to the strength
of the teacher’s questions, this would probably be best. Needless to
say, the questions which children ask should, as a rule, be addressed
to the class, or to some one member of the class, and not to the
teacher. Some of the best lessons are those which end with children’s
questions still unanswered, these problems furnishing the point of
departure for the study which is to precede the next day’s work.
If any one thinks that questioning is a simple matter, one that
deserves less consideration than has been given to it, let him sit
down and write four or five good questions which might be used in
teaching a first-grade lesson on the dog; a fifth-grade lesson on the
Southern states; a seventh-grade lesson on making jelly; or a high
school class on the law of gravity. The teacher who will get some
one to write down for her the questions which she asks in a single
recitation will be surprised both at the number (it will be almost
unbelievably large) and the quality of the product.
There is nothing more searching than to attempt to write down
beforehand the half dozen or more pivotal questions which are to
be used in a recitation. When the attempt is made, any weakness in
knowledge, in organization of subject matter, or in appreciation
of the pupil’s point of view with relation to the material to be
presented, will become apparent. There is no one thing that a teacher
can do which will bring a greater reward in increased teaching power,
than systematically to prepare questions for one or more recitations
each day. If the writer could be sure that any group of teachers
would try conscientiously to improve in the art of questioning, he
would be just as sure that these same teachers would be rated by any
impartial critic as superior to those who are willing to trust to
inspiration in this most important part of the teacher’s work.
FOR COLLATERAL READING
J. A. H. Keith, _Elementary Education_, Chapter IX.
_Exercises._
1. What is the chief function of questioning?
2. Why is the direct question of little value in teaching?
3. Give examples of leading questions. Why should a teacher avoid
questions of this class?
4. Write the questions which you would ask a class who had read a
description of a glacier, in order to stimulate their thought and
test their knowledge of this topic.
5. How many questions did you ask during one hour’s work? Observe
some other teacher, and score the number of questions.
6. Why is it important to consider the form or the wording of the
question you ask?
7. How can you challenge the attention of every member of your
class by the questions which you ask?
8. Why is it poor method to repeat the answer given by one of the
pupils?
9. Do your pupils recite to you, or to the class?
10. When would you expect children to ask questions? To whom should
such questions be addressed?
11. Criticize the questions used by the teacher in the following
stenographic report of a high school recitation in English. A
lesson on the old ballads has been given before. The text used was
Seward, _Narrative and Lyric Poems_, pp. 20-35.
_Teacher_: Before we begin to talk about modern ballads, let’s
see what you got from your first impression of the old ballads
last time. In the first place, give four or five subjects that
the old ballad writers were especially interested in.
_Pupil_: Fighting, principally, and some romance.
_Teacher_: What do you mean by _romance?_
_Pupil_: _Romance_—that is all.
_Teacher_: People meant different things—fighting, or love—do you
mean _love?_
_Pupil_: No, fighting—romance. (_Teacher writes on board_
“romance.”) That is about all I know, in the first—old ballads;
oh, yes, one gruesome one, about c—.
_Teacher_: Corbies?
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: Horror, perhaps.
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: Elsworth?
_Elsworth_: It only happened once,—lovers separated and met again.
_Teacher_: Yes. (_Writes_ “Fighting, Tales of Horror, Shipwreck,
Parted Lovers.”) Is that a fair list? I should think so. Let us
see about the spirit in which they were written, that is, the
kind of qualities the people in those ballads showed, and the
kind of qualities in human nature people of that day liked.
_Pupil_: I think bravery.
_Teacher_ (_writing_ “bravery”): Anything else?
_Pupil_: A hero and a villain.
_Teacher_: Hero and villain; in other words, you take sides?
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: What other qualities besides bravery?
_Pupil_: Treachery, of the kind in the ballad of Johnnie
Armstrong.
_Teacher_: Yes, and the hero shows what quality?
_Pupil_: He believes in the king even when he is summoned before
him.
_Teacher_: Good faith on one side, and treachery on the other.
Anything else?
_Pupil_: Honor.
_Teacher_: Honor, yes. (_Writes_ “honor.”)
_Pupil_: A great deal of honor among themselves.
_Teacher_: Loyalty to each other; and as regards their enemies,
what?
_Pupil_: They used to fight for fun, and they had certain rules;
they were not really angry, they had to keep certain rules.
_Teacher_: In other words?
_Pupil_: They couldn’t do just as they wanted to.
_Teacher_: There were rules of honor even toward your enemy, a
sort of amateur spirit.
_Pupil_: Courtesy to their enemies.
_Teacher_: Courtesy,—and perhaps we might say this includes being
true to the rules. Could we say anything about the style in which
these poems were written, kind of language, and kind of verse
form?
_Pupil_: Could be put to music.
_Teacher_: Easy to sing, for one thing?
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: Complicated tunes, or simple?
_Pupil_: Simple.
_Teacher_: How about the words, the English?
_Pupil_: Old English and Scotch.
_Teacher_: Old English and Scotch; easy or hard to understand?
_Pupil_: After you have read two or three, I don’t think it is
hard.
_Teacher_: If you had been an old Scotchman of those times,
should you say they were written in hard or easy language?
_Pupil_: Simple,—quaint.
_Teacher_: Simple and quaint—old-fashioned. Let us turn to the
ballads you had for to-day; see how they compare with these old
ones. The first one, _Lord Ullin’s Daughter_—as regards the
subject matter, is it the kind of story you think would appeal to
ancient writers?
_Pupil_: It seems so; this one was about an elopement, they seem
to write that kind of story.
_Teacher_: Anything else?
_Pupil_: Shipwreck.
_Teacher_: Do you think the old ballad writers would have been
satisfied with the way the story came out?
_Pupil_: I don’t think so; they liked to see their side win; the
lovers won in this case, but were drowned; I don’t think they
would have liked it that way.
_Teacher_: If they are going to get away from the father, they
ought to get away clear. I think that is true; things end simply
in the old ballads, it is an out-and-out tragedy or a happy
ending.
_Pupil_: They had some death, like Johnnie Armstrong, where the
hero was killed.
_Teacher_: How was he killed?
_Pupil_: By treachery.
_Teacher_: Was there any here?
_Pupil_: No.
_Teacher_: Were they killed through anybody’s fault, or by
accident?
_Pupil_: By accident.
_Teacher_: How is it in the old ballads?
_Pupil_: In the first stories they were not,—a shipwreck.
_Teacher_: But in most cases it is a matter of somebody’s
treachery. In _Sir Patrick Spence_ who gets drowned?
_Pupil_: The Scotch nobles.
_Teacher_: There it is the lords and all those other fine
noblemen. As far as the style goes in _Lord Ullin’s Daughter_,
should you say that the story goes rapidly, as rapidly as
possible, or should you say that if an old ballad singer were
telling the story, there is something that could be left out?
_Pupil_: I think so.
_Teacher_: Can you see any group of verses that could be left out
without breaking the story up?
_Pupil_: I think where it described the boat (_reads_):—
“The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her—
When, oh! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gather’d o’er her.”
Those descriptions could be left out; and (_reads_):—
“For sore dismay’d, through storm and shade,
His child he did discover:—
One lovely hand she stretch’d for aid,
And one was round her lover.”
_Teacher_: You think the picture of how she looked in the boat
does not count?
_Pupil_: I like it, but it could have been left out.
_Teacher_: The old ballad singers would have left out that part.
Are there things in the earlier part of the poem that could be
left out if you just wanted the story?
_Pupil_: The first verse.
_Teacher_: Better if they got started at once, perhaps. Miss
Weiss?
_Miss W._: The third verse:—
“And fast before her father’s men
Three days we’ve fled together,
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather.”
He says right after that that the horses are right behind him, so
he could have left that out.
_Teacher_: He spends too much time in talking to the boatman,
that is true.
_Pupil_: The seventh verse.
“By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-wraith was shrieking;
And in the scowl of Heaven each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.”
_Teacher_: You can’t help wondering why they didn’t get in the
boat, and stop talking. The old ballad writers pared it all down
to nothing but the story. Turn to the next one,—_Lady Clare_;
would that have pleased the old ballad writers?
_Pupil_: I think it would have. It is just the kind of love story
they liked,—it all turned out well.
_Teacher_: Turns out well in the end; and in it the lovers show
what kind of qualities?
_Pupil_: Faithful.
_Teacher_: You like that?
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: The sort of things anybody would like, all the
admirable qualities of a good love story. I wonder if any one
noticed the language of this poem, anything that would show that
Tennyson was trying to imitate the language of the old ballads?
_Pupil_: “I trow they did not part in scorn.”
_Teacher_: “I trow”—that sounds old-fashioned. Anything else?
_Pupil_: The way he brings in the nurse:—
“In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, ‘Who was this that went from thee?’
‘It was my cousin,’ said Lady Clare;
‘To-morrow he weds with me.’”
And “thee” and “thou.”
_Teacher_: How about the word “Said”; has that any subject?
_Pupil_: “Alice the nurse” is subject of both _came_ and _said_.
_Teacher_: Yes: anything else?
_Pupil_: The last of that verse, “To-morrow he weds with me.”
_Teacher_: That sounds old-fashioned; anything else?
_Pupil_: Some of the repetition.
_Teacher_: What line?
_Pupil_: “Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?”
_Teacher_: And
“Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,”
sounds like the kind of repetition a man would make on a guitar,
or something like that.
“‘Play me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald,
‘For I am yours in word and in deed.
Play me no tricks,’ said Lord Ronald,
‘Your riddle is hard to read.’”
It comes again and again. When you come to _Lucy Gray_, a poem
which was very famous, and which is, perhaps, a little hard to
get the real spirit of at first; did any one feel especially
attracted by that? Miss Graves? What did you like about it?
_Miss G._: It was entirely different from the others,—the way
it turned out,—well, just the description in everything,—the
snow,—then, it seemed to go easier than the others.
_Teacher_: We have rather taken it for granted all along that all
these were very easy,—easy to sing.
_Pupil_: I don’t think the later ballads are nearly as easy to
sing as others.
_Teacher_: You think this _Lucy Gray_ is different, you like the
descriptive verses in it? Any special phrases or description that
particularly struck you, Miss Graves?
_Miss G._: I don’t see any just now—
_Teacher_: Any one happen to remember any?
_Pupil_: “The minster-clock has just struck two.”
_Teacher_: Miss Thibaut?
_Miss T._:
“Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.”
_Teacher_:
“Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.”
Would that be in place in one of the old ballads? They weren’t
interested in the appearance of the snow very much. Miss Weiss?
_Miss W._: I think I like this ballad because it leaves something
to the imagination, the rest tell you everything; it doesn’t say
surely that she is still alive, it leaves it to you to think
about it.
_Teacher_: Do you think Wordsworth himself thinks she is still
alive?
_Pupil_: I think he does; I don’t know if he does, but I think he
does.
_Teacher_: In this remote country region, the people who would
maintain that she was alive would be—?
_Pupil_: The country people.
_Teacher_: What is Wordsworth’s attitude?
_Pupil_: I don’t think he credits it very much; I think he
respects it, but I don’t think he credits it.
_Teacher_: He doesn’t tell you whether he expects you to believe
it or not; but at any rate, there is a fineness of feeling
toward the country people that makes him respect the country
superstition.
_Pupil_: I think she must have been lost, because if she hadn’t,
she might have come back to her mother and father.
_Teacher_: Of course, your imagination there is piecing it out;
Wordsworth doesn’t tell you out and out that she was drowned.
_Pupil_: I think he does; he says her footsteps stopped in the
middle of the plank, and something must have happened there.
_Teacher_: The actual drowning was not described; you cannot help
feeling that in the old ballads they would have given you a full
description, like _Sir Patrick Spence_; the ballad ends how?
_Pupil_: Wordsworth was not trying to imitate the old ballads,
was he?
_Teacher_: No; it is a good deal further away from the old
ballads than the others we have had; it is a more imaginative
poem, more beauty of phrasing and thought. Any other questions or
comments about _Lucy Gray_?
_Pupil_: I like this verse:—
“They follow’d from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none.”
_Teacher_: You think that is because of the things Wordsworth
does not say, the fact that he keeps a certain amount to himself?
_Pupil_: Yes.
_Teacher_: That quality of reticence, isn’t it? How is it in
modern times; have you noticed how you respect people who do not
say quite all they feel; they keep their deepest feelings largely
to themselves, and you can only guess at it by what is left
unsaid? Are the kind of people who are represented in this poem
the sort of people you ordinarily encounter in the old ballads?
_Pupil_: I don’t think we do; the chief characters were the
nobles and barons, the highest people in England and Scotland.
_Teacher_: These people were what?
_Pupil_: Common people.
_Teacher_: You get that from what phrase in the poem? Any one?
_Pupil_: Just after he asked her to go for her mother: “At this
the father raised his hook”; he wouldn’t have done that if he
hadn’t been a working man.
_Pupil_: I don’t think he would have sent Lucy Gray after her
mother in the snow; they would have been riding in a coach and
four.
_Teacher_: How is it with some of the other early writers? Was
Shakespeare more interested in common people or wealthy?
_Pupil_: Wealthy.[17]
The questions and answers quoted represent about two thirds of the
work of a period.
Note the number of questions, their scope, the amount of thought
necessary on the part of the pupils, the explanations offered by
the teacher, and the relative amount of talking done by teacher and
pupils.