Have you ever noticed how some children have so many questions and are so curious? Maybe you were like this at first and eventually realized that adults and authority figures like teachers would get upset if you asked too many questions. It turns out that the questions we ask are often much more important than the answers, and those of us who continue to ask questions develop a much better understanding of the world.
Not long ago, I discussed this topic with a retired UK school teacher, specifically why some children keep asking “Why?” and even when you answer, they ask “why” to your answer and so on. The school teacher noted:
“Yes, I have taught why to the children. Some were really interested, others thought it was cool and made them look smart. It didn’t, and it delayed the conference. All the teachers are very restricted in what they can teach in the plan of studies. Everyone has to follow the party lines. The interested children took enough to satisfy themselves and ran with it.”
This of course makes it difficult for teachers and if students ask too much “why”, this teacher will eventually say; “Sorry love, I can’t help you. If you have any more questions, you’ll have to go to the library and look them up yourself.”
Turns out really curious and interested kids did it, today of course it’s much easier, “google it on your smartphone” and get your answer in 0.00291183717 seconds and get one of 10,000 results for your query.
Yes, that is very interesting, I agree with your solution in a classroom teaching environment, and yes, I have noticed the “Why” of children who simply do it to be funny or disturbing. It’s easy to tell the difference between those and those who are generally interested, because interested children say “oh” and then modify their next question to something extremely relevant, although in a classroom it would also be disturbing even if it arouses the curiosity of the other students who enjoy immersing themselves in the subject. When children are really interested and like the subject, they enjoy learning, learn extremely quickly, and do very well in their understanding of new material. I also agree that if a student isn’t interested in self-directed study to satisfy her curiosity, then an instructor can’t help much.
I guess the instructor needs to help them develop interest, by letting the topic be interesting, and mostly it’s all interesting. We have a problem in our schools in the US, half the teachers don’t care, the other half care a lot. a year with a teacher who doesn’t care about a child can be a disaster for her mental development. I wish more teachers would heed Sir Ken Robinson’s call on teaching. Of course our problem in the US is the main challenges in our schools, teachers telling them how to teach, what to teach, when to teach, when to test and so on. – and then it is difficult to develop individual minds. To your point about… “look it up” if you want to know more.
Today, our children can search for whatever they want whenever they want, Oxford Library on steroids – Internet – Google. It’s just laziness not to do it, everything is there, but unfortunately often the wishes of the students are not. I would blame the system, not the teachers, well not all teachers, some, I mean, burnout is very common in a school system driven by the best: those teachers teach because they want to, until they find out they can’t, then it’s just a paycheck and a pension, they’re stuck, like a lot of their students I guess.