Beyond “Why?”

Annoying Kid

I was that annoying kid who always asked questions. Constantly. I especially asked “why” when I was told to do or not do something. If I received an answer that didn’t make sense or that I didn’t agree with, I fell short of compliance. Actually, that still holds today—a point that makes both my husband and principal twitch at times. But that’s a different kind of “why”. A teacher “why” needs to engender deeper thought. A teacher “why” needs to inspire, but that word is not all that inspirational.

In one of my last graduate classes (more than ten years ago) I read an article entitled, “Beyond ‘I like the way you…’.” It was about giving students sincere, positive, specific feedback. When I think about questioning, I envision an article entitled “Beyond, ‘Why?’” that needs to be written. “Tell me more” does no more than “why,” sooooo, I have made a list of some questions and comments I try to make to students as a place to start.

• How can you check that?
• Is there another way?
• Try to find a counter example.
• Discuss your method with your shoulder partner.
• Make the abstract concrete and see what you notice.
• Listen in on the conversation that group is having over there.
• Think about what you did yesterday. What are the similarities and differences here?

To help improve my why-type questioning, I am going to try to keep a tally of my questioning next week and focus on replacing “why” with a better response. For each “why”, I will put one tally. For each why-replacement, I will put a star. My students deserve better so I am going to work toward being a better why-replacer.