Questioning is the tap root of education (Phyo Wai Aung)

Questioning is the tap root of education

As soon as we had came out of the mother's body, we met questions of heat, coldness, warmth, hunger, dissatisfaction and our new world. Our response to these questions was crying with a high voice. Since then, questions had increasingly moved towards our life. Whenever I cried with the loudest voice, my parents always asked me why-questions. Moreover, when I entered my school, my classmates and I asked a lot of questions to one another. Then, my teachers always put several questions to me daily when I attended the class. From that time on, it dawned on me that questions and questioning almost always occupy my everyday life, my environment, my society and my small world. However, these questions and questioning are usually straightforward and sometimes personal.

As we all know that classrooms should be like Hluttaws, our classroom of today should be filled with agreement and disagreement as well as asking intelligent questions. Here, Edison, for instance, asked many questions to his teachers not because he did not understand the lessons very well but because he really wanted to know thoroughly how things happen or work. Yet, his teachers thought that he is a slow learner or low-achieving student. In this way, his questions were killed, but he himself tried to discover the answers to his questions by studying at home. Later, he was able to invent the electric bulb after doing laboratory experiments many times. Consequently, our world has been shining the whole night. I believe Edison showed that questioning is not a job of lay men, but of wise men.

Since I was a high school student, I had also enjoyed questioning like Edison. I like to understand very well what the concept of the lesson is. Certain teachers were ready to welcome my questions including my friends'. Unfortunately, some teachers pay too little attention to my questions. Nor do they themselves ask their students, either. Nevertheless, it is true that questioning is an important aspect of students' and teachers' work in the classroom.

According to Charles Kivunja (2015), questions fall into four main categories: convergent questions, divergent questions, evaluative questions and reflective questions. Convergent questions are questions whose answers are known and expected from the students. If students give any response which is not what teacher expects, it is considered. An example of such a question is ''When was Hellen Keller born?" The next one is divergent question which is an open-ended type designed to give the students the opportunity to uncover the deep-seated meaning of the concepts rather than simple yes or no answers. For example, such a question is ''Why should we preserve endangered species from extinction?'' The third one is evaluative question which is similar to divergent question in that it deals with matters of judgement, value and choice. A brilliant example of this is '' If the Ayeyarwady river is dammed up, how would this affect Myanmar?" Last but not least, reflective questions give students the opportunity to reflect before they respond and to be promped to expand and extend thinking through follow-up questions. ''What are your opinions, ideas and  beliefs about the party politics and what implications do they have for our future Myanmar?" is one of the reflective questions. 

It is in our classroom that economic, social, political, educational, cultural, religious and environmental factors of Mynmar must have been discussed by teachers and students. Therefore, not only should questioning be welcome in our classroom but it is vitally important for teachers to be proficient in asking students these types of questions in a proper and intelligent manner. In 1971, Rosenshine stated that questioning is one of the oldest instructional strategies used by teachers and it is sometimes referred to as the Socratic method. According to the findings of research studies, an average teacher spend between 35 and 50 per cent of teaching time on asking questions to students. It is an unforgettable fact that although teacher questioning is essential, teachers should prepare questions to be used in the instructional process before entering the classroom. 

By summing up, questioning can facilitate learning by students and can extend as well as deepen their understanding. So, let's paint together our classrooms questioning colour.

Phyo Wai Aung