The Joy of Asking Questions
Asking questions, especially good ones, keeps us connected
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The best kind of questions lead to more questions.
As my oldest son gears up to vote in his first election, and I have to say my most stressful one, I am grateful for a quality he’s possessed since he was a little boy. He asks really interesting and thoughtful questions - and is rarely afraid to ask them.
I remember a conversation when he was in second grade.
His school is in center city Philadelpha, but each week his class would take a bus outside the city to an environmental center for science. One of his amazing teachers, a veteran educator in the primary grades, took me aside to tell me she always loved sitting next to Avery on the bus. She said,”He is just so interesting. And not like a child is “interesting.” He’s truly interesting to talk to.”
When pressed for more, she said maybe it was his questions.
Questions. We hear this a lot. Certain people have a knack. Some even turn it into a profession.
But, aside from making a good impression, what can asking questions do for us?
The Big Idea
We spend so much time answering questions, but little time learning how to ask good ones. And questions appear to be simple linguistic tasks, and they can be. But they also can be deceivingly hard to learn how to ask well.
But for a young person, questions are essential.
And there are a lot of interesting questions to ask, which my son is doing, about just about everything. What it means to vote, why we still have the electoral college, who all of these other people were voting for are, does anyone know? what do we need to know about before we go? and what does this representative do? and why is this judge important and…what will happen if… ?
But that quality that I am grateful for in him isn’t just his good questions, it is that he unabashedly asks them.
