I taught allied health medical college students at the Bachelor's and Master's degree level for about 30 years and can firmly say that there ARE such things as bad questions. This includes ones totally unrelated to the topic at hand or ones meant to answer something very remote from the topic. At one point in my career I had a student that I felt I had to prepare for whatever questions he would ask. I actually said this to myself beforehand. What tangential thing(s) would he ask. It was exhausting for me! I finally developed a solution to prepare for the topic and to be able to answer 90% of student questions. Ones I did not know answers for I would state that it was a good question and we could look further into it after class. Funny, he never took me up on such discussion.
I appreciate the mention of the curiosity as a driver in asking questions. It feels like such a different experience when someone asks a question because they genuinely are curious about the answer versus when someone asks a question because they think they already know what the answer is (and either already agree or disagree with it).
With my teenager, one thing I've been working on with him is actually *listening* for the answer to a question and not just waiting for the person to stop talking so he can start again... it is a work in progress :)
True—it’s different on both sides of the conversation. So much of grad school training was the performance aspect of asking questions—and it took a while for me to re-learn the curiosity part. I had an amazing mentor/friend at Caltech who really modeled being curious without self-consciousness and that helped me self-correct a bit.
Thanks for such a fresh and lively look at a very important topic Liz! 👏 I enjoyed watching your eager science mind working on figuring out this "social" aspect of being a scientist.
I'm glad you didn't submit to the educational terrorists you encountered along the way!
I taught allied health medical college students at the Bachelor's and Master's degree level for about 30 years and can firmly say that there ARE such things as bad questions. This includes ones totally unrelated to the topic at hand or ones meant to answer something very remote from the topic. At one point in my career I had a student that I felt I had to prepare for whatever questions he would ask. I actually said this to myself beforehand. What tangential thing(s) would he ask. It was exhausting for me! I finally developed a solution to prepare for the topic and to be able to answer 90% of student questions. Ones I did not know answers for I would state that it was a good question and we could look further into it after class. Funny, he never took me up on such discussion.
OH gosh I should have included questions on oral exams! A whole other category of performance.
I appreciate the mention of the curiosity as a driver in asking questions. It feels like such a different experience when someone asks a question because they genuinely are curious about the answer versus when someone asks a question because they think they already know what the answer is (and either already agree or disagree with it).
With my teenager, one thing I've been working on with him is actually *listening* for the answer to a question and not just waiting for the person to stop talking so he can start again... it is a work in progress :)
True—it’s different on both sides of the conversation. So much of grad school training was the performance aspect of asking questions—and it took a while for me to re-learn the curiosity part. I had an amazing mentor/friend at Caltech who really modeled being curious without self-consciousness and that helped me self-correct a bit.
Thanks for such a fresh and lively look at a very important topic Liz! 👏 I enjoyed watching your eager science mind working on figuring out this "social" aspect of being a scientist.
I'm glad you didn't submit to the educational terrorists you encountered along the way!
Thank you, B2!