You sunk my battleship, that’s right, the Author hit me smack dab straight in the nose and revealed one of my deadliest sins. My questioning sin revolves around the notion of the pace of a class and keeping things going on track and at a speed. The author pointed out that “the most frequent example of poor procedure occurs when the teacher answers his or her own question rather than waiting for students to respond.” Whereas I should be more concerned about “what is important is not how much one can teach, but how much a student can learn.”
I absolutely agree with Fairbairn’s antidotes relating to the quality of a teacher being associated with their ability to ask the right questions at the right time. I agree that more often than not and unintentionally questions are so poorly worded, laid out or organized so as that disaster may follow; perhaps humorous responses, flustered students or unmotivated/withdrawn behavior emerges.
I enjoyed Fairbairn’s seven deadly sins of questions to avoid not only because of the paramount importance that I believe should be placed on students to ask questions no matter how trivial, but because of the manner the article was presented. I found the article light, humorous, easy to digest and equipped with powerful insights and helpful antidotes.
I enjoyed the comments concerning the relationship between thinking, doing and learning to the primary purpose for questioning, which is to promote thinking. As well as his views on questioning as being both instructional and diagnostic in nature; although this was already an intuitive notion, the presentation made it more apparent elevating my awareness regarding it.
Personally, my favorite quote deals with my own brilliance: “In fact, it is said that the difference between a genius and an average per-son is that an average person learns from his or her own mistakes, whereas a genius learns from the mistakes of others.” I guess this is why I was never considered to be a genius.
