Reflection on The Quote "Judge a
man by his questions rather than his answers."
Author: Santosh Kumar Biswa,
Sr. Teacher, Damphu CS, Tsirang, Bhutan
I was initially really perplexed by Voltaire's
quotation, "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers,"
and I wondered what it meant. It's because I've always believed that a person's
intelligence can be used to gauge how good they are at answering questions.
Furthermore, teachers only ever taught us how to give good answers; asking
questions was never taught to us as students. As a result, even in my classroom
as a teacher now, I have been doing so. But after studying Voltaire's writings
and his contributions to the subject of education, I'm convinced that he was
making that claim for a reason, perhaps having to do with inquiry-based
learning.
Concerning the quote's deeper meaning, I think that
today's learners need to ask lots of questions. Young people of today should be
prepared in accordance with the issues that they will face in life since we
know that they live in a world that is more linked and diverse (Evans,
Montemurro, Gambhir, & Broad, 2014). As a teacher, I've come to understand
the need to educate students to be globally competent and curious about the
world and its workings (Mansilla & Jackson, 2011). Only when students are
actively engaged in asking for an inquiry purpose that allows them to explore
and learn do they become globally competent? For instance, in the classroom,
students can learn more from the questions they raise as listeners than they do
from merely passing judgment in silence. Instead of just accepting the
narratives at face value, readers may learn more by critically analyzing the
content they are reading. They can therefore contribute more to society by
learning about various cultures and customs rather than just imitating and
adopting others' behaviors. The questions we pose are more important than the
answers we find because they serve as a conduit for getting the solution we
seek. In the real world, simply claiming to be a human would not justify that
fact; rather, it would be justified if we asked, "Why am I?" I
vividly recall that in school, my teachers preferred that I respond to their
questions rather than pose my own. We even used to be afraid to ask questions
since we believed that our teachers held more information and authority than us
in the classroom. There was only one way to learn without exposure, and it was
for a restricted amount of knowledge. Now that I've realized that I was
incorrect according to the quote, as a teacher, I must encourage my students to
pose questions for inquiry and problem-solving.
When I remembered my school days, I realized that only
my teachers had taught me how to apply the knowledge I had and the little
communication skills I had. If I had ever been encouraged to ask questions in
class, I would have learned something else in addition to what was taught. I
now recognize the value of questioning and should encourage my students to do
so because it develops their knowledge and fosters a professional, skeptical
attitude that encourages insightful discussions through discoveries,
self-assurance, critical thinking, and other techniques for gaining new
knowledge (Nachnolkar, n.d.). A person who has the practice of asking questions
before approving ideas will always succeed because he will rarely accept any
notions or ideas that are presented to him without thoroughly evaluating them
and being satisfied.
Since inquiry-based learning is a cutting-edge method
of instruction that incorporates students' active engagement by having them ask
questions and share real-world experiences, I am confident that the quote has
some connection to it and that questioning itself involves inquiry (Santa Ana
College, n.d.). Since students are involved in their learning when they ask
questions, they are also involved when they explore and are presented with
difficult questions. According to Andrini (2016), I came to understand that by
encouraging students to ask questions to learn, they are better able to locate
and arrange concepts and principles in their own personal order of
significance. For instance, in my classroom, whenever I assign a task to
students, I typically ask them to get involved in asking questions and
conducting investigations by questioning their peers, friends from other
classes, and members of their community in order to find the answers to their
inquiries. This encourages them to engage in deeper thought on the subject and
enables them to learn more about a complex subject. By engaging them in
questioning during their learning process, I can help them enhance their
ability to process their knowledge and problem-solving skills, just like what
inquiry-based learning does (Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 2004).
However, questions can also be used to gauge pupils' comprehension and keep
them interested in what they are studying. After any lesson, I typically ask my
students questions in my classroom to gauge their understanding, discover any
misconceptions they may have, and gauge their level of learning.
It is acknowledged that questioning is an
instructional strategy that can contribute to a potent assessment tool that
enables teachers to gather pertinent data on the accomplishments of the
students by gathering accurate information on their learning process for
subsequent pedagogical decisions to improve their learning outcomes (Jiang,
2020). The idea of active/inquiry-based learning and the evaluation of
students' learning outcomes are thus clearly linked in the quote.
References
Andrini, V. S. (2016). The Effectiveness of Inquiry
Learning Method to Enhance Students’ Learning Outcome: A Theoretical and
Empirical Review. Journal of Education and Practice. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1089825.pdf
Educational Broadcasting Corporation. (2004). Inquiry
Based Learning. https://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index_sub1.html
Evans, M., Montemurro, D., Gambhir, M., & Broad,
K. (Eds.). (2014). Inquiry into practice: Learning and teaching global matters
in local classrooms. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the
University of Toronto (OISE).
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/oise/UserFiles/File/TEACHING_GLOBAL_MATTERS_FINAL_ONLINE.pdf
Mansilla,
V., & Jackson, A. (2011). Educating for global
competence. New York, NY: Asia Society. Retrieved from https://asiasociety.org/files/book-globalcompetence.pdf
Nachnolkar, R. (n.d.). Why is it said to “Judge a
man by his questions rather than his answers”?
https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-quote-judge-a-man-by-his-questions-rather-than-his-answer-really-mean
Santa Ana College. (n.d.). Inquiry-Based Learning.
https://www.sac.edu/AcademicAffairs/TracDat/Pages/Inquiry-Based-Learning-.aspx#:~:text=Inquiry%2Dbased%20learning%20is%20a,problem%2Dsolving%20and%20experiential%20learning.
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