Seminarium

The Elements of Great Teaching

Posing Questions—Part I: Better a Good Question than an Answer!

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The following excerpts of David’s upcoming book, Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach: Reflections on Education as Transformation through Dialogue (Summer, 2014), are used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

What is it about a good question? What happens when the question itself becomes a fascination?

It may be a question that names a puzzle to be solved or a conundrum to be contemplated. It may put the finger on a piece of evidence necessary for understanding. It may point to a contradiction that problematizes or complexifies our thinking. It may challenge our fundamental assumptions. It may be a question to which there will be no certain answer. It will probably be a question that leads to other questions. But when you get a good one, it is clearly better to have a good question than an answer!

Great Question!

A rabbinic story is told about a distraught man in a rural community who ran desperately through the town in the middle of the night screaming, “I have to find an answer to my question, ‘What is the meaning of life?’”

After considerable disturbance of the peace from the incessant repetition of his question, someone suggested he wake the Rabbi and ask him. He went to the Rabbi’s home, pounding on the door and calling out, “I have to find an answer to my question!”

The Rabbi came to the door and invited him into his study and asked him what his question was. He said, “What is the meaning of life? Tell me!” The rabbi replied, “I can’t help you. I won’t help you.” Why?” the man answered, “I am desperate to know.” “Because,” the Rabbi said firmly, “You have a great question, and I refuse to ruin it with an answer!”

“Amen” is not an Answer

Joseph Sittler, a wonderfully creative theologian who was part of my own Lutheran tradition, recounted to me an event that happened years ago when he was invited to preach at Yale University Divinity School. He preached on that difficult parable about an unjust steward. He reflected on the contours of the parable: when a steward was dismissed for treating clients unjustly, he compounded his immoral activity by going around and making friends with the clients by lowering their obligations to his master so as to assure favors for himself after he left his position. Sittler then observed that Jesus told the parable as a model for behavior. Without further explanation, Sittler posed this question: “Now what was it that our Lord found so commendable about this crook?” With that, he said “Amen!” and ended the sermon!

The faculty and students held a forum with Sittler after the service. At that forum, one of the Yale professors played the devil’s advocate and said, “I did not hear a sermon today. There was no discussion of the human condition. There was no gospel announcement. There was no application of the text to our time.” This was followed by a long silence. Finally a woman in the back raised her hand and said, “You may be right, but I can’t get that question out of my mind!”

Now there was a question! 

Sittler offered a question that named an enigma, that opened up the text to multiple explorations, that had no definitive answer, that surely would lead to other questions, and that, perhaps most important of all, stuck in the craw! It just makes you want to go back and reread that parable and turn it over in your mind and find out what others think and try out some ideas.

The discussion might change your view of the parable. The exploration of the question might change your way of reading all the parables. It might even change your view of Jesus. What a great question to start a discussion. And what a wonderful way to evoke curiosity!

Stimulate Curiosity

It is astounding how little curiosity we humans tend to have. It is also astounding how much we tend to accept things without questioning them.

This is the dilemma I faced from my first year of teaching in college. Students showed little initiative in asking about something, even when they were invited to do so. Why this was so I do not know. It could be because of a lack of interest or because they were satisfied with a surface explanation or maybe even because it might involve more effort. Students would just wait for me to explain things. It is not just young students who have this malady. Older students and graduate students have difficulty posing constructive questions, questions that would clearly advance their learning as well as that of the whole class, including mine!

Asking questions is related to an innate sense of curiosity. It demonstrates the desire to probe into the meaning and dynamics of something. It signals an appetite for learning, a love of adventure and exploration. It marks a tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, a trait that is the basis for creativity. Curiosity is the beginning of wisdom. Learning begins with a question. But how do you teach curiosity?

That is the subject of my second post in this series!

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David Rhoads is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (1988 to 2010), previously professor of religion at Carthage College, Kenosha, WI (1973 to 1988). He has published Mark as Story (co-author, third edition, 2012), The Challenge of Diversity (2004), Reading Mark, Engaging the Gospel (2005), From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective (editor, 2005), and “Performance Criticism: An Emerging Discipline in Second Testament Studies” (BTB, 2006). He edits the Biblical Performance Criticism series for Wipf and Stock Press. He edited Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet (2008), co-edited The Season of Creation (2011), and directs Lutherans Restoring Creation. Rhoads was Carthage Teacher of the Year in 1974-75. In 2004, he received the first Fortress Press Award for outstanding teaching in a graduate/seminary institution. Rhoads lives in Racine, WI with his wife the Rev. Sandra Roberts.