Why Ask Why?

If you have little kids or you teach little kids, you have answered tens of millions “Why?” questions.  Often I get frustrated around the 4th or 5th question.  But let me tell you, these little ones are geniuses and we should learn from them.

Image from the book "Darth Vader and Son"
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Little kids are programmed to explore and understand the world around them.  If something doesn’t make sense, they need to ask, “Why do we do it this way?”  And then they need to continue to ask that question until the answer connects with something else they know.  It’s brilliant.  So why do we stop doing this as we get older?  Adults are the simple answer.  At some point we convey to children that asking that “Why?” question frustrates those around you.  And we could not be doing a greater disservice to our next generation.

This tiny question leads to greater understanding of the world around us.  It makes connections from the unknown to the known, it challenges the status quo, it explore possibilities, and it forces us to evaluate preconceived understandings and biases.  That’s a lot of power for one little word.

It’s that last part that I like to focus on in education.  Challenging preconceived understandings and biases can open up a world of understanding for students.  Webster's Dictionary defines Metacognition in three ways:

1. higher-order thinking that enables understanding, analysis, and control of one’s cognitive processes, especially when engaged in learning.
2. thinking about one's own mental processes
3. awareness and understanding one's thinking and cognitive processes;thinking about thinking

When we encourage our students to ask “Why?” as it applies to their own thinking, the connection between academic knowledge, world understanding, and internal motivation goes deeper.   Elliot Aronson’s work on Cognitive Dissonance theorizes, “Creating and resolving cognitive dissonance can have a powerful impact on students' motivation for learning.”

Designing lessons and learning opportunities with this in mind is crucial for our next generation of students.  I know that in my classroom I was often tempted to cut the reflection part of a lesson because of time or in the interest of covering more material.  I was doing a major disservice to my students.  Simply “covering” material does not help to deepen understanding.  Committing time to reflection, and not just at the end of the lesson or unit, is the most important component of your lesson plan.  Ask your students, “Why did you do it this way?”  And then ask them, “Why?” again.  And maybe again.  And then watch their thinking deepen.

I have two little ones at home.  Instead of reading all the articles out there about how to stop kids from asking a million questions, I’m going to embrace the ones that talk about loving this stage.  I tend to agree that it is not that kids lose interest in the world around them or that their intrinsic motivation dies out naturally.  I think that the adults in their world discourage them from exploration.  Let’s work together to stop that cycle.