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Maybe you have also observed how common it is nowadays for students to not know how to have a conversation. Perhaps this owes to a preponderance of talk shows in which people with different opinions rarely listen to each other, instead preferring to out-shout their opponent. Maybe it is due to changed dinner habits where more families are eating on the go rather than sitting down together and catching up on each other's day. It could be about how texting and tweeting now trump talking and listening as today's preferred forms of communication.

8 Tips for Speaking and Listening

While it is impossible to know all of the reasons, there is no doubt that learning to listen and talk is an extremely important way to broaden knowledge, enhance understanding and build community. Perhaps this is why the core standards in English-language arts include an important emphasis on developing speaking and listening, the basic tools for conversation. The eight tips below can be used regularly to help your kids learn good conversational skills.
1. Model a Good Conversation
Make a point of having one-to-two minute interactions, one-on-one, at least a few times each week with students who struggle conversationally. Share information about yourself as you might when meeting a friend or acquaintance, and show interest in the student by asking questions about his or her interests. Conversation enhancers include responses and prompts like:

If these students don't or won't share easily at first, don't give up.
2. Encourage Physical Cues
Identify procedures for having a conversation that includes appropriate non-verbal behavior. For example, you might teach a strategy like S.L.A.N.T. ( Sit up straight. Listen. Answer and ask questions. Nod to show interest. T rack the speaker.)
3. Challenge Put-Downs or Hurtful Comments
For example, if a student says, "I think what she did was really stupid," challenge with "How else can you say that without being hurtful?" If the student seems unaware, teach an alternative like, "I disagree with that." Ask the student to repeat what you said and then move on to:

"What happened to make you feel that way?"

"How would you have handled things differently?"

"Do you think there is only right answer, or could there be more?"

4. Ask Open-Ended Questions
These are questions without one correct answer, questions that stimulate discussion and can be a very powerful way to reinforce the idea that there are different views of an issue, or a set of beliefs that can be equally valid. For example: "So if Columbus came knocking on your door and told you that sailing to the New World would be an amazing adventure and there might be lots of riches there, but you might never arrive because the world was flat, would you go?"
5. Put Thinking Ahead of Knowing
When asked a question, don't accept "I don't know." Tell students that you don't require them to "know" but that you do expect them to "think." Teach them how to wonder aloud, speculate, guess or give the best answer they can. ("I'm not sure about that, but I think _____ .")
6. Have Informal Chats
Before class begins or in the hallway, ask students about their other classes, what they think about a current event, or how they feel about the outcome of a game. Share your thoughts as well. ("I thought it was more that the Jets lost the game than anything the Eagles did to win. How did you see it?")
7. Make Eye Contact
When a student is speaking in class and you are listening, give him or her your eye contact. However, gradually scan away from the speaker and direct your gaze and movement towards other students. This will often get the speaker to redirect his or her talk toward peers, and it invites peers to get and stay involved with what's being said.
8. Encourage Turn-Taking
Use an object, such as a talking stick, as a signal for turn-taking. Teach your students that when they have the object, it is their turn to talk or pass while others are expected to listen.

How do you help your students become better speakers and listeners? Please share your strategies in the comments section below.

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Teaching Your Students How to Have a Conversation

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I was recently in a third grade classroom and was struck by the presence of rules that were posted for how to have a conversation. Having visited many middle and high schools, I think these same rules could -- and probably should -- be posted there as well.

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5 Ways to Participate in
Question Week

Students/teachers/schools Organize a question-related group activity (or multiple activities!) during Question Week. Here are some suggested exercises/activities. Be creative: feel free to put a fresh spin on an existing exercise-or come up with a completely original one. (And send us your results.)

Parents and families Some of the same activities and exercises that work in the classroom (see above link) can also be done at home. And here's another activity, perfect for families: work together on formulating one big, shared "mission question" that family members can all explore and work on together!

Companies/organizations Designate at least one time during Question Week for a question-related activity. You might do a "Question-storming" session (a great alternative to traditional brainstorming). Or, try tackling a big challenge facing your organization by applying the "Why / What if / How" sequence of questioning. If you're really ambitious, try coming up with a "Mission Question" for your organization.

Individuals Question Week is a perfect time to step back and ask yourself some big, meaningful questions-about your life, your work, your passion and purpose. You can use questioning to try to get pesky little things done or overcome big fears. And here's how you can formulate and then follow your own personal "Beautiful Question. "

Everyone Share your questions! This is the key to making Question Week come alive! Whether you're a group of students, co-workers, family members, or a solo questioner, you can use the Twitter hashtag #QuestionWeek-as well as our dedicated Facebook page -to connect with other questioners around the world during Question Week. If you're doing group exercises, share the results-including photos taken at your Q-storms, lists of questions generated, favorite question of the day. If you've come up with a Beautiful Question of your own, or a "How Might We" question for your organization or school, tell the world about it.

During Question Week, we feature an ongoing live Twitter stream. Post-Question Week we collect the tweets on our Wonderwall page. Check it out!

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Students/teachers/schools Organize a question-related group activity (or multiple activities!) during Question Week. Here are some suggested exercises/activities. Be creative: feel free to put a fresh spin on an existing exercise-or come up with a completely original one. (And send us your results.)

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Jeanne Muzi

Teachers have always recognized classroom questioning as a critical instructional practice. Developing student questioning skills, however, is just as important. All students need to be able to generate purposeful questions, understand that curiosity leads to action, ponder metacognitively, and improve their problem-solving abilities. A significant instructional shift takes place when a classroom culture is transformed from one where the teacher poses the majority of questions to one where a community of curious wonderers offer up their own.

Finding the time for students to practice questioning can be a challenge, but these short activities will get you started.

1. Pass-Arounds. Put together a collection of unique objects: interesting tools, old hardware, items from nature, photographs, etc. Have students pass an object around as they pose questions about it aloud. Explain that the goal is not identifying the object, but developing questions that will uncover more information about it. For example: How is this thing usually used? Why is it shaped like this? What action does it perform? Why would people want it? Jot down the students' comments, so you can discuss, evaluate, and validate their questions. Finally, ask students to identify which ones could be most helpful in learning about the object. Have them justify and defend their choices. Then, try to answer those questions.

2. Q-Stems Exercise. Create a set of sentence-stem cards (include question starters like: How ...? Why ...? Are there ...? Do you wonder ...? Is it possible if ...? How could it ...? What's another way of thinking about ...?). Ask your students to generate as many questions as possible about a topic or concept they are studying using just one sentence stem (they can try it during a questioning minilesson, guided reading or math time, or one-on-one conferences). When they have exhausted all possibilities, they can move on to another question stem.

3. Ps & Qs (Partners and Questions). Divide the class into pairs and distribute one different object (photograph, map, artifact, science materials, art image, or other lesson-specific item) to each group. Encourage partners to take turns asking and answering questions about the object. The goal is to develop fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration in question creation. Circulate around the room and ask partners to explain which question revealed the most information, and why. Finally, have two groups of partners compare their questions and answers. The groups can then report out to the class.

4. Whose Eyes? Project an image (or distribute a copy) of a historic photograph, contemporary illustration, or current event (look for thought-provoking images with lots of people and detail) and provide time for students to contemplate it. Then, instead of focusing on the most prominent person in the scene, have students create questions that people in the background might ask. For example, I use a historic photo from Ellis Island. Although a "main character" is clearly at the center of the photo (a police officer or doctor), I ask my students to look at the scene through the eyes of a little girl at the end of the line. My students might ask, Why is it so crowded? or Why is it taking so long? or Where did my father go? Students can role-play the scenes, pose their questions, and provide a rationale for their perspective.

5. Question-A-Go-Go into a Question Rainbow. Hang up an interesting photograph, blueprint, patent, artwork, or quote. Then, over the course of a week, ask students to write a question they have about the picture on a sticky note and attach it to the image. The goal is to generate as many questions as possible. Next, discuss and evaluate the questions using a Depth of Knowledge (DoK) Question Rainbow (a poster made of four sheets of colored paper to make a continuum-blue for DoK Level 1, green for DoK Level 2, red for DoK Level 3, yellow for DoK Level 4). Work with students to place the questions they generate along the continuum. Discuss ways to rethink the questions so the Qs can move from LOQ's (lower-order questions) to HOQ's (higher-order questions).

Questioning skills develop when students think deeply about their ideas, so remember to incorporate ample wait time. Also, try to routinely provide feedback and celebrate when students pose insightful questions. Students need to understand the purpose of questioning and recognize that evaluation and improvement will help them master the art of inquiry. Questioning fuels students with wonder, excitement, and most important, a desire to learn!

Jeanne Muzi is an elementary enrichment specialist for Lawrence Township Public Schools in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

KEYWORDS

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Five Ways to Strengthen Student Questioning

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Jeanne Muzi Teachers have always recognized classroom questioning as a critical instructional practice. Developing student questioning skills, however, is just as important. All students need to be able to generate purposeful questions, understand that curiosity leads to action, ponder metacognitively, and improve their problem-solving abilities.

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Rachael George with Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes

Our guests wrote an award-winning book on facilitating thoughtful, meaningful and engaging discussions among students. Join us to learn the fundamentals.

@ 'Follow: @ Question2Think runnin26 @ ASCD @ bamradionetwork

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our guests wrote an award-winning  book on facilitating thoughtful

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and engaging discussion among students. join us to learn the fundamentals. 'follow:     @question2think   @ascd @bamradionetwork'follow:     @question2think @runnin26   @ascd @bamradionetwork

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Five Steps to Stimulating Thoughtful Classroom Discussions - BAM! Radio Network

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Rachael George with Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes Our guests wrote an award-winning book on facilitating thoughtful, meaningful and engaging discussions among students. Join us to learn the fundamentals. @ 'Follow: @ Question2Think runnin26 @ ASCD @ bamradionetwork You Might Also Like...

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Editor's note: This piece is co-authored by Ellie Cowen and Megan Nee, a second-grade teacher at Brophy Elementary in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Imagine that you're a student. Your class has just learned something new. Your teacher asks for someone to share his or her strategy for the problem that you've just solved. You're beginning to feel as though you understand the new concept, and you have a strategy that you could share, but something is holding you back. You're worried that your ideas aren't good enough to be voiced. You want so badly for your teacher and your classmates to know what you know, but the fear of embarrassment keeps you from raising your hand.

Later, you're working in a group with your friends. Everyone else seems to have come to the same conclusion about a number pattern, but you've noticed a point where their reasoning goes wrong. Is it OK to tell your group what you noticed? You've been told that it's disrespectful to argue. How can you explain your thinking in a respectful way that is helpful and not hurtful to your group?

The Power of Nonverbals

One of the greatest challenges in teaching a classroom of diverse learners is determining what students are thinking and how they are feeling about the concepts being introduced or processed. Many of the thoughts that pass through students' minds would be of great value for their teachers to know, but opportunities to hear them can feel few and far between.

In many classrooms, students use nonverbals to communicate certain thoughts when teachers introduce hand signals for bathroom breaks, "quiet" signals, and silent cheers. But teachers can look to nonverbals for more than classroom management. During discourse, visible and nonintrusive signals provide instant feedback for peers and valuable insight for teachers about students' moment-to-moment reasoning and comprehension of the content being discussed. Here are six handy hand signals to try.

"Me, too!"

The "me, too" symbol, derived from the ASL sign with the same meaning, is popular in American classrooms as an outlet for enthusiastic agreement. When a student hears a strategy or solution path that matches his thinking, he makes the "me, too" sign, acknowledging his classmate's reasoning, expressing that he had a similar idea, and communicating his understanding of what has been shared.

"I have a point of interest."

When students disagree with a statement that they've just heard or need to hear more so that they can follow the speaker's reasoning, they hold up a single index finger to express that they have a "point of interest."

"I have something to add."

The "build upon" signal consists of placing one fist on top of the other to represent the idea of "building." Students use this to express that they have something to say that will add to a classmate's idea.

"I can paraphrase."

Students make air quotes to express that they can paraphrase what they've just heard.

"Complete the thought."

This signal (made by touching the fingertips of both hands together in an "A" shape) can be used by teachers or students to remind a speaker that she needs to include a unit or a label, or to use a complete sentence to express her thinking.

"I have a conjecture."

After being introduced to conjectures (simple unproven statements about patterns in numbers or shapes), a group of second grade students devised their own "conjecture" signal: they place a fist, which represents an imaginary light bulb, on top of their heads to indicate that they have a conjecture to share.

Focus on Reasoning

Especially in early grades, sentence frames can help students articulate their thinking after they've used a hand signal. For example, sentence frames for the "build upon" hand signal may include, "I agree with _______ and would like to add _______," or "An example of what _______ is saying is _______." These sentence frames also direct students back to the classmate to whom they're responding, reminding members of the discussion that all are part of a community of thinkers and that their conversation is with one another, not just with their teacher.

One word of caution: all nonverbals, including raised hands, are most impactful when they reflect a classroom focus on reasoning, not getting the answer. Teachers may have to monitor students' use of signals to ensure that their integrity as communicators of critical thinking is always preserved.

Do you use signals in your classroom? What other academic purposes might nonverbal signals serve?

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6 Hand Signals That Bring Learning to Life | Edutopia

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Editor's note: This piece is co-authored by Ellie Cowen and Megan Nee, a second-grade teacher at Brophy Elementary in Framingham, Massachusetts. Imagine that you're a student. Your class has just learned something new. Your teacher asks for someone to share his or her strategy for the problem that you've just solved.

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by TeachThought Staff
For in-person professional development from TeachThought on reflection in learning or any other topic your school or district might need, contact us today.
What's the big deal about thinking about something that already happened? In our '10 Characteristics Of A Highly-Effective Learning Environment', we suggested that learning habits-reflection, for example-were constantly present and modeled.
9. Learning habits are constantly modeled Cognitive, meta-cognitive, and behavioral 'good stuff' is constantly modeled. Curiosity, persistence, flexibility, priority, creativity, collaboration, revision, and even the classic Habits of Mind are all great places to start. So often what students learn from those around them is less directly didactic, and more indirect and observational. Monkey see, monkey do.
Why the brain actually benefits from reflection is a matter of neurology, but the extensive research is clear: Prediction, reflection, and metacognition are pillars for the thoughtful classroom. The questions below were created to be, as much as possible, useful with most students at most ages and grade levels with a little rewording.

Perhaps most crucially, by shifting their reflection from content to thought, students have the chance to put themselves back at the center of the learning process. When they reflect, students reimagine what happened in both 1st and 3rd person-as they were seen, and as they saw through their own eyes. How? A sample response for a 7th or 8th grader might be:
I guess I was most creative today when we were given a chance to create our own metaphors for the ways rain forests help the planet "breathe." Why? Maybe because it forced me to think about something visually, which meant we could come up with our own answers!
In reflecting, the student had to think both about their own feelings (when they felt something) and how they might be perceived (what others might consider 'creative').
See Also 28 Critical Thinking Question Stems & Response Cards
8 Reflective Questions To Help Any Student Think About Their Learning

Broad Questions About Learning

1. What surprised you today, and why?

2. What's the most important thing you learned today? Why do you think so?

3. What do you want to learn more about, and why?

4. When were you the most creative, and why do you think that is?

5. What made you curious today? How does learning feel different when you're curious?

6. When were you at your best today, and why?

7. (Assuming we were studying the same thing and you could decide and have access to anything), where would you start tomorrow? Why?

8. What can/should you do with what you know?

The Twitter Template

We've included a twitter template that you can use, or use as a guide to create your own, so students can write the answers as if they were tweets, but it's obviously not necessary. Alternatively, students could actually tweet them (assuming they have accounts they don't mind publishing academic content in, as well as smartphones, access to WiFi, and so on).

You could also use the questions as journal prompts, or as discussion questions as well.

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8 Reflective Questions To Help Any Student Think About Their Learning

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by TeachThought Staff For in-person professional development from TeachThought on reflection in learning or any other topic your school or district might need, contact us today. What's the big deal about thinking about something that already happened? In our '10 Characteristics Of A Highly-Effective Learning Environment ', we suggested that learning habits-reflection, for example-were constantly present and modeled.

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Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers
by Terry Heick
Bring TeachThought PD to your school!
Imagine the dogged pursuit of a proper clock-maker, day after day bound up in design and measurement and function and orderly thinking, forcing exactitude on little bits of metal that never asked for it. And then finally getting it right-so many decisions and matters of design suddenly set the clock off ticking forever.

Get inside the mind of a clock-maker-one who still experiments with matters of design, improving their craft with minor revisions of planning and execution-and suddenly you're seeing from ground zero how things come to be, first in a humble glow, then a blinding white starlight that bleaches everything.

There's a lesson here. But first, some background on bad questions.
The Irony of Bad Questions
There is an irony to bad questions, in that they can be more difficult to answer than a good question.

Questioning is the art of learning. Learning to ask important questions is the best evidence of understanding there is, far surpassing the temporary endorphins of a correct "answer."

So what makes a question bad? Well, that depends on what you think a question should "do."

Produce a nice and tidy answer?

Cause a student to reconsider a position?

Force someone to go back and look more closely at how they know what they know?

Assess understanding?

All make sense, and a good question can do all of that.

But a bad question? They halt, freeze, deflate, and derail thinking.

Simply put, bad questions are confusing questions.

That's not to say that good questions shouldn't be challenging, and that students might not hit a spot where they feel confused. They might. But a challenged learner and a confused learner are not the same.

It's not all about "rigor" either. Bad questions can be rigorous-force learners to think on higher-level planes-synthesis, evaluation, close analysis-and still be bad.
The Hallmark of a Bad Question
A bad question can be judged so because it gets at the wrong content, is full of unnecessary jargon, or is syntactically corrupt.

But more than anything else, the most telling hallmark of a bad question is that it encourages learners to guess what the teacher's thinking.

To try to get into the mind of the question-maker.

This, mind you, is decidedly different than understanding the mind of a clock-maker. A clock's design inspires design thinking. What that clockmaker was thinking matters.

But a question maker is not a clock-maker-different, at best only a mediator between the student and content. Their intent can be noble, well-researched, and justified, but the maker cannot-or should not-linger like a good question.

There is the troubling matter of timing. Ask even the right question at the wrong time, and rather than front-loading, priming, scaffolding, or causing curiosity, students end up bewildered, their thinking scattershot, internalizing all the wrong things-social expectation, tempting recall, your relationship with them, or their own anxiety with the content.

Rarely, though, do they sit with the content and its context and metacognition, but rather the bloody question and the false promise of a correct response.
The Abstraction of the Question
The right question at the right time can make a learning experience, because more than anything read, drawn, or even written, a question is acute and properly troubling.

It creates a needle-point of light even as it suggests darkness.

Even if it's multi-part and inclusive, it's somehow singular.

It jabs and fingers at a learner's mind, then burrows in like a drill.

A bad question is sloppy-it doesn't burrow anywhere, but bangs around and makes a troubling noise. It forces the learner to come to the question and frown and decode. Decoding can be cognitively demanding and thus helpful, but not if it mars the student's thinking.

A precise, well-timed question keeps the learner in the content, in their own mind, in the mind of model thinking-in the mind of the clock-maker and not the question-maker.

A bad question also creates the illusion of an end-point to thinking-of the student having arrived at some place where they understand the mind of the clock-maker. And when that happens, everything just kind of dissolves, and they sit passively and wait for another question, thinking they've won.

This, of course, is tragedy. The mind must never exhale, but grapple! Wrestle with a text, a concept, or a question until they've found a new question is better suited to the task. Taking a piece of literature, an engineering problem, or an ethical issue and reducing it to a series of question is a dangerous kind of reductionism.

Questions are links to other questions, and that's it. Little fragments of curiosity that get at the marrow of important issues that resonate and thrum and linger. Statements of opinion, answers, and other lies are fine, provided they move aside to let the questions through.

When you ask questions-on exams, in person, in your next Socratic discussion-insist on good questions. Great questions. Model their development. Revise their wording. Toy with their tone. Simplify their syntax or implications over and over again until the confusion has been bleached and there's only thinking left.

Until the question asks exactly what it should, and nothing more.

Lock the students out of your head-and away from guess-what-the-teacher's-thinking, proficiency, false confidence, and overly-simple labels of "understanding."

Instead, encourage them inside the mind of the clock-maker. Let them huddle, and sit in awkward silence.

Let them think you're a little bit crazy.

And then watch for the questions.

Watch for the glow.
This post has been updated from a 2012 post; Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers

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Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers

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Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers by Terry Heick Bring TeachThought PD to your school! Imagine the dogged pursuit of a proper clock-maker, day after day bound up in design and measurement and function and orderly thinking, forcing exactitude on little bits of metal that never asked for it.

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Luckily, kids are hard-wired for that kind of generative curiosity. Unfortunately, "right around age 5 or 6, questioning drops off a cliff," Berger said. Paradoxically, when kids go to school they stop asking so many questions. "Children enter school as question marks and leave schools as periods," Berger said, quoting Neil Postman.* But why?

There are a lot of understandable reasons why questioning drops off in school. Foremost among them is time. "Time really conspires against questioning," Berger said. "In the classroom there often isn't time to let kids ask their questions." And really good, deep questions often take a lot of time to unravel -- more time than a harried teacher trying to cover all the curriculum often feels she can afford. And while time pressure is a very real part of teaching, not making time for questioning says a lot about how valuable it is to us. People make time for the things they value.

But knowledge can also be the enemy of questioning. "As we know more, or feel we know more, we may be less inclined to question," Berger said. Sometimes answers can close down other avenues of thinking or ways of seeing a problem, but that all depends on how teachers treat knowledge. When treated as a life-long endeavor, learning a little bit about something opens up space to learn more.

And of course there are social barriers to questioning. Many kids don't see asking questions as "cool." And the perception that question askers are suck-ups or dorks probably also comes from fear. Many people feel vulnerable admitting they don't know something. They are afraid to offer a window into their inner world by wondering out loud.

These barriers to questioning are real and challenging, but there are lots of ways parents and teachers can work to make questioning a normal part of school and life. One of the primary ways adults can support questioning, Berger said, is to model curiosity and to value questions. Instead of asking a child, "What did you learn at school today," a parent might ask, "What great question did you ask today?" Or, when a child asks one of those great, deep questions that gets at why humans are even here, parents could dive in and explore the question with their child.

"You don't have to have the answers. You just have to have the interest," Berger said. Instead of trying to close off questioning by providing a pat answer or a terse "I don't know," parents might say, "If you were going to start answering that question, where would you start?"

"We want their questions to be large and expanded instead of being diminished and eventually going away," Berger said. That philosophy should apply to school as well.
5 WAYS TO HELP STUDENTS BECOME BETTER QUESTIONERS
1. Make It Safe: "I think this might be the most important one," Berger said. Many kids won't raise their hand in front of the whole class to ask a question because they're shy or nervous. "Fear kills curiosity," Berger said. "The two things do not exist very well together." But a student that might be afraid to question in front of the whole group may be willing to ask questions in a smaller group or to write a question down. Teachers can help make small groups even safer by laying out protective rules like "no question can be edited or judged."

"The key thing is it makes questioning the point of the activity, and that is rarely the case," Berger said. "The point is always to get to the answer." Asking good questions takes practice. The Right Question Institute offers protocols to get students questioning, but teachers shouldn't expect kids to immediately be good at it.

2. Make it Cool: Berger suggests convincing kids that good questions lead to cool stuff and make the world a better place. Furthermore, people who ask good questions are cool people, even rebellious people sometimes. "The people who are really breaking new ground are the people asking questions," Berger said. "Questioners are the explorers, the mavericks."

And questions can make people uncomfortable, especially when they hit on something true. "If you are a questioner, you are going against the grain," Berger said. "That could appeal to young people."

3. Make It Fun: Turning questioning into a game can be a great way to make the process more lighthearted and fun. Frame the process as being a detective, solving riddles or puzzles. One possible game to get kids started is to take closed questions and turn them into open questions and visa versa. This helps kids really understand the difference and what makes a strong question.

Students could also approach the issue with "why" questions to dig into it, then start asking "what if" questions to open up their imaginations and finally "how might we" questions to begin coming up with solutions. "How might we" is a more invigorating and creative questioning tact that "how could we" or "how should we" prompts, which tend to have more judgment in them.

4. Make It Rewarding: Many students are used to empty praise from their teachers. When students venture a deep question, they commonly hear, "That's a great question, let's move on." But an educator's genuine interest in the question will be much more powerful than any praise.

Additionally, teachers can create structures in their classes to reward questioning. Perhaps there is a best question of the week, where students get to vote on one another's questions. Or maybe there's a bonus question on a test that is itself a question: "What question should have been on this test, but wasn't?"

5. Make It Stick: Questioning has to be a regular part of the school day for it to become a student habit. The famous comedian George Carlin used to talk about "vuja de," that none of this has ever happened before. He was joking, but he also credited his ability to look at familiar situations in fresh ways as a key to his success.

Educators could follow Carlin's lead and spend some time one day a week looking at a common object or idea and pushing students to ask questions about it as if they've never seen it before. "If you can instill this habit of mind in kids, this is the key to success for innovators," Berger said.

If educators can find the precious minutes to foster these habits, Berger believes it could go a long way to developing critical thinkers. "I know that often times it doesn't feel like there's room to do some of these things under the current schedules and demands, but I feel like what needs to be done is small acts of insurrection," he told educators and parents gathered at the conference.
Questioning Is About Power
Feeling confident to question the systems of power around us is one of the key jobs of an informed citizenry. Kids need to learn during their time at school that they have the right to know, to challenge assumptions and to dig deeper. Fostering this mentality in students can be challenging for teachers who are often complicit in systems of control over students. But often when teachers open the space for these questions, value them and explore them with students, a deep trust is built.

"I also think questioning matters because questions open up a dialogue instead of shutting it down," Berger said. He says it's the honest, thoughtful, respectful questions that start really good discussions. And ultimately could lead to the equity that so many educators and students are striving toward.

It's also important to note that questioning makes a student vulnerable, and every student has a different relationship and experience with standing up to authority. "It's very possible that there could be some groups of kids who would be more worried about how questioning is going to make them look," Berger said. "That kid has more at stake," and teachers need to recognize that.

These equity questions are the next topic Berger wants to explore. One study he read showed that upper-income families encouraged questioning in school, while lower-income families told their children to fit in and not rock the boat.

"Just because they're not asking a question doesn't mean they won't have them," Berger said. He's researching how people are making questioning safe for everyone. Ultimately, questioning and reflecting are the keys to self-growth, something educators want for all their students.

"It's OK to ask ambitious questions about yourself, your life, and that you won't have the answer right away," Berger said. Often people don't ask those kinds of questions because they're afraid they won't have the answer. But if questioning deeply has always been part of the learning process, perhaps the next generation of citizens won't be so afraid to sit with those hard questions.
*An earlier version of this story did not properly attribute this quote to Neil Postman. We regret this error.

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How to Bring 'More Beautiful' Questions Back to School

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Luckily, kids are hard-wired for that kind of generative curiosity. Unfortunately, "right around age 5 or 6, questioning drops off a cliff," Berger said. Paradoxically, when kids go to school they stop asking so many questions. "Children enter school as question marks and leave schools as periods," Berger said, quoting Neil Postman.* But why?