A child who is dominated by a sense of wonder and an adult who has never grown tired of the world usually hold one thing in common: an appetite for asking and wanting to answer all sorts of difficult why and how-do-you-know questions. The inquisitive adult, more often than not, however, knows that his/her problems may defy universally acceptable solutions, whereas the child probably or usually thinks that his/her parents or teachers could enlighten him/her with a single, simple, and final answer to his/her question. Often, however, in the face of the difficult questions that children raise, parents and teachers find themselves startled, lost in thinking, and unable to respond with a confident tone of authority. What is time and space? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What will happen after I die? Is there a God? How do you know that God exists? Why God exists? Why should I be good when I seem to be always having fun every time you say that what I’m doing is bad? Satisfactory answers to most of the difficult questions children ask proved slippery. It is not therefore surprising if many adults, parents and teachers including, are wont to dismiss the little children’s ability to raise challenging questions as a simple nature of young minds. “Yes, that’s just how little children are, they ask questions for which no satisfactory answers could be pulled out,” many adults would knowingly say.
Of course, there are those who find themselves marveling at how well children could be so deeply curious about matters that typically fall outside the typical concerns of the common-sense adults. Kudos, we believe, should go to those adults who are convinced that grown-ups must not ignore the difficult questions children ask. What could be at stake when children are looking for answers to most of their what, why, and how-do-you-know questions is the future of their cognitive efficacy, imaginative and creative abilities, interest in knowledge and truth, and productive emotional attitude toward the universe and things that appeal to their interest. Indeed, adults must ventilate the curiosity of children and get them to think further than to simply give them evasive answers or shrug them off in the hope of making them feel that they are on a helpless chase of truth (Hence they should give up bothering adults with their questions.). In the opinion of Fairbairn (1999),
Every time that a child’s idea is not heard (or not listened to even if physically it is heard), or is brushed aside as irrelevant, or ignored as being silly, or worse still results in a reprimand, brings more close the time that he or she will stop offering ideas into the public arena. And from that follows, almost inevitably, a move into less engagement with class activity in general, a lessening of interest and entry onto a spiral towards failure. What is most disturbing about this phenomenon is that often the children who are treated in this way are those most fired up with excitement about ideas and learning that is until unimaginative and unemphatic teachers stamp on their enthusiasm (p. 106)
The children’s realization that they exist, that certain things around them defy their reasoned understanding, and that they are aware of certain facts are just the beginning of some sort of unintentional warm up exercise that could lead them to recognize, for example, that they don’t fully comprehend why they are here and whether the things that they witness are always what they seem to be. Certainly, more could be said along this line of observation. The manner by which children raise their questions usually indicate that they are looking for a satisfactory rational answer whose truth, for them, will be sufficient to understand or know what they think lies beyond the current scope and depth of their experience and reason. Turgeon (1999) thus gives this reminder to the teachers:
The young child should not be discouraged from speaking but, as his education progresses, the goal is to eliminate ‘excessive verbosity’ through guidance of his teacher and practice of the art of disputation. All of this is achieved through a melding of clear critical thinking, careful articulation… (p. 49)
“Difficult questions” children ask, in the context of this post, include problems that have been keeping many thinkers busy for the past two thousand five hundred years.
1. Where did humans come from?
2. How do we know that we are not dreaming when we are awake?
3. What should I possess in order to be considered beautiful?
4. If God is omnipresent, must He also be in hell?
5. How can a god like Jesus Christ die on the cross?
6. Why do you say I’m “good” when I obey you? Why does obeying an adult make a child good?
7. How do you know that your answer to my question is true?
Some adults may find most of these questions outrageous, if not silly, but questions like these should be a cause of real joy rather than a dismissive response or unexamined alarm on the part of educators and parents. This kind of questions are strong indicators that the intellectual faculty of the child, despite his/her lack of experience and young mind, is capable of raising problems that gave rise to millions of tons of books and that kept many great minds in this planet very busy. So, what could be more beautiful than witnessing a young student who thinks and inquire in order to be enlightened? This could be a sign that a child is threading on the path that could lead him/her to become the good thinker his/her parents, teachers, and society might want him/her to be. Up to this point, however, we hope that those who were tasked to guide an inquisitive young mind are intellectually equipped to keep the student moving on the right track until he/she could do his/her journey all by him-/herself or with as little assistance as possible from wise teachers and mentors. One of the most important benefits of engaging students in a higher-order thinking and talking exercise is the acquisition and development of required skills, habits, discipline, and attitude for solving practical problems effectively.
References
Fairbairn, Gavin. (1999). Empathy, Intuition, and the Development of Expertise in Teaching. Analytic Teaching, 19(2), 99-113. Retrieved on December 7, 2007, from http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/vol%2019.%20no..2/Empathy%202.pdf.
Turgeon, Wendy C. (1999). John Salisbury: An Argument for Philosophy within Education. Analytic Teaching, 18(2), 44-52 . Retrieved on December 7, 2007, from http://www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%2018%20no.2/JohnofSalisbury.pdf.
