Unanswered Questions

Karl G. Maeser, a leading 19th century educator, once said, "A great question is often worth ten answers." Think about that for a minute. We generally think of getting answers as the goal of asking questions. The teacher asks, the students answer, and we feel like we are making some educational progress. That doesn't appear to be what he is saying. I think he is saying that the purpose of a great question is to stir up thought that could come back in the form of ten different answers, or comments, or other thoughts or more questions.

An unanswered question creates tension. A teacher can see the tension in the students who avert their eyes, who look away, who put their head down. There is tension in the attempted answers, in the one or two word mumblings. The tension is relieved when a brave student offers a response and the teacher accepts it. The other students breathe a little easier and can now look around with some safety. Things return to normal, until the next question is posed.

But what if the teacher asked a question not to find an answer but just as something for the class to think about. What if the teacher says "class here is a question to think about? Don't shout out anything right now, just think about this and at some time we will come to an answer of it, but not yet." The tension is eased because no one is on the spot and the teacher isn't waiting for the answer. A great question is now hovering over the class and it can be more valuable than the ten answers that might have been forthcoming. How?

I have a dear friend that I discuss gospel topics with. He is very wise and experienced and I trust him. I started this practice with him years ago and this is how it goes. I tell him that I have a question I want to ask but I do not want him to answer. I just want him to tell me if it is a good question, one worth thinking about. We've done this enough that he knows the drill so when I ask a question now he will just tell me either to keep thinking about it or to set it aside because it is not worth the time to ponder. It has been an amazing thing to me to spend time on the questions that are worthwhile. Without an answer they are wide open for inspection. I can spend time over the next days or weeks or even months in many cases with these questions. I can keep a number of them juggling in my mind and then as I read or study other things, as I attend other classes, as I talk to other people, I can start to grab more information that will help me fill in answers. Some weeks will pass in pondering then I will see my friend and tell him that I think I have an answer, or a partial answer, to a certain question. I will share it with him and he will then tell me that I got it or am getting closer. Once in a while I will share an insight with him that he had never considered. The discussion deepens and the conversation continues. He has never told me an answer but has confirmed many that I have shared with him.

That is a long process the way I've described it, but it can be compressed down to a class period or two like this: Ask a question that takes some thought to answer. Here's one from D&C 124:45 - the verse speaks of doing some things that will allow us to "not be moved out of [our] place." The question I would ask is "We know what it takes to not be moved out our place. Where is that place and how do we get there?" Keep that unanswered question hovering as you discuss the verses close to verse 45. Help the class look for hints as to where it might be and what do we have to do to get there. What will inevitably happen is more questions will surface. A multitude of answers will bubble up. The original great question will indeed be more valuable than ten quick answers because it will engender more discussion, more questions, and more answers. It will become a very useful tool to help students understand the scriptures.

The Creative Process

                Teaching is a creative process. Teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is a creative process that must include the influence of the Holy Ghost in order to be effective.

            The creation of teaching starts in lesson preparation. What is the block of scriptures that need to be addressed today? What are the salient doctrines and principles to address? How will adding content and context benefit student understanding? How can I give my students some level of ‘hands on’ learning that will benefit them, rather than just have them listen to me? Answering those and similar question will yield a lesson plan. You can’t just walk into a class without some kind of written plan that will guide you through and make the time meaningful and useful.

            In II Nephi 32 there are two verses that look strikingly similar but are talking about two different things. The first is verse 3 where it says “…feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.” Two verses later, in verse 5 we read this: “…if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.”

            The verse 3 phrase “tell you all things” seems to indicate that the words of Christ are the scriptures. Those are the standards that hold true through the ages. They guide us – “tell us” – how we should act and what we should be doing. That’s why we feast upon them. The verse 5 phrase that the Holy Ghost will “show unto us all things we should do” is more of an everyday, tactical revelation. Scriptures teach us the doctrines and principles that we need to know to govern our lives, but the Holy Ghost shows us along the way how to implement those in practical ways. We need both sources of input to successfully negotiate our way in this life.

            So it is in a classroom full of students. We enter with a lesson plan that we have created for that particular situation. That plan will ‘tell us’ what to do. We can’t be rigidly bound to it but neither should we just try to talk our way through the hour with no real preparation. We need to have a guide before us. However, rarely does the class go as planned. Detours abound as we deal with real people in their own real situations. That’s why we need the Spirit with us, to show us how to proceed in a class. It may be to stay on this point a little longer, or to move on a little quicker. It may be to call on a student who rarely participates but one who looks like they have something to say. It could be to leave a certain student alone on this day. She may be struggling with something unknown and unseen by the teacher and just needs space. How will we know any or all of these things? The Spirit can show us and with that knowledge coupled to the lesson plan we have in hand we are able to create a classroom environment and a lesson that is edifying and useful for all.

Do You Need a Source or a Resource ?

When I was a brand new, full time seminary teacher I went to a training meeting. I was eager for it. One of the men doing the training had set up, on the table in front of him, a stack of all of the resources available to us as teachers. There were resource manuals for both teacher and student. There were maps and dictionaries and volume upon volume of selected readings that would help teachers. I recognized most of it and was grateful for it. I needed all the help available to me and had studied from most of these sources. The teacher held up each one and described it and the good it could bring to the lesson. There were lots of appreciative nods.

Then he held up a set of scriptures in one hand and with his other hand pointed to all of the things on the table and said "Which do you really need?" I remember thinking that I really needed them all. He let us think about it for a bit then said "Could you teach effectively if all you had was your set of the scriptures and nothing else?" I knew at that time that it would be very difficult for me to do it that way.

Fast forward now many years ahead. Our stack on the table would be much higher. It would include not only all of the printed materials available but also everything you could find on the internet. You and I both know that we can search on the internet for anything and find mounds of information. How much of it is useful and true is open to debate but there is no debate that there is more than we can possibly study and incorporate into a lesson. So how do you decide how much to study, how much to incorporate, and how much time you will allot to your lesson preparation.

I'm going to suggest that most of what we see as resource material is not very useful in lesson preparation. It may be useful in study and pondering for ourselves, but when it comes time to prepare a specific lesson for me to teach to my specific class it is not useful. So much of what I have seen on the internet is someone else's interpretation of a lesson, someone else's idea of what the scriptures mean and how to present them. I can't teach that with any power. I can only teach with power what the Spirit teaches me to teach that day to those students.

In very real ways we cheat ourselves and our students out of a personal experience when we delay our study and preparation and then at the last minute take something that someone else has created and try to make it our own quickly. One of the great blessings of being a teacher is to have so many people from whom to 'borrow' ideas and things. I've used lots of things that I've taken from others but only after I've allowed it to soak into my thinking and given it enough pondering to own it and make it my own.

We should not allow the resources to take the place of the source and the source is the scriptures. That is where we turn and that is where we should spend the bulk of our time. Resources are useful as backups, not as the beginning of preparation. When we turn first to the source we position ourselves to be able to teach with power and authority. That will carry into the hearts of students and all will be edified of all.

Why Make a List

I recently was in a class and watched a teacher do a very 'teacher-like' thing: he made a list on the white board. He had the students read a passage, then went back with them to pick out certain things from the passage that answered a question he had posed, and he then listed the responses on the board and he had his list. He stood and looked at it and looked at the students and said "There it is - there are the answers".

That is something we have all done. There is something comforting about a list, something that says 'we have done our digging and right before our very eyes is the organized result of that digging'. I liked his list and thought that the digging had been fruitful to this point - but then I wondered what he would do with the list, because if you don't do something with it, it is not very helpful at all.

When I was a boy we would go to Knott's Berry Farm and every once in a while would be allowed to pan for gold at the little attraction set up for that. The operator would give us a pan and show us how to dip the pan into the running water and sand and gently shake it to find the gold flakes. They would appear and then the nice man would put them into a little clear container with some sand and we could show the world that we had indeed found our gold flakes. We could take the container home and put it on a shelf and look at it. But that was all and after a short while it was meaningless. It would have been more meaningful to take the gold and create something, but there was never enough and even if there had been, who knew what to do with it?

Lists are like the little flakes of gold. Unless we do something with them they lose their meaning after a very short while. 

Making lists seems like a good exercise to help students dig but it is only the beginning of a good thing, not the end. The next question is what will you do with the list on the board? Here are a couple of ideas.

1. You could ask students to identify the most meaningful thing on the list for them and then discuss how each student sees it a little differently.

2. You could use the list to illustrate a progression in the thinking of the writer, to show how an idea goes from a starting point to a fully developed idea.

3. You could create the list at the beginning of class and then use it as the outline for your teaching, following point by point the lessons you want to highlight.

4. You could use 2 lists from similar passages to do some compare and contrast exercises and see how an author views things differently at different times.

I know that there are other things you could do with a list but the important thing is to do something with it. Otherwise, you just have a little container with unused flakes of gold. 

Healthy Tension in the Classroom

If you want to accelerate learning for your students it is helpful to create a little tension in the classroom. Tension needs resolution and the process of trying to resolve a problem and ease the tension opens up the mind to learning new things, not just remembering old things. I am not speaking of tension between people but the tension of ideas coming together with enough force that we must deal with them and figure out what they are saying and what it means to us. Here are two examples:

1. I was recently in a very good class where the lesson was a part of the book of Daniel from the Old Testament. There are a couple of stories that are very familiar in that book. One of them is of the three young men who are ordered to bow down to an idol or face the consequence of being burned alive. The highlight of the story (for me) is their statement of refusal, found in verses 16-18 of chapter 3. In essence they state that they are not going to do this and they know that their God can deliver them but even if He doesn't they still won't bow down.

Well, you could read those verses and simply say "What a great example of faith" and move on. No one would disagree with that and it would supply some inspiration but give you very little to think about besides 'I need to be more like that'. We need to find a way to leverage the inspiration into action and creating some tension with questions is the way to do that. You could ask some of the following:

• Why do they use the word 'careful'? Shouldn't you be careful when you speak to a king especially if you are not going to obey? (remember that 'careful' means "full of care" and what they are saying is that it doesn't bother them to say this. How can they be that strong when their lives hang in the balance? What do you consider worth dying for?)
• Where did they get the idea that their God would save them? They are looking at a very hot furnace, directly in their view. That is a reality and still they cling to the idea that God can pull them from it. How did they arrive at this point? Can anyone arrive at the same point? How?
• Is it faith or ignorance to suppose that although God can save them but He might choose not to?

All of those questions, and others like them, can create some healthy tension that will enhance learning.

2. In the Shakespeare play King Henry the Fifth we are treated to a well known speech ("we few, we happy few, we band of brothers") by the king as his forces prepare for battle against the French at Agincourt. They are greatly outnumbered and yet the king refuses the idea of more help and more troops, even offering to send home any that are afraid to fight:

"O do not wish one more 

Rather proclaim it through my host

That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 

Let him depart; his passport shall be made

And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

We would not die in that man's company

That fears his fellowship to die with us."

At the end of reading that you could say "Wow, that is a powerful speech" and just move on. It is inspirational, but again, if that is all it is we won't be moved to action, to deeper understanding, and ultimately to change our lives for the better.

What if you asked a couple of questions just to create some healthy tension, to stir things up, questions like this:

• Is Henry confident or cocky?
• Does Henry have a death wish not only for him but for his men?
• Would you be more or less willing to follow a man like that?

You will get discussions, thoughts, more questions, and ultimately more learning if you clearly give your students a reason to think and give them some tension to resolve.

In Praise of Students

I once visited a teacher's class that did not go well. We talked afterwards and we both knew it was weak. A month later I visited and it was a much better class. I asked him if he could pinpoint the difference and what had happened in the last 4-5 weeks. I was surprised that he could answer so quickly. He did not hesitate to say that the difference was in his own attitude. He had previously looked at his students as objects, things to make him look better. He stayed frustrated when they did not act like he thought they should so as to maximize his performance. Then he realized what he was doing and decided that he didn't care how he looked, he only cared about their learning. Things changed almost overnight for him.

So what do you see when you look at your students? In the worst case scenario you could see the enemy, those that oppose you each day and tend to make your life miserable. Of course there are days like that, but if that's really how you feel then you should polish up your resume and look for other work. If not, misery will be your constant companion as you attempt to teach. The other end of the spectrum is to see nothing but soaring scholars winging their way towards life long successes. Both extremes are misleading.

Here is what we really see: we see people, young and old, just like us who have questions and wonders and worries. They have a whole life outside the classroom.They grow and develop at different rates. They are anxious and are trying to find their place not just in the classroom but in their culture and social circle. They don't want to fail. No one starts out to fail and our students don't either. Even if they can't articulate it, they want to succeed, they want to do well and they need to do it with pressures on them that we may or may not be aware of. We are instruments to either help or hinder them.

There are many books in my library about teaching and I've read them all. Some I've read a second or third time. One of those is What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain. He has a whole section concerning what the best teachers expect of their students. If you are not expecting anything of your students other than just showing up you are hindering the learning process. Expectations stretch us and having high expectations begins with the attitudes of the teacher and what she sees as she surveys the students.

Here are a few thoughts from the book. I'm inserting them without comment so that you can just think about them as they come. Where do you see yourself in these quotes?

• "The best teachers tended to look for and appreciate the individual value of each student."
• "Students will be buoyed by positive expectations that are genuine, challenging yet realistic, and that take their work seriously."
• "The best teachers tended to set high standards and conveyed a strong trust in their students' abilities to meet them."
• "Trust in the students depended on the teacher's rejection of power over them."
• "They looked for the diamonds in the rough, took all their students seriously, and treated each one with respect."
• "The very best teachers had a deeper vision of ultimate quality that left them with a strong faith in their students' abilities."

I know that I have both hit and missed each one of those standards. And I think that time and experience and age help us all move towards the goal of seeing and treating each student with respect. It is interesting now to see former students who are adults and parents and see the goodness in them. They really were diamonds in the rough and they got polished up and now shine. The shine was hidden when they were 15 or 16 but it has come out now. When I have seen certain students I am grateful that I never said what I really wanted to say in a fit of frustration. For those to whom I actually did say what I was thinking I am embarrassed. I think the students have long since forgotten it, but some of those things have stayed with me.

If you are like me at all you will realize that we need to be slower to judge and quicker to embrace the goodness that is present in the students that come to our classes. Some of my very good friends are former students. My life has been enriched by them and I always hope it has been a mutual relationship.

Increasing the Clarity of your Teaching

Details matter. Sometimes in lesson preparation I think of large themes and big things to do in class. But if I forget the details I lose some of the power that the lesson could have. For example, there are some words that pop up frequently that beg for definition. I happen to think that it is not a good idea to ask students for word definitions because almost always they will be wrong, either completely, or miss the mark by enough that what they say is not very useful. If they really knew the words there would not be a need to define them. I prefer definitions to be teacher directed, not student led. Here are a couple of examples of common scriptural words that, if defined properly, have the ability to really deepen our understanding.

The word 'steadfast' comes to mind. When I've asked students to define the word, what I usually get is something like "hanging in there when it gets tough". That is sort of it, but if you break the word in half you get a much better feel for it. "Stead" means 'place' as in, "I'll do that instead of you" (in your place). "Fast" comes from the same word as 'fastener' and means to lock into place. So 'steadfast' means to be locked into your place and not capable of moving. Think of nuts and bolts, staples, glue guns, nails, things like that. If I am steadfast then I'm not moving, no matter what is going on around me. That is why Moroni in his first chapter, verse 3 says, "And I Moroni will not deny the Christ." You could read that as a cocky statement, or you could see it as an expression of a man who is steadfast in the right place. When students understand that word they start to get a better picture of what it means to make a covenant and keep it, in spite of everything around them.

Here is one more word to think about: "suffer". The word in it's scriptural form does not mean to writhe around in pain. The definition of the word is "to allow". Now think about the Savior saying "Suffer the little children to come unto me". He is inviting them to come to Him and for those around them to allow it and to help make it happen. When the Savior says that we should be people who are long-suffering, He is not saying that we should be in agony for a long time. He is teaching that we need to allow people time and space to do what is right, to come to understanding in their own way and time. Parents who are long suffering with their children know that it takes time for them to grow up and there will be bumps along way and that we should allow for that. Teachers with normal, everyday students know that too. That clear definition of 'suffer' has really opened my eyes in scripture study.

So what's the best way to get real definitions to words in class? One way is simply for the teacher to tell students what it is. Remember that not everything needs to be student discovery. Sometimes it is more effective and efficient to just say it.

I always had a copy of the dictionary in my classroom. If I knew that a troublesome word was going to pop up, I would look it up and note that there were 3 or 4 definitions for it. Then when it did arise I would give the book to a student and have them read the definitions and ask the class to pick the one that fit the best in this situation. Sometimes it would be obvious and other times there was a good discussion about the appropriate one.

But now that everyone has a phone or tablet or laptop, I can just ask someone to find the word and tell us what it means. They all dig in and find it and we can clarify the meaning of the word and move on, enlightened.

It seems like a little thing to take a minute to define a word, but that little thing can yield much better understanding of any passage. Keep an eye out for words that confuse you. As you encounter such a word try to define it to yourself. If you struggle look it up and be ready to help students do the same.