Questioning Like Children

The sources in the Torah that relate to the mitzva of telling the story

The Mishna

Who recites the Ma Nishtana?

Is it a question or a declaration?

The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening, Rav Soloveitchik (29)

Mah Nishtana can be understood as a single affirmative statement (How Different is this night from all other nights!) similar to the phrase "מה נורא המקום הזה" "how awesome is this place" (after Jacob awakes from the dream of the angels going up and down the ladder in Genesis 28:17)... It highlights the fact that we do not just perform the mizvah without experiencing its normative character and great importance. We declare that we are ready, with all of our heart and soul and body to fulfill the mizvah will full awareness and to do G-d's will.

What if a child doesn't ask a question?

The Talmud emphasizes the role of the seder leader as instigator of questions

Maimonides on ways to arouse the participants' curiosity

Why are questions so important at the Pesach seder?

YU Pesach Haggadah 2014, President Richard Joel (7)

Among the most important and unique aspects of Jewish identity is that we are a people mandated to ask. Informed by the Pesach Seder, we are keenly aware that the mark of true freedom is the acceptance of responsibility and willingness to ask questions... Questioning is an essential tool to help us clarify our values; at the end of the day though, those values must endure...The most basic lesson of the Pesach Seder is that freedom carries with it the opportunity- indeed the requirement - to question. Slaves don't get to ask questions; they simply follow orders. As free individuals, not only are we permitted to question, but we are indeed mandated to do so.

What is the role of the seder leader and why?

Dr. Erica Brown, Spiritual Boredom, Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009, page 106

Boredom occurs when we run out of questions because it demonstrates that we have run out of interest. Combating boredom in the Jewish classroom, or any classroom for that matter, is ultimately about the stimulation of questions. Returning to the Seder table, that ancient classroom of Jewish history, we find that Maimonides encouraged us to place objects, educational props, on the table and to use the complexity of the Haggadah ―to make the children ask.‖ The purpose of Passover is not to tell our children the story of Jewish peoplehood; it is to make the evening interesting enough for them to ask questions. Telling especially repeated telling, leads to a flat story with a dull landscape. Asking leads to exploration, further questioning, engagement, creativity. Boredom will only leave the classroom when we have done a good enough job of making ―the children ask.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, page 339

The task of religious teaching is to be a midwife and bring about the birth of the question.

Priming the Pump to Improve the Questions Students Ask

In this article in Faculty Focus, Steve Snyder (Grand View University) describes his efforts to improve the quality and quantity of questions students asked in his humanities courses.

Why weren’t students asking more questions? he wondered. Was it shyness? Lack of motivation? Not being prepared? He decided a more likely explanation was that students were simply less experienced than professors at interrogating ideas. “So the challenge for me,” he says, “was to nudge them from novices to something closer to advanced beginners.”

To stretch students’ question-asking skills, Snyder developed a set of prompts, paralleling Bloom’s taxonomy of learning, and each day asked students to choose the best questions on the primary texts they were reading (either as homework or in the first ten minutes of class).

Level One: Contextuals, Definitions, Clarifications, and Analyzers:

-How was X (an event/text/work) shaped by its time?

-Where did it originate and why?

-Who was its originator and what was he or she like?

-How do you define this word/term/idea/etc.?

-What does this passage/concept/etc. mean?

-What would be a specific, concrete example?

-What parts or features make up the whole of X and what does each part do?

-How do the parts contribute to the whole?

-How is this idea/concept organized and why is it organized that way?

Level Two: Comparatives, Causals, and Evaluatives:

-How is X the same as that? How is it different? What is the opposite of X?

-How are these more or less similar?

-What factors caused X to happen?

-Which of these factors is sufficient? Which factors are contributing or probable?

-On what grounds can we eliminate possible causes or explanations?

-What are the most important features of X?

-Why do you like or dislike X (or agree or disagree)?

-How strong is the case that X is correct?

-What criteria are best for judging X?

-What is the best order of priority for these things and why?

-What is the strongest argument against X?

Level Three: Counterfactuals, Extenders, Synthesizers:

-How would X change if this happened?

-How would things be different if X had not happened?

-How would things be different if X happened to a greater (or lesser) degree?

-How can we apply X to this set of circumstances?

-What can we predict if X is correct?

-What ideas should be added to X?

-What might happen if you added this to X?

Snyder urged students to avoid questions with yes/no answers, specify text page numbers where their questions arose, and ask about areas they struggled with or that aroused their curiosity. He also told students to choose questions on different levels of the hierarchy and identify the kind of thinking required to formulate an answer. The goal was more-active involvement and improving their understanding of the subject matter and its relationship to other subjects.

“Even with some pump-priming,” says Snyder, “many of the questions students generate will be non-starters and that’s okay. Sometimes this happens because students are simply going through the motions of the exercise, but more often it’s because they aren’t experts and can’t always recognize non-starter questions. Indeed, it’s difficult for students to think like disciplinary experts, and it’s tempting for us to jump in and speed the process along. I have found that if I can be patient and remain quiet, students will self-identify dead-end questions more quickly than I expect. The discovery of dead ends is in itself a powerful learning experience, one we can short-circuit in our haste. More to the point, we have to work through the bad questions to find the wonderful, thought-provoking questions.”

“A Practical Approach for Increasing Students’ In-Class Questions” by Steve Snyder in Faculty Focus, July 13, 2016, http://bit.ly/2bJiDVe; Snyder can be reached at [email protected].