By Lesley Barker
Marble
head of Socrates on display at the Louvre Museum (
You have probably heard of the Socratic Method. But you may not
have heard of the term “essential question” when applied to a unit plan of
study in the classroom. Sometime, you certainly have been told that “there is no bad
question”. Questions are strategic tools to promote active learning,
independent critical thinking and problem solving skills in students.
Socrates lived in Athens, Greece in the fifth century BC. A
philosopher and educator, he remains required reading in college philosophy
classes today. He made a huge impact on western thought. He used questions to
teach his disciples. This instructional approach has become known as the
Socratic Method. It does not lecture nor provide the students with the right answers. It
uses questions to lead them to express and then to discover whether their
initial assumptions and opinions are flawed and, if so, to come up with better positions
that can be logically defended[1].
This requires active learning on the part of the students. They cannot study
the lecture notes to pass the test. Instead, they become engaged in a dialogue that
results in new and deeper understanding.
Posing an essential question is another way that good
teachers assist their students to become independent critical thinkers. An
essential question frames a big idea that underlies all the lessons in a unit
of study. Its goal is to provoke the students’ curiosity so that they will
participate fully in the instructional process. There are three core criteria
inherent in a well-stated essential question according to veteran teacher,
Jeffrey Wilhelm[2].
The question has to be “interesting and compelling” to the students. It has to
stimulate debates and conversations that result in enhanced understanding. It
implies that the students must employ the methods of professionals in the
field. Wilhelm states that “the secret to teaching may be as simple as asking
students good questions and then giving them the opportunity to find the
answers.”[3]
There is no bad question. Even when a student asks a
question that seems rooted in their frustration, skepticism or negativity, a
good teacher learns to receive such questions with respect, returning a
meaningful question to flip the conversation to a more productive one that
lures the student to a better starting point for learning.
We at the Kentucky Faith and Public History Education
Project are guided by this essential question: What impact has Christianity and
individual Christians had on the history and culture of Kentucky? This question
is framed for K-12 public school students who may otherwise be unfamiliar with
Christian beliefs and practices. Everything we are working to produce: the easy-reader chapter
books about famous Kentucky Christians, the participatory website, and the
walking trail that leads to a re-imagined early 19th century camp
meeting, is meant to trigger increasingly more complex objective questions in
the students. If we were producing a spiritual experience we might lead with a
statement like “You must be born again” but we are producing an educational
experience that exposes students to what “born again” people have achieved
since the 1790’s in Kentucky.
As you homeschool or expand the education your children are receiving, may this post challenge you to experiment with asking good questions that lead your children to discover truth for themselves.
[1]
Elizabeth Garrett. “The Green Bag”. 1998 in The Socratic Method.
University of Chicago Law School. ONLINE. law.uchicago.edu/socratic-method.
ACCESSED 10/10/2020
[2]
Jeffrey Wilhelm. “Essential Questions”. Scholastic Teacher. ONLINE. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/essential-questions/
ACCESSED 10/10/2020.
[3] Ibid.
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