Thursday, August 22, 2019

what's your big question?

Our minds are naturally inclined toward associative and interdisciplinary thinking.  We connect the dots in all sorts of ways, often when we don't fully comprehend the experience (and sometimes when there aren't even any dots).  

We have questions about the nature of the world: our experience of it, our place in it, our relationship to it, what lies beyond it, and everything else.  When we're young we ask questions all the time.  We are insatiably curious.  It's like somehow we intuitively understand that the more we learn the better we get at everything--including learning.  We don't worry about curricular units or standards.  We have no test anxiety.  We test ourselves all the time.  We love risk and we don't care if we fail.  It's always somebody else who's saying, "Hey, come down from there, you're going to get hurt!"* [*Often, they're right.  In any case they're probably more experienced in estimating the odds of that was fun didn't hurt vs. itchy leg cast for a month outcomes.  But sometimes you just KNOW you can do it and it's frustrating to be told you can't.  Pushing the edge is what learning is all about.** {**As a teacher/responsible adult I must explicitly remind you to do this (i.e., learn/push the edge/create new neural pathways in your brain that actually change your mind) in ways that will not break laws or harm any sentient beings-- most especially you-- or offend, irritate, annoy, upset, or anger your parents.***} <***If you think this is a lot of footnotes, or whatever we're calling the blogger's equivalent, you should read David Foster Wallace (especially Infinite Jest).  In fact, this is the perfect time for you to consider his commencement speech (which doesn't contain footnotes, but does contain the sort of wisdom that more people should hear while there's still time to do something about it.).  At any rate, if you're still following this sentence you'll do fine in this course.>}]  Not only do we love climbing learning limbs when we're young, we know it's what we're best at.  Most of us learn whole languages best between the ages of 5-12.  Our amazing brains manage the torrential inflow by creating schema



We have every incentive to accelerate and amplify our learning as we age.  Our future is increasingly complex and uncertain.  Our culture and economy favor those in the know.  Learning is increasingly your responsibility as individuals.  You're becoming more independent; in about a year you'll be heading off to college, where your professors may not know you exist and definitely won't care how you organize your binder.  As if all that isn't motivation enough for you to get your learning on, it turns out that not learning may actually be bad for you.  We form new neurons and connections in our brains when we learn.  Scientists are investigating whether the lack of new neuron formation is a cause for depression or an interfering factor in recovery.

When it comes to thinking for yourself in the traditional high school setting, though, there are constraints.  Inquiry that doesn't "fit" in the classroom is too often seen as insubordinate.   By definition, individualism and divergent thinking don't regress to the mean or conform to a one-size-fits-all syllabus.  We will have to find ways to gracefully lose arguments and compromise.  In addition, a culture of fear of punishment or embarrassment can lead the smartest and most successful learners to surrender and play the game.  When this happens, motivated learning in the presence of no opportunity dies the same death as a fire in the presence of no oxygen.  The authors of "The Creativity Crisis" say we ask about 100 questions a day as preschoolers-- and we quit asking altogether by middle school. 

In his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie describes visiting schools to show students how artists sculpt steel into animals:

“I always began with the same introduction: ‘Hi My name is Gordon MacKenzie and, among other things, I am an artist... How many of you are artists?’
The pattern of responses never failed.
First grade: En mass the children leapt from their chairs, arms waving wildly, eager hands trying to reach the ceiling.  Every child was an artist.
Second grade: About half the kids raised their hands, shoulder high, no higher.  The raised hands were still.
Third grade: At best, 10 kids out of 30 would raise a hand.  Tentatively.  Self-consciously. 
And so on up through the grades.  The higher the grade, the fewer children raised their hands.  By the time I reached sixth grade, no more than one or two did so and then only ever-so-slightly—guardedly—their eyes dancing from side to side uneasily, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a ‘closet artist.’”  

Richard Saul Werman (the man who created the TED conference) said, "In school we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.”  School and the way it works was designed back when things were very different and oriented around mass production; that's not the way the world works any more.  You can't just prepare for a job that may not be around by the time you graduate.  And in the age of the search engine, there is no real point in learning facts for their own sake, especially since so many of them eventually turn out not to be facts after all.  You have to develop the critical thinking, problem-solving, oppurtunity-seeking, and collaborative skills that will enable you to CREATE a role for yourself in the new economy.  (And don't worry, if you're not an entrepreneur by nature, these abilities will help you do whatever else you want to do more effectively.)

So, our first mission is to reclaim the power of the question.  Everything you ask has an interdisciplinary answer.  Show me a cup of tea and I'll show you botany, ceramics, and the history of colonialism (for starters).  Wondering why your girlfriend doesn't love you any more?  Psychology, poetry, probability... you get the idea.  And no matter what the question or the answers, you're going to have to sort the signal from the noise and determine how best to share the sense you make.

What's your Big Question?  

What have you always wanted to know?  What are you thinking about now that you've been asked?  What answers would make a difference in your life, or in the community, or in the world?  What do you wish you could invent?  What problem do you want to solve?  This is not a trick and there are no limits.  Please comment to this post with your question and post it to your course blog (title: MY BIG QUESTION).  You can always change your question or ask another.   If you need some inspiration, check out a previous year's Eng 3 Big Questions here.

83 comments:

  1. Who created the alphabet and how did they decide which letters got certain sounds?

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  2. Are there any other planets besides the ones we know about ?

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  3. Why would they start building a new building while school just started

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  4. Are there other universes besides ours.

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  5. What would the world be without the ocean or animals?

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  6. Is heaven and hell Real? Where do we go when we die?

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  7. Why are we crammed with so much knowledge at school and expected to remember all of it? We are taught lots of things but not how to remember stuff.

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  8. What would the world be without animals?

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  9. If the government legalized and regulated most, if not all drugs, would the war on drugs stop? Would drug addicts be able to get more help or would it help prevent drug addiction?

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  10. Why is it that when a women gets raped people are so quick to blame the her????????????

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  11. Should marijuana be legalized nationwide?

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  12. why are colors like blue named blue and who decide for it to be blue?

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  14. how did the person that invented the clock know hat time it was?

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  15. Why are boys told not to cry? Why are they told that crying is not being manly?

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  16. Is there some sort of life form after death?

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  17. my big question is what makes a song so popular? is it the person who sings it? or it is the lyrics? or the beat or bass?

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  18. How would the world be if there was no bad in it?

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  19. If there is other human life living on another planet how long would it take to finally find them?

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  20. Why is it that men now have the power to decide on what a woman can or can't do with HER body.

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  21. This just in from Yarely Ramirez: My big question is why is society the way it is right now and why do we have to live up to its standards ?

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  22. What would happen if there was another planet with a living life force?

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  23. Why when a student is upset or stressed out people are so quick to blame it on the student's phones but not school???????????????????

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  24. This just in from Joannes Gonzalez: Why do we know more about space than the ocean?

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  25. This just in from Adolfo Pena: How close are we to the apocalypse with world slowly burning and dying?

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  26. This just in from Guadalupe Rico: How will earth be without animals? Think about how many people kill these innocent creatures when they help society so much. We won’t know what we have till it’s completely gone.

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  27. This just in from Gabriela Chavez: Why is school so important to people when most just use technology to search for answers?

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  28. Is there life after death? Can we know what is at the bottom of the sea?

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  29. This just in from Gerardo Lopez: Why is everything made of energy?

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  30. This just in from Gladys Acuna: Are boneless wings just chicken nuggets with a different name?

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  31. This just in from Cris Cervantes:
    Is hell real ?

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    Replies
    1. "David, don't do it. Don't type, 'Yes, and it's called Fresno.' That's not kind. That's not what we're trying to teach here. OK, fine. I see you've typed it. But for goodness sake, don't click 'Publish'-- hey, wait, no seriously... AH-"

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  32. Do we ever really know people? Do we really know someone, or do we only know the version of them that they wish to show us? A girls' mother knows her differently than her sister, and she sees her best friend in a different light than his girlfriend sees him.

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  33. This just in from Dayana Uvias: If we donate our hair and the person who gets it commits a crime, do we (the ppl who donated the hair) get involved as well??

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  34. This just in from Noemi Ortiz: Why is the United States government so against immigration?

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  35. Could black holes in space lead to somewhere else? Maybe another solar system? Alternate universe? Another galaxy?

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  36. Who created the numbers? And why can’t it be named something else ?

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  37. Why has the school system stayed the same all these years?

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  38. Why has the world become so sensitivity. People are being accused for saying a little offense joke and the person receiving it is acting like the swat team is shooting at them with everything they have.

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  39. why is it that we go to school for 7 hours a day listen to teacher talk all day then for us to go home and still do homework from almost all the classes we have had after everything we have to do after school like work go to the store visit family we dont always have enough time do do the homework we are given and then get in trouble if we dont do it cause we dont have time

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  40. 1st Question: What's the meaning of life?
    2nd Question : Can we make human clones?

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  41. Is everything people tell us the truth? or is it all just a lie?

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  42. Will technology really take over in the near future?

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  43. How did the world become so negative and dark and violent?, how did we become so angry and sad?, what happened?, why is it that all the time on the news someone dies when they are not supposed to. why is it that someone gets in a fight OVER ANOTHER HUMAN BEING?, why is it so hard to love our self and others?, what happened to the peace and love and happiness?

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  44. How would the world be like if there was no technology? Will students pay more attention in class?

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  45. I heard that Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. They don't get much homework, they sleep more, and they work on collaboration instead of competition. Why don't we follow and try their methods? Since our school system is bs!

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  46. why does time go by so fast when you dont notice

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  47. Why do news channels always report bad news first and good news last?
    Why did it become so hard to earn enough money for all of our needs?

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  48. Are we going to be able to travel all over the galaxy in the next thousands of years?

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  49. Why does nobody care about whats going on in our environment?

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  50. Why do we automatically stereotype people before we even get to know them?

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  51. Why do we have to go to school for more then 12 years?

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  53. Why is there so many bad things happening in this world like all at once in the past couple of years. Like the air pollution and all these fires and all the plastic in the ocean?

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  54. why are people fake ? Why can't we all be straight up with everyone instead of talking behind everyone's back?

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  55. Are we really spied by the government??

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  56. Why is the US government so against immigration when the first colony was full of people who immigrated from England ?

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  58. u going to area 51 @commentsection

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  59. why do we have to pay for college

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  60. if heaven his real does that mean hell is real?????? whAT????

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  61. Why is there people in the world who bother to get into people’s life and don’t mind theirs.

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  62. which sport is the most popular nationwide?

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LAST POST OF THE SCHOOL YEAR/ june 3 w online meeting #50

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