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We have all heard it, and at times said it ourselves—“There are no stupid questions.” As the parent of an 11-year-old son and an almost 14-year-old daughter, I am starting to reconsider this. Growing up, I was a pretty quiet and at times very awkward guy. Looking back, I can think of many times when I should have asked more questions, but that just wasn’t who I was.
Now I am so interested in the art of questioning that I read books about asking them. Recently I read the book A More Beautiful Question, which I highly recommend. In this book, Warren Berger cites the statistic that the frequency of “questioning” by children drops off dramatically by age five, something that should be deeply concerning to all parents. There is a myriad of theories about why this is occurring, including the test-heavy focus of public schooling that fosters information regurgitation. One thing is for certain is that, if we want to foster a culture of smart questions, it is up to us as parents to instill this in our children.
This is where things can get sticky. As parents, my wife and I do all we can to encourage inquiry and questioning. But we have come to the conclusion that there is a big difference between intelligent, informed questioning and stupid questions.
- Where is the Tour De France?
- What is that woman doing? (asked about a random woman walking down the road)
- Can I jump off the balcony into the pool?
It was a series of questions like these on a recent five-hour car trip that drove us over the edge. Are these stupid questions just tween stupidity/annoyance that are typical at this age? Or, is it a lack of critical thinking skills that are required to frame, contemplate, and verbalize a question before asking it? For my family, we will continue to encourage curiosity and questioning, but have made it clear that there is such a thing as a stupid question.
We need to make it clear to our children that in life, there are right and wrong answers, but many times there is also a beautiful gray area in between where learning, growth, discovery and game-changing breakthroughs occur. Smart, beautiful questioning isn’t something that our children will pick up in school by taking tests—it happens in the real world. But for them to get to the point where they are asking questions they can be proud of, we need to do what’s right and call them out when what they are asking is just plain stupid.
What do you think: do you agree that there is such a thing as a stupid question? What examples do you have of stupid questions?
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Photo credit: Getty Images
No there aren’t any stupid questions. There are answerers with poor listening skill however. If the question sounds stupid, it means you aren’t really understanding what’s being asked. Where is the tour de France? France isn’t really the correct answer (and it’s actually wrong) so what is the information being sought? The woman is doing something more than just walking or she wouldn’t have caught their attention. If you see no reason for the question, you aren’t really looking and you aren’t really listening to your children.