“I often wonder how we upkeep the status quo by not celebrating the students who question our systems and rules. I want my students to be thoughtful, mindful, kind rebels who are willing to ask why. But school systems do not support/embrace/celebrate students (or teachers for that matter) who push back and ask the why….“
-Kelly Leight Bertucci, US/MS Technical Theater Teacher, Pennsylvania
But why is such a pokey, prickly thing, Kelly. We cannot equip kids with such a thing. It will disrupt and threaten our sacred system.
Which, of course, is the very reason we should supply them with the word that will shake the foundations: why.
And here’s why.
Any work worth doing must be constantly vetted with why.
Easy enough with some work, but our work is human work with human attachment, with human sensitivities. Simply, we (for better–usually worse) get attached to our work, and when others ask why…well we tend to take it personally.
We get defensive. But why?
I suspect, mostly, because we don’t really know. When we don’t vet with why (meaning, making it an essential element in our practice), we don’t know why. And when we don’t know why, we can’t handle why, for it gets to the nitty, to the gritty, to the truth.
And that can be hard to handle. So, we avoid it. We do. How many times does the word why come up in our work?
And, when it does…
~sy
Truuuuuue, but “why?” is a very versatile question. And there are those who have recognized that it can be asked in just about any situation, and that sometimes the answer takes awhile, AND the answer isn’t something they will be tested on. So there are SOME students who ask why not because they honestly want to know, but because they want to have some time where they don’t have to pay attention or be responsible for completing work.
So when I have a question that leads off-topic and is likely to take awhile to answer, I thank the student for the question, then ask them to write it down on a piece of scrap paper (so they’ll remember) and bring it to me after school, so that we can talk about it in as much detail as they’d like. 😀
Thank you for taking the time to connect and comment, Dana. I always appreciate your perspective. Happy Thursday.