The Power of the Question

On the Excel Achievement Center homepage, we state that children learn the power of the question and find joy in discovering the answer. I pondered on this this morning as I thought about my own journey in education. How often have I asked the question and then found the answer?

I remember my very first year of teaching. I was enthusiastic and energetic. I, like most new teachers, felt that I was going to conquer the world that first year. I had 23 second graders who came to me with smiles that included missing front teeth, the energy of Winnie the Pooh's Tigger, and the enthusiasm of 100 Einsteins to learn. I felt that I owed it to these children to put in the extra time as they were not going to "suffer" because I was a first year teacher. I remember putting in long hours and still working in my classroom until 10PM at night.

That first year I discovered the power of the question as I watched my students. I had three of my second graders who could read at the fourth grade level. My question, "How can I help these children reach their fullest potential?" I had a little boy who would hold his fists so tight that they would go white whenever I taught phonics. My question, "How can I help his anxiety?" Like all teachers, I also had a few behavior issues. My question, "How can I get these children to behave?" My answers came in the following ways:

The three gifted children:
I remember asking my mentor what I should do with these children. She responded by saying that they needed to follow the second grade curriculum like everyone else. She continued to say that the school really didn't have materials for these children and that they would be fine. She was an excellent teacher, and I respected her judgment, but I intuitively felt that there must be a better way. Thus I continued to ask the question, "How can I better serve these children?" The answer came from reading books. I discovered that I could have these children read a novel at their level and I put together a literature circle without really knowing that that was what it was called. I had the children doing higher level comprehension activities and increasing their vocabulary without even knowing the correct education jargon. I had asked the questions and then found the answers!

The boy who struggled with phonics:
At this time in my career, I knew nothing about auditory processing disorder let alone any interventions that could have helped this. All I knew was that phonics was not this child's "thing." Therefore, I again asked the question, "What can I do for this child?" The answer I came up with was not to have him do phonics, but teach him reading in a different manner. I focused on his strength-visual processing- and taught him a large sight word base. This helped to decrease his anxiety, and helped him to enjoy school more. I then continued to ask the question about ways to intervene with these children, and years later did much research on auditory processing disorder and dyslexia. It was here that I discovered answers to interventions that work with these children. Today, Excel Achievement Center specializes in working with these kiddos.

The behavior issues:
Like most first year teachers, I put a lovely "behavior modification" system in my classroom. You know the one... "If you talk, I'll move your stoplight from green to yellow, then to red, etc." Yuck! I learned early on that I did not enjoy "policing" students, and that I just wanted to teach. What I learned was this, if I place my focus and my classroom's focus on behaviors, we will just focus on behaviors. If I focus on the content I'm trying to teach and get my students to focus on that as well, I didn't have behavior issues. My task became to get my students so mentally engaged with what I was teaching, that they wouldn't have time to be "naughty." I decided that my classroom would be exciting and that I was up to the challenge of competing with television. (We didn't have internet in those days)

As I look back and reflect on my 20+ years in education, I'm excited that I kept asking questions, and that I didn't think that I knew it all. In fact, the more that I'm in this profession, I've learned that it is my students who teach me the answers as long as I keep asking the questions.