Socrates alarmed the grave eyed old men of Athens by putting questions to the young men of the city and the grave eyed old men made away with him by a potion of hemlock. Disturbing questions gave Socrates death and immorality and since Socrates drank that mortal draught man has not enjoyed an emancipation from doubts. On the countrary, the question method engendering doubts and inducing searchings of heart has become the accepted educational destiny of mankind. In theory at least the question method is accorded the pride of place in schools and whether it transcends theory or not it is made the boast of modern educational practice from day to day.
The question method is best and its exaltation were it to spring from actual practice, wisest. There is a running streak of disobedience in the mental inheritance of man. There is an instinct in it that faces order with impassivity that turns a deaf ear to both advice and exhortation. The young as well as the old often resist (do they not?) to be edified but are willing and often eager to discover. From the pulpit come flowing waves of somnolence. The telling teacher whatever be the content of his words, sooner or later breathes the soporific air. It is the immemorial way of letting sleeping dogs lie.
But so soon as one begins to ask a question the eyes open and the mind awakens with a start. It is true that the mind does not always like to be thus rudely disturbed and no doubt it is sweeter to bang the eye lids than to keep them alert ever a no enemy is thanked when he threatens he tranquility of the throne. But the question is a challenge and the pupil feels that it must be tackled to preserve his pride. It threatens his into grity and he fights it. One cannot sleep with a question under his pillow or have peace when it probes his mind.
As the purpose of education is to make the place too he for the indolent mind and expose it to the assault of thought an doubt, the question method must rule the roast wherever education is truthfully rendered. It may be easier for the teacher to spout information than to fusillade the class. And the bulk of students would be willing to pay him the heavy tribute of silent docility rather than sit under a running fire. The armoured teacher is therefore a hated figure in schools and the meek and gentle preacher softly telling the beads of learning is lifted to affectionate eminence.
Happily the tables are often turned. In spite of the generous hatred we reserve for our enemies we often make the mistake of loving them in some stealthy corner of our hearts and it is not utterly unreasonable we do so, for they teach us many thing which none but our enemies can teach us. It thus happens that although the herd or the collective opinion favours the preaching teacher the hermit or the individual instinct blesses the putter of questions. The first is praised by the class; the second is loved by the pupils.
A twelve year old student came and said "Our new teacher has come. Everyone fears him because he asks so many questions."
"Do you like the new teacher?"
"I like him I like him so much. I am beginning to learn."
A few days later the same boy said, `Our new teacher is changed. He asks no questions, but smiles to every one of us and talks and asks us to `take down. Every one likes him now."
"But you said, the other day, that you liked him because he put questions to all of you often and often."
"I liked him much for that, but I like him now for his new way, not so much as before. All the class likes him now and it is happy."
In an undertone the boy added that questions enabled them to learn but that to pass the examination.
Of course, the little confiding man did not know he was telling more than he meant and that he was not speaking for himself but severally for every one in the class. He would only not object to do as Rome did. None perhaps but the highly individual students would.
There is no doubt that a habit of smiling and telling is no small asset to the teacher but not asset, however great can perhaps compensate the suspension of the question putting habit. There is no doubt that the larger the space allotted to questions in the classroom the richer the quality of the instruction. One may chalk out and tell over and over again the same thins to be only forgotten when the voice pauses or the duster sweeps the board, but ask a question and it stings the mind, makes mouths at it, as it were compelling it to enter the lists. The victories of the educational war are not easily matched by those of the educational peace. It is too late in the day to doubt the wisdom of Socrates. A courteous sense of gratitude has lifted the first putter of questions above question. And we are all agreed that "The mind to be kept in health must be kept in exercise."
One often comes across classes that are impervious even to questions. It is a sign of the chronic slumber arising from one or another educational luxury. They have been perhaps fed too much on digested information or left too long to sleep. They have been perhaps told things so long and so often that they have been left too little to themselves to desire understanding. When questions fail to stir a class, it is time to ask what it is suffering from. There is obviously some derangement in the mechanism of its impulses. The essential character of right questioning is such that even a fool might ask a question to witness the sight of ten wise men madly awaking to answer it.
Although however the importance of the question method in the classroom can hardly be exaggerated it is often found that in the hands of some craftsmen the method is apt to be diverted from purpose to parody. An old but not obsolete educational law often glorified in Teachers' colleges beyond its merit and more honoured in breach than in observance in schools is, "Do not tell but elicit." The teacher sometimes develops a mechanical enthusiasm for the injunction in `show-lessons' or when some official superior comes and erects himself before him to examine his capabilities somewhat narrowly. On such occasions he often strives with might and main to expunge the art of telling from human life. He marshals a hundred questions on the map of India leaving alone only a bit of elevated ground in a tumbling angle of Mysore and patiently pilots his class through the bristing rocks of questions to the Gersoppa Waterfalls about which he has hidden a lesson up his sleeve and which he would produce at the auspicious hour and minute somewhat in the manner of a magician discovering a fruiting little mango-tree under an inverted pot. Even the question method is susceptible of exaggeration and abuse and in spite of its supreme importance in instruction one would do well to remember that the art of teaching is not made of one element only.
Questions may be divided into three classes questions to test memory to test knowledge to stimulate thinking. The first are the easiest to ask and the easiest also to answer. Even these are fromidable enough in the placid and docile atmosphere of some classrooms. It may however be stated that there is perhaps no teacher or pupil that entirely escapes their association and in these examination ridden days they have in fact become the handmaiden of coaching. A question is asked and the bolts of memory loosen to the key. When mere memory questions gain the upperhand in classroom practice the question-method naturally suffers disesteem for the chief purpose of classroom questions is to spur the pupils to sit and think.
A distinction has been drawn between questions testing memory and questions testing knowledge. Perhaps it required explanation. Memory is an ill-assorted store. Things taken from the external world are often simply stowed away in it like so much disused material taking up room. This is what is called cram in the colloquial language of schools which is sometimes of such moment at examinations. Memory questions concern themselves about these little hoards of alien matter in the mind. Knowledge is different. It is the product of the action of the external world of objects and experience on the internal world of intellect. The cognition is accompanied by a chemical change. Things are not simply taken but altered, and altered, they are absorbed in the personality of the individual. This product that enters personality and enriches it by becoming one with it is knowledge and is often somewhat inaccurately called culture and question to test this intellectual element and assist its further development are of the highest value. "Who were the contending parties in the World War?" is a memory question. "Mention one of the chief causes that led to this war and explain it," is a knowledge-question. It calls for some insight and skill on the part of the teacher to stimulate and build up knowledge by questions and it will tax the pupils to the straining point to meet them bravely. The real question methods is not anywhere not certainly in any book for the teacher of children to have for the gathering.
Questions to test and stimulate thinking are by far the most significant function of the question and answer method of teaching. In parliaments and popular councils the question time often given governments furiously to think. The putter of searching questions draws down on his head the esteemed ordium of the powers that be. Early man learned to rise by asking questions of the external phenomena. Science builds its glittering towards on the living rocks of the question-method. The great thinkers have always ascended to glory or doom the twin-born awards to higher earthly existence. And teaching to think is of such vast importance that it is necessary to speak of it in single place. Some of its aspects that come within the purview of the question method are all that is sought to be indicated here.
The teacher that inclines to the question method often makes the mistake of expecting answers to come forth directly questions are asked. Thought works slowly and where real thinking which is different from `mental cleverness is required time is required. Shock tactics and storm however skillfully launched are generally ineffective and often even harmful to the first shy and timid attempts in the way of thinking that the pupils are willing none too eagerly to make. The question may fetch no answer but it is not the answer that gives the question its consequence. The question is all, provided it coaxes the mind to awaking. When thought beings the tongue withdraws and the face takes on a haze. Dusky meditation clouds the eyes and shakes the brow to quivering wrinkles and lines. There is silence for the mind is a wake. The question does its work and the character of the answer or its absence does hardly count. Take the following poem :
"Rose kissed me today,
Will she kiss me tomorrow?
Let it be as it may
Rose kissed me today
But the pleasure gives way
To a savour of sorrow;
Rose kissed me today
Will she kiss me tomorrow?
The dream-like simplicity and beauty of its virgin image is certainly not to be conveyed through explanations, however broad based on the psychology of the juvenile mind. The little boys must see it for themselves to see it all. They must achieve discovery to have possession, and the gift eludes the grasp as soon as it is handed on. The teacher might explain the meaning of the expression, `a savour of sorrow', "What troubles him?" If he be patient he must soon see one of the children starting to him feet and exclaim, "I have got it!" somewhat in the manner of antrouncing a New World. Teaching thus becomes a blessing no less than learning.
Let all questions lead to thought, for the question method is really a wanderer in fresh fields and pastures new. And it is first and foremost the duty of the school to send its children wandering.