'unfiltered'
Welcome to what others might call our 'blog'. We prefer to call it 'unfiltered'. We have written a series of essays on topics that relate to the work we are doing. We will feature a new piece every few weeks and you can read archived writings through their links. We hope you enjoy them or at the least they provoke you into thinking about new and different issues.
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Previous blogs include:
- Transformation Before Incrementalism
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Asking Compelling Questions
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By Ellee Koss and Arati Mithal Nagaraj (based on Ellee's life work and her book Even Bears Can Learn to Tango: Leadership Wisdom for the Ages)
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In returning to the foundation of education - of drawing out from within - the challenge becomes devising ways to support learners in going within for answers. One path is to craft, what we call: Compelling Questions.
These are questions that provoke learners into thinking for themselves. They are not yes/no questions. They do not have predetermined answers. There is no right or wrong answer. Will we tell you what to ask? “No, that is your journey and your challenge.”
Here is an example.
What if you ask learners, of all ages, to reflect on the question: ‘Who am I?’
Go ahead and ask yourself that question. Now listen to and observe your internal dialogue. What is the focus of your own thoughts? How are you organizing your responses?
With each response ask yourself: ‘Is that all I am?’ And again, reflect on your thoughts.
Continue this iterative process focusing on ‘Who and what else am I?’ until nothing else comes to mind. Look at all of your responses and see if there is an underlying theme. See if you can expand on what you have written; what you have considered.
We suspect that you are now thinking about the original question. In continuing to engage with ‘Who am I?’ insights will surface and a window for fundamental learning will occur. It will be personal and unique; yet a quality of humanity will weave through it. Enjoy the process.
What if we craft questions like this more often? What if we engage our learners and especially our youth in questions that cause them to stop and deeply think? If we were to do that we would be embarking on a journey of educating 100% of what it means to be human.
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As Rainer Marie Rilke expressed in Letters to a Young Poet:
"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
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