Last month, I focused on the general topic of “learning/teaching”. This month, I will explore the general topic of “education”.
Creating a link between both topics, I would like to start with this question:
Does a teacher who only asks questions for their students teach them something?
The short answer is yes, but I already know that you want more than just that.
This teaching approach is often referred to as the Socratic method, named after the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who was known for his use of questioning to stimulate critical thinking and facilitate learning in his students.
To test the method, Professor Rick Garlikov decided to use it: He proposed to teach binary code to a group of 22 children, on average 10 years old, only by asking them questions. The result was the best possible: According to Garlikov, all children remained attentive and participative, and continued to comment on the subject they learned for the rest of the day.
But let’s imagine for a second here that most questions we ask do not have a proper answer. Can we learn something from them anyway?
“No, I do not have the capability to learn or gain knowledge from the questions you ask. My purpose is to provide information and generate text based on the input I receive, but I do not learn or remember individual interactions.”
Well, ChatGPT can’t. That’s a bummer.
But you can.
It is entirely up to us to want to learn and to desire knowledge and, above all, to seek it.
I will explore the “how” in the next newsletter.
Have you been asking good questions lately?
What have you learned from them?