The Questions Left Unasked

Musings on Cynicism and Conformity

Excerpted from The Homework Myth (Da Capo, 2006)

One reason we don’t ask challenging questions about a topic like homework is that we don’t ask challenging questions about most things. There is a deep-rooted aversion to digging out hidden premises, pressing for justification, and opposing practices for which justification is lacking.

Too many of us sound like Robert Frost’s neighbor, the man who “will not go behind his father’s saying.” Too many of us, when pressed about some habit or belief we’ve adopted, are apt to reply, “Well, that’s just the way I was raised” – as if it were impossible to critically examine the values one was taught. Too many of us, including some who work in the field of education, seem to have lost our capacity to be outraged by the outrageous; when handed foolish and destructive mandates, we respond by asking for guidance on how best to carry them out.

Even when we do regard something as objectionable, that doesn’t mean we will object to it. Indeed, we’re apt to see the situation as being like the weather — something you just learn to live with. We may not “accept” – that is, believe — everything we’re told by public officials and professionals, but in the other sense of that word, we tend to accept – that is, put up with — what they do.

There’s no shortage of cynicism about authority figures and powerful institutions. But cynicism, unlike vibrant, reasoned skepticism, actually contributes to passivity. People who write off all politicians as “a bunch of liars” are unlikely to become politically active, just as those who say “You can prove anything with statistics” are unwilling to distinguish between better and worse research. For that matter, the phrase “Everything’s bad for you these days” can be used to rationalize eating junk food. These are shrugs, not positions. Whereas the skeptic thinks and doubts and, in so doing, affirms a vision of the way things ought to be, the cynic affirms nothing, takes no action, and ends up perpetuating arrangements that make our lives worse. (Those arrangements, in a neat self-fulfilling prophecy, then confirm the cynical conclusion that no one can make a difference.)

Whether or not it’s accompanied by cynicism, passivity is a habit acquired early. From our first days in school we are carefully instructed in what has been called the “hidden curriculum”: how to do what one is told and stay out of trouble. There are rewards, both tangible and symbolic, for those who behave properly and penalties for those who don’t. As students, we’re trained to sit still, listen to what the teacher says, run our highlighters across whatever words in the book we’ll be required to commit to memory. Pretty soon, we become less likely to ask (or even wonder) whether what we’re being taught really makes sense. We just want to know whether it’s going to be on the test.

I remember hearing about a college instructor who implored his students on the first day of class to think critically about all he would tell them rather than just mindlessly copying down his lectures in their notebooks. As he spoke, students were obediently writing, “Don’t just copy down lectures.” I, myself, caught a whiff of this sensibility when, as a brand-new teacher, I pinned a yellow button to my shirt that said QUESTION AUTHORITY. Alas, this concept was so unfamiliar to the students that some of them assumed the phrase was a descriptive label rather than an exhortation. One girl wanted to know who had appointed me the school’s authority on questions.

When we find ourselves unhappy with some practice or policy, we’re encouraged to focus on incidental aspects of what’s going on, to ask questions about the details of implementation – how something will get done, or by whom, or on what schedule – but not whether it should be done at all. The more that we attend to secondary concerns, the more that the primary issues — the overarching structures and underlying premises — are strengthened. We’re led to avoid the radical questions — and I use that adjective in its original sense:Radical comes from the Latin word for root. It’s partly because we spend our time worrying about the tendrils that the weed continues to grow.

Consider parenting magazines. To spend time with these publications is to realize that their purpose is not just to teach us how to socialize our children. Rather, they’re about the business of socializing us – to accept the status quo. You’ll find articles about how to teach kids the basics of good sportsmanship on the playing field, but none that raise questions about the desirability (or inevitability) of competitive games. You’ll be treated to advice on how to help your child get better grades – or what to do about a poor grade – but you’ll look in vain for an inquiry into whether there are alternatives to grades, or whether the curriculum is worthwhile, or how parents, if they organized themselves, might be able to change essential features of our educational system. These magazines ultimately teach parents to take the important things for granted and deal with reality as they find it.

On the other hand, there is seldom any need to discourage us from posing more probing questions: It literally never occurs to most of us to ask them – or to inquire into other aspects of our lives. Discontent is siphoned off to minor matters, with the effect that our institutions are left to function unimpeded. We’ve already been conditioned to accept most of what is done to our children at school, for example, and so we confine our critical energies to the periphery. Sometimes I entertain myself by speculating about how ingrained this pattern really is. If a school administrator were to announce that, starting next week, students will be made to stand outside in the rain and memorize the phone book, I suspect we parents would promptly speak up . . . to ask whether the Yellow Pages were included. Or perhaps we’d want to know how much of their grade this activity will count for. One of the more outspoken moms might even demand to know whether her child would be permitted to wear a raincoat.

Our education system, meanwhile, is busily avoiding important topics in its own right. For every question that’s asked in this field, there are other, more vital questions that are never raised. Educators weigh different techniques of “behavior management” but rarely examine the imperative to focus on behavior– that is, observable actions — rather than on reasons and needs and the children who have them. Teachers think about what classroom rules they ought to introduce but are unlikely to ask why they’re doing so unilaterally, why students aren’t participating in such decisions. It’s probably not a coincidence that most schools of education require prospective teachers to take a course called Methods, but there is no course called Goals.

More: Teachers are invited to consider how often they call on students to answer questions, whether they’re allowing enough time for a response to be formulated, maybe even whether they are unconsciously calling on more boys than girls. But they are assuredly not prompted to think about why they are calling on students in the first place. Why should the teacher’s questions, as opposed to the kids’, drive the lesson? What would happen if the students didn’t raise their hands – and had to figure out together how to avoid interrupting one another? What if some of the power was shared and classrooms became more democratic? It’s partly because of the earnest attention to evaluating techniques for leading a traditional classroom discussion that more profound questions are excluded.

A breath of fresh air is invigorating but it can also make you shiver a little. How much harm are we doing – or at least allowing to be done – when we fail to ask the right questions and look at the big picture? We like to congratulate people who “think outside the box,” but we get nervous if the thinker in question does this too often or too well, particularly if we happen to call that box home. Sometimes it seems that the effusiveness with which we esteem the appearance of independent thought is directly proportional to the displeasure with which we greet its reality. And even when gadflies are celebrated, the box itself stays the same. This ensures that we will continue to need more people to think outside it.