Not Knowing Any Better

I love what I get to do five days a week.
Every day in my classes, I am asked “why?” by a student, and everyday it makes me smile.

I have been thinking about this a lot in light of the fact that I was asked by PTK to speak at their induction ceremony tonight and I needed a topic. I looked around me to find my inspiration, and it came from my students. A student as a “why” question and I knew what to talk about with PTK… the importance of asking why.

Often when we have been in academics for a long time, we forget to ask the creative why, or why not questions.  We have been told that something is cannon in our discipline because it is, or we are told that something can’t be done because it simply can’t be done, and after a while, we have accepted those answers and we stop asking the questions. Our students don’t know that they should not be asking those questions, so they ask, and good for them.

Sometimes we need to challenge the idea that something can not be done. Admittedly, if something has not yet been done, most of the time it can’t be done… but sometimes, it simply has not been tried with the right approach. Our students can see the situation with fresh eyes, and because they don’t know any better, they ask.

Here’s to not knowing any better.

 

2 thoughts on “Not Knowing Any Better”

  1. Hi Ladonna,

    I love your message about “fresh eyes.” Sometimes, we all need to take a moment and try to see the situation through “fresh eyes” or “their eyes”

     

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