Welcome to this week’s episode of This is the Future. I trust you had a super splendid and productive weekend?
It is November and we are gradually coming to the end of the year. How about those goals you set to achieve on January 1st? Have you started that company? Are you married? What about your mum? Why is your hair falling off? Do you like fried plantain? Do you like it soft or hard? How old are you? When last did you say thank you? What skipping club do you support?
Children are naturally curious and many times – sensitive. They express their curiosity by asking questions. Sometimes, their questions are awkward like, “Mum why does dad not have big breast?” Other times, they ask difficult questions like, “Why does a lizard have just one tail?” And you are like, “A lizard, well – yeah – it has a tail.” They ask, “Why, why doesn’t it have two tails?” And you are like, “Well…” Sometimes, there are no easy answers to their endless questions.
Recently, two of my students sat with me and bombarded me with questions, “Mr Moyo, ”Did you fight with your sister when you where growing up?” I am like, “Yeah, sometimes! My parents told me that when we were younger my sister would want to ride me because I was gentle. As we grew older, sometimes we fought.” And my students go, “Oooohhh!”
Next question, “Sir, did you have a crush?” Uhhhh! That is the problem. Children have not learnt how to be diplomatic. Their innocence makes them ask questions adults won’t dare ask for courtesy sake. A child can see a cripple and ask, “Why don’t you have legs?” – point blankly. And if the cripple answers, she can go on to ask if the cripple’s parent were also crippled.
Many times, adults shy away from children’s questions because they open chapters they would as well want to close, in fact, padlock. A child can ask, “Mum, was dad your first love?” If the mother says no, she asks a follow up question, “Who was?” If she says, “My first love was James.” The child asks, “What happened,” on and on and on, chapters of your life you don’t want to talk about.
Other times, children ask questions which for modesty sake it’s difficult to answer. In Swimming Across, autobiography of Andrew Grove, founder of Intel, Andrew wrote about how he had asked his mother what a whorehouse was. He had heard his friends talking about it. Now, if a child asked you this, how do you answer it? You are aware of the fact that your answer if not explicit enough would lead to a follow up question. You are also afraid of being too explicit because of your child’s age.
This was the response of Andrew’s mum. I quote directly from the book, “She rapped out in a no-nonsense tone that a whorehouse was, where men went to put their penises in women and pay them some money after which they closed their pants and went home.”
Now, listen to the child’s reaction, I quote, “I sat on the toilet seat, dumbfounded. I felt that I had been thwarted somehow, but I didn’t even know what other question to ask.”
Another reason adults detest children’s questions is that it exposes their ignorance. Teachers especially want to have that I-no-everything image. So when a child asks a question they have no idea of, instead of showing their ignorance, they shut the child up.
There’s this joke of how a father had always scolded his child for poor exam results. He goes, “When I was your age, I was doing very well, on top of the class.” Then one day, the child had a difficult homework, he takes it to the father for help. The father looks at it from the corner of his eyes – and puff – he has no idea of what the solution is. He squeezes his face and goes, “You this child self, you don’t even know when someone is tired.”
This is my personal reaction when I’m confronted with a question I don’t know the answer to. When a student asks me a question I don’t know, I shout out to my colleague, “Mr. Lucky do you know this?” Or I just say, let’s check Goggle for this. I think the important thing is that when kids ask questions we don’t know the answer, instead of shutting them up, we guide them on how to get the answer by referring them to others or online resources. And if there are no readymade answers, we challenge them to find the answers themselves.
Great inventions are discovered by men and women who dared to ask questions. Why! Why do we need to wait for days before we can communicate with loved ones? Why do we need to go to a book shop before we can buy a book? They ask how. How do birds fly?
I remember reading the Autobiography of Sam Walton. And a recurring theme was how Sam goes to other stores with a pocket book and pen asking questions. He was beating them and was to beat them at the game by asking questions.
I have a student who asks so many questions. And sometimes, someone would comment, “You ask too many questions.” They say this in a derogatory way. My reply always is, “It is good to ask many questions.” Some other people say, “It is curiosity that kills the cat.” My reply to this is, “Asking questions is the safest way of finding answers to one’s inquisitiveness.”
We need to understand that children don’t just ask questions out of the blues. Many times, they’ve thought over what they ask in their heads. Other times, they’ve asked some friends. In fact their questions maybe as a result of their inner fears and struggles – concepts adult take for granted.
As a result of this, as adults, we need to create an environment where young people are comfortable asking questions. More than being parents or teachers, we need to be mentors, friends of our children. We need to encourage them to ask more questions not less. We need not be afraid of being vulnerable; of the shame revealing our past mistakes will cause us. We must relish the thought that our experiences can guide a young man or woman from making the exact mistake we made. Above all, when we do not have answers, we go out of our way to find someone or resources that can provide answers. If there are no available answers (especially in academics) we challenge them to find answers.
Lastly, remember that many times by default young people don’t ask questions, they love to experience it themselves. If the cat had asked questions, chances are, it won’t have died.
This is the future is an episode of Dayo Moyo’s weekly podcast.
