Right Questions

My family-engagement class had its first guest visit yesterday.  

I'm not usually the biggest fan of guest visits.  I loved this one.

Our visitors were representatives of the Right Question Institute.  They didn't have the right question, but they wanted to help us get there.

It was a night of doing.  Our guests didn't tell us about the RQI so much as they led us through it.  According to Right Question's Web site, RQI

promotes the use of a simple, powerful, evidence-based strategy that helps all people, no matter their level of income, literacy or education, learn to help themselves.

How?  Through a deceptively simple process of getting folks to generate their own questions.  Broken into groups of five or six, we were handed a small paper squares containing four math problems: 3+2=5, etc.  

Hypothetical: You are parents of a first-grader.  This is the assignment.  What are your questions? 

One person scribed.  The rest of us asked.  She wrote.  RQI doesn't seem to have what you'd call a Roberts-Rules-of-Order DNA, but structure us they did: No stopping to edit or judge.  Question is copied exactly as is.  Change statements to questions.  Ask as many questions as possible.

Is my child ready for this?

What was the process that led to teaching this?

Will this be on a test? ...

We were then handed new squares.  They had four math problems, too--the same ones.  This time, though--we were parents of twelfth-graders.  Ask away.

After these first rounds (lasting two minutes), we were asked to do a few more things: change some open-ended questions to closed, and vice-versa; pick our top-three priority queries; and so forth. 

What's the point?  For whom is this?  In our class context, an obvious use would be by a parent coordinator at a school to spark parents to ask questions leading to deeper school involvement or advocacy.  The facilitators suggested that to promote "microdemocracy"--authentic involvement in the institutions that affect you immediately and daily--requires questioning reasons and process and role.  What was the basis for this decision?  How was it made, and who participated in making it?  What can I do?

**

Are we asking ourselves the right questions about education?  

This morning, I read a 2005 piece by a prominent, respected, and mainstream ed organization proposing ways educators and policymakers can strengthen American high schools.  

An eye toward preventing dropouts and getting kids ready for college or career: very well.  

"Global competitiveness ... rigor ... college readiness ... business leaders are saying ... global competitiveness ... the need for workers who can ... including these measures on tests ..."  

Valid things all.

Do I support strong high schools?  Absolutely.  Have I benefitted from rigorous classes? Most definitely.  Is it crucial that kids have the skills to get good jobs in which they can grow and prosper?  Of course.  

But kids are also citizens.  And developing human beings.  Buried somewhere about halfway in, I found "interest" and "hobby."  Pretty sure "joy," "enthusiasm," and "democracy" didn't make it.  Let alone "asking their own questions."  

Most would say that education for economic success is valuable.  And I don't disagree.  But this read like a style manual for a generation of widgets.  Is that the best we can do?