K.S.,<\/p>\n
I appreciate your noticing the key phrase \u201cask the dumb questions\u201d in my comment. It\u2019s fishing for better questions generally that I was writing about.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sort of a specialist in the \u201cunasked but obviously unexplained\u201d stuff. Usually we only \u201csee\u201d our own meanings for things, steered by only by our own present questions. So we miss a whole world streaming bye with questions no one knows the answer to never being asked.<\/p>\n
I think the main job of a kid is to ask the unasked questions, not to repeat back stock answers. For example we all operate within natural systems that are not organized like our cultural values and stereotypes for them at all.<\/p>\n
One way things \u201chidden in sight\u201d that way can be made visible is by responding to the slight tugs of \u201ccognitive dissonance\u201d, noticing patterns that don\u2019t fit our way of fitting things together, and having curiosity about that. \u00a0\u00a0One of the big ones today is; Why IS our only long term plan to just multiply wealth till it runs into trouble, anyway???<\/p>\n
You can just get confused by the many sides of that, but the interesting part is that the question just doesn\u2019t go away anyway. It\u2019s the \u201cpersistence of dissonance\u201d like that that is the cool thing.<\/p>\n
It can be summed up with a phrase that seems to do Descartes one better. Instead of \u201cI think therefore I am\u201d you get \u201cIf it\u2019s can\u2019t me we both must be\u201d indicating something that is organized in a way inconsistent with your own mind, and so must exist independently.<\/p>\n
Asking about some world, thing or person you know fairly well \u201cWhat I just can\u2019t explain about ____ is\u2026\u201d provides a good way to locate the depth and richness of the real world. It points to how every individual thing is truly individual, and the lines where you see deeply into the people around you to sense the \u201cpersistence of dissonance\u201d that demonstrates why they can never be \u2018explained\u2019 and are truly individual.<\/p>\n
It also, of course, leads to better steering capability in a world chock full of independently behaving parts that most people seem otherwise quite unaware of.\u00a0![\";-)\"](\"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/blog\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_wink.gif\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n
Phil Henshaw<\/p>\n
> Subject: RE: Feedback
\n>
\n> Hi Phil,
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\n> Thanks for your thoughts. Are you reflecting on all the offerings of the Network (which is actually ten years old, so not new at all!), or only on one feature (e.g., the Conversation Starter, or the Daily News Quiz)? We\u2019re constrained by the format in some of the shorter features as to what questions we ask, but we certainly try in our daily lessons to get at \u201cprompting real thinking.\u201d Your overall point, though, is an important one, and I think we\u2019d all do well to keep in mind how to \u201cask the dumb questions,\u201d and get outside the conventional wisdom on the topics we cover!
\n>
\n> K. S.
\n>
\n> \u2014\u2013Original Message\u2014\u2013 Subject: Feedback name: Phil Henshaw
\n>
\n> Area of site: general
\n>
\n> Comments: I was just poking around as learners are sometimes apt to do\u2026 and found this unusual new feature of the online NY Times. It\u2019s simply wonderful, but I pause to wonder if you might fall prey to the usual expert error of presenting only what fits your own explanations, i.e. a sales job rather than to prompt real thinking and better new questions.<\/p>\n
> If you can, also ask the dumb questions that are not properly answered by any point of view. Ask where the holes are in our breezy way of putting off skepticism. Ask where people consistently get the wrong signals from nature. Ask if the inexplicable is extraordinary noise in the data or the normal learning by some other group of systems behaving as individuals. Ask about the point in learning about things where you find them so different from you that you accept needing to watch them with fascination rather than ever hope to explain them.<\/p>\n
> In all my years of research those are areas of cognitive dissonance perennially fruitful for raising good new questions. At first it may seem hard to find such subjects, but then later find it\u2019s really a matter of approach and that ways to expose the special magic of living on a creative planet in a creative universe can be found of nearly anything.
\n>
\n> Best, pfh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Responding to a Teacher with a website of teaching tools (appended below). K.S., I appreciate your noticing the key phrase \u201cask the dumb questions\u201d in my comment. It\u2019s fishing for better questions generally that I was writing about. I\u2019m sort of a specialist in the \u201cunasked but obviously unexplained\u201d stuff. Usually we only \u201csee\u201d our … Continue reading What I can\u2019t explain about (__) is \u2026<\/span>