Lying "Educators"

One of the most pervasive lies professors tell their students is that there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Students know better. And they know that we know better. So, we all sit there in the shared lie as if carrying out a class discussion depends on our failing to acknowledge the truth.

Faculty know there are stupid questions because we hear them so often. Usually we hear them from other faculty in meetings where they are barely paying attention and they wake up and need to find out what happened while they had drifted off. Or, we hear them from other academics at conferences. Such academics, and likely this is a set from which no one is excluded, go on to long, give mini lectures, show off, miss the archive, try to change the archive, etc, all in the guise of a question (the Florida student was dragged off and tasered for less). We hear stupid questions from administrators and bureaucrats who think they know better how everyone else should be doing their jobs.

Students know there are stupid questions because they hear them, too, often from faculty and administrators, sometimes from friends and parents. They also hear stupid questions in classrooms, likely from their peers who have not been paying attention or who are trying to show off or fake having done the reading. So students have heard stupid questions, and they know that we have, too, and then we tell them to their faces that there is no such thing as a stupid question. They have to wonder, why do we feel the need to lie to them? What are we protecting them from?

Even worse, by lying to the students, we infantilize them, as if speaking or asking a question can't be scary. It took me a number of years to ask questions in academic settings. The rooms were clearly filled with very smart people. If these smart people hadn't asked what I wanted to ask, then it seemed reasonable to suspect that it was because they either knew the answer or the question was off topic, irrelevant. Either way, if I asked it, it would be a public demonstration of my stupidity.

Learning how to ask the question, figuring out what a good question would look like and to whom and under what conditions is hard. In part, it's hard because it involves risking the stupid question. It can also be hard when the circumstances are new--different contexts have different norms and expectations. When so-called educators lie about stupid questions, we undermine students' actual knowledge that figuring all this art is a challenge. In this way, we deny their very real knowledge of risk and context, their knowlege about the conditions of learning.

There are stupid questions--and that's why asking and speaking are scary. It's also why taking the risk is a vital kind of learning on its own: over time, one acquires a sense of judgment regarding questions and contexts. And that kind of judgment is a form of strength.

Comments

[Mark]

Well, I think ‘there are no stupid questions’ is something you say to students so they aren’t cramped by fear of intellectual embarrassment. It’s not something one literally believes. It can also be a useful ‘as if’ for teachers – act as if there are no stupid questions, that is, try and make every question into the occasion for some sort of insight. A question becomes ‘good’ retroactively because of what you turn it into. A stupid question may also be a useful symptom that something isn't going right pedagogically. That said, ‘does this Shakespeare guy have a first name?’ left me a bit lost for words.

[Craig]

If everything a student says boils down to their opinion, and all opinions are equal because it is "my opinion," then there can neither be a stupid question nor an incorrect opinion. When we say, as educators, that there are no stupid questions, we are also saying that there is nothing but opinion.

And it is usually the lazy but slightly smarter student who asks the dumbest questions. However, I did have one student ask me if she could write the final exam before everyone else because her family is going on vacation in December... there is no final exam in the course.

[Bob Allen]

I work in a heavy industrial environment where you actually have to force yourself to go ahead and ask that stupid question that you really really don't want to ask, because of a quasi military uber macho culture of derision, but it can be liberating, and yes, a form of strength...and it could save your life. In fact, I'd venture to say my whole job, as a locomotive engineer, revolves around this sort of dynamic. You must force yourself to go ahead and ask it, risking whatever...it is the pretending to know when you really don't that invites the whole world to come down on top of you, and then "they" will definitely get the last laugh...

[djw]

Thank you.

[redmatter]

When I hear the phrase "stupid question," it's hard not to think about Da Ali G show, which seemed singularly predicated on testing whether various authority figures would ever admit that a question was stupid. That so many seemed unphased by the stupidity of the questions always seemed to suggest that they expected stupidity. And this is what made the show, for me, both brilliant and sad: revealing how powerful people really think kids are stupid.

In short: refusing to point out that a question is stupid is not nurturing; it's coddling and, as you say, infantalizing. We can expect more from college students.

[Bob Allen]

I thought this blog was about nice monkey things.. if you challenge the kids to think too much, they'll run you off like Ward Churchill or somethin'. I've noticed that once someone gets, say, ten years in a job (rare these days) they start to get uppity and think they can make up their own rules, forgetting who the boss is and what he wants..I call it transcending "operational excellence" into "operational arrogance". It'll be in my yet unwritten tome, "Operational Excellence and the Myth of Personal Responsibility", on balancing technical proficiency with ideological compliance for success under capitalism.

[Dale]

A friend of mine does comparative research in developmental psychology, and one of her projects involved comparing teaching styles in Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Of course, before she collected the first data set, it was already obvious to her that one huge difference between American teaching and her own native style of teaching in Italy is a fundamental difference on the question of stupid questions. If the American teacher is apt to treat each special snowflake--er, *student* as a delicate porcelain artifact, liable to shatter at the slightest brush of ego-bruising critique, her Italian colleagues, while not necessarily happy to heap derision on the question-asker, nevertheless allow themselves to acknowledge the stupidity of a question. Or at least they don't lose sleep doing so.

We may be glad that we've lost a kind of Victorian brutality in our classrooms (though my French-Canadian language teacher in primary school maintained a quasi-military style of teacherly scorn well into the late 1980s), but this shift, this willingness to say, "well, Johnny, 2+2=5 is *one* possible answer..." bequeaths upon us a kind of intellectual mushy-headedness that I worry about.

[Eutopia]

Such great points here. Students are infantilized terribly, though I think it is rarely the instructors' fault. It begins with parents, who then ask the administration to be surrogates, who then spend a lot of energy teaching departments to be nice, etc..

At my school, we're told not to use red pen, because it's too upsetting for the kiddies. (I ignore this.)

At any rate, I actually hear very few stupid questions related to class discussions. Frankly, if a students asks a question at all related to the material, I'm pretty grateful! But when they open their mouths about information they already have (on, say, the syllabus), that's when I get a bit irritated.

[badiouian]

in any sedimented discourse MOST questions are stupid inasmuch as they have been asked and answered before. i saw this most vivdly in my yeshiva education; with proper erudition it becomes very hard to ask a question about a primary text. instead you have ever generating commentaries; you need to speak the language of tertiary discourse in order to ask anything. btw when people speak of semantic infinitude, they can only mean the whole gamut of text and commentary-- the text itself is claustrophobic in its limits.

[Seb]

This reminds me of that now oft-referenced study by Jean Twenge about the growing narcissism amongst college students:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17349066/

The solution isn't as simple as just calling a spade a spade when a stupid question is asked; after all, the damage has been done, in that the stupid-questioner will furiously defy any claims about the stupidity of their question. What brought us to this ludicrous universality of opinion's validity & unique specialness? Fears of litigation & liability? A bad cultural hangover from the '60s? An attempt to diversify the market into infinite niches by claiming that nothing (no matter how moronic, useless, ugly, infantile, debased, etc.) is any worth less than anything else?

[jdean]

Thanks for the link.

As for an explanation--one could be a combination of expense and anxiety; few are willing to pay 40k a year for their kid to be uncomforable. Combine this with a culture of specialization and political correctness; add in threats of litigation and there you have it: no stupid questions.

[spot]

I was in college when Allan Bloom's *Closing of the American Mind* came out. I have been re-reading it lately, and many of your arguments appear in his first few chapters.

I'm sure there are differences, but it is the similarities that are striking.

Bloom agonizes over a culture of acceptance. We all want to accept everyone else's culture (and opinion) as valid -- and in so doing, we do not, according to Bloom, take them seriously. To the contrary, we totally miss other culture's truth claims when we relativize them as adding to our general diversity.

Following on what you're saying, Jodi, claiming "opinion" for one's own means not having to face the truth claims implicit in one's own position.

This cult of opinion may be construed as passive-aggressive as the claim to holding a mere "opinion" is cover for something else. But if a person disempowers her/himself in advance from the game of validity, then we have here a different kind of creature. And our insistance that the person ought to play the truth claim game becomes our own fetish (not their's).

I was teaching Machiavelli this morning. One of our questions was whether a Prince must sacrifice his soul to be an effective leader? Is such sacrifce required of anyone in a leadership position?

Machiavelli vacillates on his answer a bit, but ultimately (in the Discourses) he says that a Prince must hold to his own strength of character, this in the face of the flux of tactical and often unsavory maneuvers.

He doesn't wish for the Prince to mirror perfectly the flux of shifting Fortuna, for then he truly will be corrupted.

Is our relunctance to join the cult of the sea of opinion about the necessity for something, anything to be (or seem) unchanging in the world? If this is so, (and we've given up the hope of actually knowing Truth), at least we can insist that our students own up to making truth-claims.

Long live the regime of Truth-claims!

Here is your Habermasochism! The return of the repressed!

[jdean]

Spot--great. Allied with Bloom and following off the wagon so that my Habermasochism returns. I have to plead guilty.

More seriously: I have been wrestling with this. What happens when one's opponents refuse to argue. When they say, this is our position; you have yours, and here we are. It seems that the alternatives at this point are authority or violence.

Why isn't some kind of practice or compromise an alternative? Because it comes to this stand off when the stakes are high...enter Schmitt. So, something gives.

I think that by phrasing my response this way, I avoid saying that my opponent has to accept my fetishized truth. He doesn't have to accept anything--instead, either violence or authority come in.

I agree with Machiavelli--but would add Zizek's warning about the lures of martyrdom and self-sacrifice; they can provide their own enjoyment and so the leader becomes perverse.

Also, I think you are right that the 'cult of opinion' is not necessarily passive-aggressive. In fact, that characterization probably doesn't apply that often. More accurate might be to say that emphasizing opinion can be cynical or genuine, and that tactics can combine with each position and that something like passive-aggression is but one possible tactic.

On disconnecting from the game of validity--what happens when this is a power move rather than a disempowering one?

[sputnik]

This comment might be a bit tangential, but it seems that the “right to our opinion” issue that's being discussed has much to do with politics. Not in the sense of, ‘why are people apathetic,’ but rather if all (truth) claims and positions are ‘flattened’ like this then there really is no way for deliberation ('democratic’ political action) to happen, or at least no way for it to be consequential. As Jodi writes, what do you do when someone refuses to argue? And even if they do argue, if everything is regarded as a matter of opinion, which we all have a right to, then politically speaking there’s no point to arguing or debating (it might still be fun though). Indeed, violence (or some force) does seem the only option. Is this not exactly what politics, and the stakes of political action, might be becoming? The cult of opinion is not only narcissism, but is, I think, epiphenomenal of the fact that there are no democratic (ie: ‘legitimate’) avenues of political action available. It appears that the only consequential political movements in America today are fundamentalisms, which do reject consensus and compromise. It doesn't seem that opinion is politically consequential, unless you count the presidential election, which looks a lot like voting for American idol at this point. Is it a coincidence that in the media there is only talking about celebrities and the upcoming race for president (opinion. opinion, opinion), while none about what the current president is doing? There is almost no mention (in the corporate media) of the new torture “ban”, whereas they are more abuzz over the fact that Obama is not wearing a flag pin on his lapel.

[Dale]

Riffing off of sputnik's idea, David Brooks a while ago had a thing in the New Yorker, I think, on political identity as niche market. The idea is that, far from envisioning political stances as contestations of space in a public domain, with people duking it out in some kind of dialectical way, people nowadays instead wear their political stance like a lapel pin or a t-shirt. They are able to shop for the microgradation of libertarian/pro-choice/2nd amendment or LGBT/environmentalist/social democrat stance that most appeals to them. At that point, it functions less like a stand taken against an oppressive hegemony than a particular site where the marketing vectors of Fox News/Rush Limbaugh/Move On/Working Assets can pinpoint their position and sell their opinions back to them.

This, of course (though Brooks doesn't get into this) has the effect of reinforcing the assumed "specialness" of the person in question, by strengthening the impermeable ego of the flattered self.

Brooks' satisfaction with this state of affairs is part of why I would like to see him booted off the Op-Ed page of the NY Times. Nevertheless, the original point remains as an unwittingly accurate assessment of the current situation that we face.

[Yanina the Snowflake]

Of course students know that they are being infantilized. They like it. They feast on it. They expect it. I might also say we, if not for my occasional ego. Shit, it makes classes so much easier. Why work, when someone is willing to spoon-feed you? But that's too simple an answer for why dumb questions pop up with, I think, increasing frequency.

College students asking stupid questions boils down to two things in my opinion; respect/fear, and being stupid.
The latter is easier to address, some kids, no matter how many yachts they have, can be abysmally dumb. That's okay, really. An actual question asked in one of Professor Dean's political science classes was "Has Aristotle has ever heard of Darwin?"--well it just made me hurt. Maybe I'm just a bitter girl, but I'll carry that question to my grave. It's unforgivable. The student was put down gently with a simple no, he has not, Darwin wasn't around back then. Both student and professor go on their ways dissecting the text, and the student not phased at all. She's happy and content and understands her question as valid. Of course this is only validating and rewarding bad behavior. People don't give snacks to dogs who hump legs, why is it okay for students? Alright, maybe don't bite the hand that feeds you, but such an argument is always ethically troublesome.

The respect/fear issue is different. Most of my peers understand that they can pretty much say anything, irrelevant or stupid...but there is a strategy involved. For one, they get participation credit. The professor may forget what was said, but they still can faintly remember the student speaking. Eutopia, in a comment said, "Frankly, if a students asks a question at all related to the material, I'm pretty grateful!" We know this. We are sneaky. Thank you for letting us get away with it. Two, students know that no one will say they are utterly wrong. In my opinion, no student, who respects a professor asks dumb questions, because they want the nice attention of being acknowledged as a smart student (person). We know, to a large extent, how to manipulate our professors, and a lot of professors are willing to play this game with us. Again, if a student respects a professor (or is simply terrified of them) they won't ask stupid questions. Maybe there is some shoulder angel and devil team that pop up. Some kind of stupid-question-conscious. Whatever it is, it's there..because the same kid will not ask questions with the same infuriating caliber if they know the professor won't stand for it.

I agree with Dale on "this willingness to say, "well, Johnny, 2+2=5 is *one* possible answer..." bequeaths upon us a kind of intellectual mushy-headedness that I worry about."
I worry about it too. As a student. If my peers ask stupid questions, the dynamic of the class changes. More students get the hint that such questions are allowed and ask them. The class slows down. The smart students get bored, listless, and stop asking smart questions (or become bitter and disillusioned about the education system). The professor must slow down the class and the level of intellectual expectation to accommodate these students. It's rather terrible. It also makes me worry about the future when these mushy-headed special snowflakes run the world. More should be expected from college students. Please, challenge us (and not just with a lot of text and memorization)--make us think.
At least, try to temper the flood of stupid questions...it's just painful.

~Yanina, the special snowflake

[pebird]

Let's give some equal billing to stupid answers as well - which also tend to be long-winded egopinion pieces masked as information.

I actually don't think there is anything like a stupid question, if the statement is indeed a genuine question, and not some posturing using Jeopardy syntax - "could you state your lecture in the form of a question".

I loved the old ESPN commercial where there was the Football U classroon and the prof stated "There are no stupid questions, just stupid people who ask questions".

And, of course, the best answser to a non-question-question is "GFE".

[spot]

Saramago opens up one of his novels with an epigrammatic story. I can't remember it exactly so here's a paraphrase.

Juan is seen by a friend being escorted to the gallows by two soldiers. The friend calls out, "Juan, where are you going?" Juan replies: "I am not going anywhere; they are taking me."

This sort of scene has Juan unwilling to be complicitous.

Is this really what your students are doing?

I thought you felt some distress with your students who hide behind the claim of "mere opinion," and what you'd rather have them do (barring the taser gun) is actually defend their views AS IF they were defending truth-claims.

I don't think there's any shame in a professor guiding students to the extremely valuable task of offering a view and defending it in front of a group of people all wrestling with care over the same issues.

I think with your response you set up a new question: what happens when the stakes are high and your opponent refuses to argue?

(Probably the classroom is not the right example here.)

You ask whether violence is the natural next level?

If you're trying to diagram the possible options, "patience" seems like a possible option. It is neither arguing nor violent.

Another option would be to forget the actual dispute for a while, go fishing and come back later.

Another option would be to tackle a different question. We might analyze the cause of the urgency rather than the non-responsiveness of our interlocutor.

If our interlocutor is using non-responsiveness in a strategic way, then it would seem like that move can be met with strategy.

If the non-responsiveness is "genuine," as you say, well, I think I'd need an example of this to really get my mind around it.

My four-year old often doesn't hear me, and I get through his "genuine" non-responsiveness with 1)authority (pick him and take him to a different place) 2) violence (which is really a way of changing the subject from our topic to his non-responsiveness) 3) patience coupled with repetition and coming at the same question from lots of angles 4) education (which, I suppose is a form of authority in the traditional sense). 5) Ignoring it, and being reminded of it when the "same" conversation/situation recurs.

But if you want to play hard ball, and say that we are presented with a situation where two communicatively competent people are talking, trying to work through something, but one of them in a fundamental way simply seems non-responsive as judged by the other person (and here I think of my brother who has been fundamentally non-responsive for as long as I've known him), the answer seems to be to lower one's expectations, and to imagine that one will never reach a true accord with that other. A pity.

We can say "viva la pluralism," but the fact that I will never have a meaningful conversation with my brother is, ultimately, distressing and a disappointment that will never be made good.

But perhaps I am misunderstanding the kind of example you have playing in the background.

[Richard]

The Saramago novel is Baltasar and Blimunda, which by coincidence I happen to be reading right now.