Since it’s almost the start of the “spring” semester at Mount Mercy University, I’m going to use this blog post to respond to an email I received from a student who will be in my composition course, Writing and Social Issues.
The email arrived near the end of last semester with the subject heading “Writing and Inquiry Learning Transfer Unit.” Writing and Inquiry is Mount Mercy’s developmental writing course, and it is taught by my husband, Benjamin Thiel, who is one of the best teachers I’ve ever met. I’m not saying that because he’s my partner, but because he designs genius assignments like the email I received from his student:
Good afternoon Professor Vermillion,
I have an assignment to do for my writing class which is to ask you these questions.
- What is the most important thing I need to know as your student in EN114 Writing and Social Issues?
- What differentiates your most successful students from the least?
- What are some strategies that most successful students have used in your class in the past?
Thank you!
Victoria (not the student’s real name)
Here is the email I’m going to send the student:
Dear Victoria,
Thanks so much for your excellent questions!
Your first question is a challenging one, so I’m going to build up to it.
Successful students not only show up and do the work, but they also find a way to make it meaningful to themselves—usually by connecting it to their values, goals, or dreams. These students motivate themselves and thus energize everyone around them.
Like you, successful students—and people—ask questions. Lots of questions. They aren’t afraid to say they don’t understand something or haven’t heard of a word or concept. They fearlessly and relentlessly ask me—and their classmates—for examples or clarification. They love the word ‘why.’ They like to know the reasons behind the skills they’re being asked to learn. And when they write, they expand their ideas by asking themselves why.
So the most important thing you need to know as my student is that I believe in the power of questions. Here are two for you, Victoria:
- What is the most important thing I need to know about you in order to help you grow as a writer?
- What have some of your past teachers done to help you grow as a writer?
If you’re busy right now, please don’t feel pressured to respond to this email. I’ll ask you and your classmates to write in response to those questions (and others) during our first day of class.
Thanks again for your questions! I look forward to meeting you!
Mary
I’ve decided to send a version of this email to the entire class. Why not?
Writing this email also reminded me of a speech I gave a long time ago called “Loving the Questions.” I gave it in the fall of 2002 as Mount Mercy’s convocation address. I was starting my seventh year of teaching there. Eighteen years ago! But I still find the speech inspiring, and I’m including it here in the hope that you will too. I may even share it with my students.
Loving the Questions
Pulitzer-prize winning author Alice Walker wrote a poem for a Convocation address that she gave in 1972. It’s called “Reassurance.”
I must love the questions
themselves
as Rilke said
like locked rooms
full of treasure
to which my blind
and groping key
does not yet fit.
And await the answers
as unsealed
letters
mailed with dubious intent
and written in a very foreign
tongue.
And in the hourly making of myself
no thought of Time
to force, to squeeze
the space
I grow into.
The title, “Reassurance,” is a bit puzzling. What is reassuring about a “blind / and groping key” that does not fit? None of us would be happy if we received such a key for our dorm rooms or offices. None of us want to receive emails or memos or care packages “mailed with dubious intent.” Where, then, is the reassurance in this poem? For me, it is in the opening lines. We must love the questions themselves.
So today I’m going to talk about questions and what it means to love them. First of all let’s think about the kinds of questions that we ask. Since today is the first anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers, we might start by considering the questions we asked a year ago. As we sat glued to our televisions, numb and in pain, most of us asked, “How could this happen?” or “Why did this happen to us?” Those early questions were usually asked with despair and anger. We didn’t expect any answers. We were simply expressing our own outrage. Such questions are natural human responses to tragedy and they move us down the road towards healing and wisdom, but they are not questions we can love.
In order to love a question—“Why did this happen?”—we must ask it in a spirit of inquiry—with faith and trust. We must trust our ability to work towards some answers. We don’t assume that we’ll find answers, but we trust that we will learn and grow and make the world a better place if we keep questioning with our minds wide open. We trust that we can handle it if our questions uncover facts and answers that make us uncomfortable. We don’t rush towards quick and easy answers. We know that it’s the asking that’s important. In asking, in seeking, we become our best selves, we grow closer to each other, we allow God to work in our lives. We love the questions.
Let’s think about what it means to love the questions here at Mount Mercy. Let’s say you’re a freshman…Your roommate has just interrupted your sleep for the fifth night in a row. Your textbooks cost $100 more than you thought they would. The syllabus for your writing class is seven pages long. You have no clue how to do your first math assignment. You miss your family, and you’ve lost your student ID. You moan, “What am I doing here?”
Or let’s say you’re a professor. Your class discussion was dead. You already have a stack of papers to grade, and you’ve been assigned to yet another Task Force. You grumble, “Why am I doing this?”
We all ask such questions, and none of us loves them. But of course, these “questions” aren’t really questions. If we continually ask “Why am I here?” with a sense of despair and exasperation, we aren’t really asking ourselves anything. We’re shutting ourselves down. We limit ourselves. We tell ourselves that there is no reason why we’re here. We ask ourselves other non-questions. “What is the point?” “Why bother?”
But we don’t have to let our impatience and our fear sap the life out of our questions and ourselves. Instead, we can love our questions—especially the difficult ones—and we can welcome them as opportunities to explore. “Why am I here?” the college freshman asks. This question is utterly transformed when it is asked with a desire to learn. Of course, easy answers come right away. “I want a degree. I want a good job after I graduate.” There’s nothing wrong with these answers; they can keep you going when you’re studying for a biology exam at three in the morning.
But if you really love the question, you’ll ask it again and again because there are several answers and they change over time. Maybe you’re studying that biology in the wee hours of the morning because you dream of discovering the cure for cancer or AIDS. Maybe you’re at Mount Mercy because you want to meet new people. Maybe you want to deepen your relationship with God. Maybe you want to serve others. Maybe you want to know and understand yourself better. Maybe you want to create poems or paintings that express yourself and fascinate others. Maybe you want to discover what you really care about. Maybe you have no idea why you’re here, but you want find out. Finding your purpose becomes your purpose. Asking questions becomes your quest or your journey. As you make this quest, you learn all other sorts of stuff along the way. You work hard and you have fun. As yoga teachers say, the journey is the destination. Or as this English teacher says, the questions are the answers.
As I leave you with that paradox, I challenge us all to love our questions and to love each others’ questions as we journey through this academic year.