Faculty of Education Health and Social Care

Faculty of Education Health and Social Care Email : [email protected]

The power of questions

Reflections on the Pupils Leading and Teaching Others Conference, November 15th 2014, at Addey and Stanhope School

We want to say thank you to everyone who participated in this conference on 15 November 2014 at Addey and Stanhope School. My colleague Dr Rebekah Howes and I want to send you something by way of recognition of what an extraordinary day it was for us.

The day was full of energy and vitality – all fuelled by the power of questions. Everywhere we went we saw individual students and groups asking difficult and profoundly important questions of each other and of themselves.

No sooner had we arrived than Hannah and Daniel were using Aristotle to ask some of life's hardest questions: what is virtue? What is happiness? What is a rational life? What is one’s purpose in life? What is wrong with the life of excess? And perhaps most importantly, how can anyone change the world? Hannah and Daniel showed that Aristotle believed, if we can each of us find our purpose in life, then we will flourish, and if we flourish, we will be happy and virtuous. Shelyanka asked a tough question: who has the right to tell anyone else that he or she is not happy? But think of it like this: teachers and schools do this all the time; teachers assume you can be happier by learning more, because the more you learn the more choices in life you get, and the more control you can have over your own life. If teachers didn't believe you could flourish more than you are now, then they wouldn't teach, and we wouldn’t need days like this at the Conference. Daniel summed it up perfectly when he said: we must keep learning, that is our purpose.

In the Citizenship and Politics strand Ava, Taina and Balkisa lead us into very controversial areas. Ava invited students to become political so that they could begin to make a difference to the world around them. With great wisdom she told us: "you may not be very interested in politics, but politics is interested in you." Taina challenge the current shape of human rights. She believed them to be "moribund". She advised us to get rid of them, not because she didn't believe in them, but rather because in their present form they can only be guaranteed to those who have money. She said we might fear giving up human rights, but of so, it means we're not aware that we don't actually have them in the first place. Balkisa reminded us that students (and not just students) get easily distracted from the real world by TV, computer games, and fashion; and that students who get lost and disconnected may well seek excitement in violence and gangs. She said that being better educated was part of the solution to this. In the questions that followed, Akin warned us to be on guard against people who would try to involve students in important questions by "dumbing down" and trying to make everything too simple. This is indeed a really important thing to be on guard against.

In the Divine Comedy session, Chiyana showed us her remarkable knowledge of what is a very difficult book. She demonstrated the wisdom that Dante has for us: that the trip into hell which Dante takes is a reminder of all the non-virtuous things we do in life; that to get through this is a real struggle; but that we can come through it and emerge finally to see the stars in the universe again. Chiyana’s strong message for all of us was, learn to think for ourselves. In the same session Brian also told us that he reads the Divine Comedy to help him to reflect on his life, on his actions, and in trying to live a good life and become a better person. It was also noted that people might have different ideas on what heaven would look like, including the possibility that for some people heaven would be a land of chocolate.

Finally we saw year 10 take on year 7 in a debate about whether artistic expression should ever be censored. The debate itself was not censored, it was full on, with all the difficult questions being asked. Most impressive was that nobody minded if the questions were so difficult that people didn't seem to have ready-made answers. Akin reminded us that perhaps those big companies who make some of these controversial videos for Youtube might just be in it for the money.

Conclusions

There were three things that came through most strongly during the day. First, that as students you were incredibly strong on the idea of freedom and on the idea of thinking for yourself. Second, you showed how the toughest questions can be asked and debated in respectful terms, and that no one seemed fearful that his or her contribution would be laughed at. Third, Daniel asked us how to change the world? One answer is that you as students turning up on Saturday to think about all these things is already changing the world. The power of questions does change us and it changes the world: keep asking them…

Thank you for such an inspiring day and we hope you will all continue to follow a life of learning through the power of questions…

SIGNED

Nigel Tubbs

Rebekah Howes