Interview for the Questions

On the night of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Dec. 14, 2012, I went to sleep thinking about some of the boys we had at Rogers who might have been able to do something like that, and I mentally reviewed our safety plan and worried a bit for Clare. At a deep level I felt proud and protective of devoted teachers and committed principals.

In the night I dreamed that someone asked me if there was a test to help screen for good principals or good teachers. I thought about how if there were one, I probably wouldn’t pass it, yet I have done well as a principal. I have little faith in such tests, because I think we jump to conclusions when we are searching for “the indicators” of success. Also, I think each person is far more complex than we are currently able to map, and those complexities become even more baffling as the person interacts with other complex people.

I didn’t mention any of that to the questioner, but here’s what I said, and it still makes sense while I am awake. “You can view the knowledge in your brain as being the stuff stored between the cortex and a deeper level (which I sketched as being a ring roughly paralleling the curve of the cortex, but a little closer to the center of the brain.) The ring represents something very different from the information one has accumulated in the levels closer to the surface. Instead of information, the deeper ring stands for the questions one asks oneself about a topic.”

I said that the tests we design are based on the assumption that a principal or teacher needs a certain amount of basic information and perhaps some innate abilities. We design tests to identify how much of that information or skill the person possesses. However, this all draws only on the “stuff” stored in the more superficial levels of the brain. It doesn’t tap into the wisdom found in the deeper ring of self-generated questions. Who would think to test a person on the questions they have? Yet it’s the questions that a person holds which drive him or her to use the information he or she has already accumulated. It is the personally-generated questions that lead him or her to design action research which then leads that person to greater practical knowledge and broader ability.

The questions a person asks are a good measure of their creativity, attentiveness, and ability to connect various ideas in new and helpful ways. The quality of their questions also determine the clarity of their apprehension of new knowledge and the extent to which they can add to the theory and practice of the profession. The quality of these questions even help to increase the interest level of the reports they subsequently create, or the way they inform and persuade their colleagues.

Obviously, the knowledge they accumulate and the innate abilities they may possess will enrich and strengthen their work. Those are essential to have, but the questions the candidates generate may be the deeper determinant of how far they will go and what they will add to the profession.

So. How do we explore the quality of a candidate’s questions? This, too, is part of the Christian walk.