Ask Questions – Why and How

Ask Questions to Learn More

Ever since we are young, we learn everything by seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and feeling. I would add another way to learn: it is by asking questions to other people and learn from their experiences. A common problem to most of you, the students, is that you do not ask enough questions.  Asking questions to your teachers, parents, tutors and friends will enable you to learn much more. Sometimes people tell you more valuable information than you expected. Whenever we are not sure about the things that we do or the things that we learn, we should always ask for help. A lot of people in our lives are here to help us. They are here not only for our academic success, but also help us to be successful in our lives.

Ask Questions to Understand Better

I remember when I was in high school and CEGEP, I always ask questions to my teachers. At the end of the terms, those teachers all remember me because I ask tons of questions during the school terms. Since I study in science, there are so many concepts that we need to understand. Sometimes, it’s hard to be able to grasp all the concepts during class time. What I do is to go home and read about the things that I did not understand in class and try to figure it out by myself first. I would write down all the questions that I have and put them on post-it. I stick them in the textbook at the sections that I read. I will clean up those questions whenever I can go to the teachers’ office hours. If you are a shy person like me, you can always go ask your questions individually at teachers’ office hours. I used to be very shy, so I never really ask question during class time. I visited teachers’ office all the time though. There are two advantages on asking your teachers questions. You understand better of what you are learning and also your teachers will recognize you and know that you are studying hard.

Ask Questions to Understand Ourself

Asking question is not only to other people, but it can be to oneself as well. Throughout my high school period, I’ve asked myself a lot of questions about life, why this and why that.  Why things happen this way or why people react like that. If you cannot answer yourself those questions that you ask, you will go seek the answers from your parents or your friends. I so used to ask myself questions that I transfer this method into my learning tool at school. Whenever I learn in mathematics or science like physics, chemistry or biology, I would ask myself a lot of “why” and “how” on the concepts that I am practicing. Let me tell you that if you are able to use the concepts that you learn to answer “why” and “how”, then you understand well that concept.

The two most powerful questions are why and how. If you try to use these two questions on your school work or on your life, you will realize that you understand better on what you are doing and why things are the way they are. Never stop asking questions, we will never be able to stop learning things in our lives. Asking questions is a very good tool for us to keep learning and keep us motivated.

 

Now try it yourself, start asking “Why” and “How” more often!