Questioning Humanity? Yea, I am too

There is no such thing as a stupid question. I’ve left and learned to question anything and everything. I will never be afraid to ask a question, that’s how I know so much random and at times useless information. I like to ask questions even if I might know the answer just to check to see if I’m right because it doesn’t hurt to check. Without questions how would humans know as much as they do? How would we make phones, buildings, and education systems without questions? Questions are essential to life itself.

From the perspective of an adult being an influence on children, it’s never a good idea to influence a lack of question-asking. Question asking should be encouraged throughout life because without asking questions there would be nothing to learn.

A good example of a time I asked a lot of questions is a summer school in 2020. I failed 3 courses that year and I needed to make up all of those credits. More specifically I asked a lot of questions in my math class. Poor teacher, I would ask him at least 5 questions per question. I would ask questions of “how and when and why” for every problem because I truly didn’t understand.

Lots of the problems I cared about involved graphs and I would ask “Why do I need to do this or, how do I do this” He would genuinely try to find the best answer saying “You need to do this then this in this order and this is why”, and he would always include they why because he would anticipate me asking anyway. My teacher got so use to me asking questions that at the end of every explanation he would ask “Does that make sense? Anything you need me to explain differently or explain again?”, which was so helpful to me.

I can understand how others may be afraid to ask questions or may feel foolish. I had a math teacher in middle school who would call all my questions stupid and would tell me I already know the answer which wasn’t very uplifting or helpful considering I was only asking questions because I didn’t know the answer. This may happen because some people growing up, try to ask lots of questions, and their questions get shot down by adults with pure annoyance telling them that they are asking a stupid question or that they are asking too many questions.

The best part is my teacher had no issue with my questions and I could tell he was genuinely trying to make good answers to all the questions I was asking. He would answer all my questions with a probable answer, and even if I didn’t understand the answer he would keep reexplaining the answer in a different way till I eventually understood it which really made an impact on my learning. I felt very comfortable asking questions knowing that they would all be answered without judgment of how stupid or unaware I was. He didn’t seem bothered by my questions at all, in fact, my questions kept him on his toes and made him think which I’m sure was less boring for him than if I just sat there and didn’t do my work or asked any questions.

As a 17-year-old in high school, I still ask as many questions if not more than when I was a kid because I just have more self-assurance knowing the answer to all my questions. I’ve never run into a situation where asking more questions was detrimental to my existence. Without all the questions I ask I wouldn’t be able to understand anything in school and I wouldn’t know even remotely as much as I do now.

So truly there is no such thing as a stupid question, no matter the age or the subject all questions are acceptable. Whether you are wanting to ask why, how, where, or when, so be it. Let your mind run wild with curiosity and questioning because without it where would humanity be? Never let anybody tell you your questions are stupid, pointless, or not worth your time. Questions are your time, knowledge is infinite. Even questioning humanity is acceptable at this point because c’mon, what going on with that ish?

“Human Questions” by CASSIANIUS is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.