Times of stupid questions

Was there ever a time you have wanted to ask a really dumb question? I know I have a bunch of times, like a lot throughout my life and I have actually asked some of those stupid questions. One of those questions I am talking about today which I never actually asked in the end. This was when I was in my sophomore year of highschool so about two years ago.

I was in class one day and it was in my math class which I had geometry my sophomore year, which was always my last period every day. We were talking about one of the math problems and mind you I have never ever been good at math I do not even know how I passed math every year honestly. We had been solving this math problem and I didn’t really understand it much at all because again I am not great with math and I wanted to ask a question but never did because of how dumb it seemed. I do not remember all of the question but it was something to do with restating the whole math problem and if I did I would have sounded really stupid and like I was not paying attention but I was. I have always had trouble with asking questions when in a big class because I do not want everyone thinking I am extremely dumb and I do not like feeling like that and just recently I have learned to not let that get to me and ask the questions I need to ask so I can understand what exactly we are doing in class.

I have always been self conscious about stuff like that and I have always struggled with asking questions even when I was younger. I feel like if I ask those questions it will seem like I was not paying attention in class when I was and I also do not feel great about it more so because when in school and you ask a question by raising your hand or anything everyone in that class always looks at that person which feels like a spotlight is on you in a way. I know I am not the only one in the world who does struggle with this but it is a challenge in school to get over.

I feel like for anyone it is hard to ask “stupid” questions and most of the time they probably are not even stupid questions. Some people are slower learners, like me I am one who takes a little bit longer to understand something fully. Although it is a hard feeling to deal with, it is something I overcame throughout my time in highschool. My junior year was when I really just said, “I have to ask questions whether they are stupid or not.” because if I did not I would not have gotten the answers or help I needed to get from my teacher. I believe that anyone can get over their fear and anxiety of asking questions. It just takes some time to do it. It took me until junior year of high school  to get over that fear and I am so happy I did finally get over it.

All in all I believe it is okay to ask questions even if you think it might be dumb because you never know if someone else is thinking the same thing and also does not want to ask. Stupid/dumb questions get asked twenty four hours a day every day of the week. Some might not even be stupid questions honestly, some are just genuine good questions but could overthink about it thinking it is stupid when it really is not. Writing this and thinking about this time I wish I would have asked the question I wanted to ask in my sophomore math class. I probably would have understood and gotten help with the question more than I did because I did not speak up and get help for the question. I missed a lot of opportunities in my first two years of high school and I do regret it sometimes looking back on my freshmen and sophomore year of high school.

“That is the Question” by cogdogblog is licensed under CC BY 2.0.