One of my martial arts teachers used to tell us students to always bring a question to ask whenever we had senior instructors visit to teach seminars. Bringing a question is a practice I’ve since adopted for any type of seminar or class I take.
I’ve discovered several benefits with this practice as a tool to enhance my learning (and often the learning of others):
- By setting an intention to always have a question, I force myself to think about what I might want to know more about from the teacher. What do I want to take away from the class?
- Asking a question creates the space for a teacher to expand on what I’m specifically interested in. Often, the teacher will expand on my question and share additional insights beyond what they would have shared without the question.
- Asking a question is an opportunity to engage with the teacher interactively instead of being a passive recipient of their knowledge. More often than not, I walk away with a deeper understanding of what I’m curious about.
- By asking a question, I will likely help others in the class who may be struggling to understand or seek clarification of the same thing.
Bringing a question is another example of Rainer Marie Rilke‘s suggestion to “live the questions” that I talked about previously in this blog.
My suggestion? Try it out. See what happens.
Kindly,
David