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Andrew E. Arterbury

Recently, while preparing for a minor surgical procedure, my doctor provided me with an information sheet. Toward the end of the information sheet, the doctor included a commonplace quote. He reminded his patients: “There is no such thing as a ‘bad’ or ‘dumb’ question.” Of course, this same doctor then asked me to read three additional documents before asking him any questions. He even suggested that I write down my questions so I could ask them all at once. Finally, the doctor stressed that the nurse (rather than he) would call just once to address my questions. In essence, the doctor first claimed there are no “bad” questions, but then he took active measures to avoid bad questions and to dissuade me from bothering him or his staff with too many questions.

At times, university classrooms exhibit a similar environment. Frequently, we as professors assure our students there are no bad questions, and we often suggest that all comments are welcome. Truthfully though, we often say those things to be polite and to encourage good comments while finding subtle—or sometimes, not so subtle—ways to discourage or eliminate the bad questions and poor answers we wish to avoid. Consequently, I am suggesting that we take a more straightforward approach to this topic. I am suggesting that we acknowledge the presence of bad questions and poor answers within our classrooms. Ignoring these problems only leaves us flat-footed when the situations arise. Even worse, mishandling these situations or mistreating the offending students is beneath the calling we seek to carry out. Alternatively, professors who construct healthy strategies for responding to bad questions and poor answers before they arise are better positioned to improve the pedagogical environment in their classrooms. I am suggesting that if we respond proactively and constructively to the problems that bad questions and poor answers present in our classrooms, we may be able to create a win-win situation for us and our students.

Identifying Bad Questions and Poor Answers

In order to define better what I mean by bad questions and poor answers, I will describe three examples that arose from two students in my classes last year:

Student #1 repeatedly asked bad questions throughout the semester. His bad questions derived from two main sources. First, he never read the course syllabus. As a result, in the last month of the semester when I—for about the sixth time—reminded my students of their final writing assignment, which the syllabus clearly described, Student #1 raised his hand and asked me why he had never heard of this assignment before now. Obviously, Student #1 was the only person who could answer his own question.

Second, this same student, Student #1, sat at the back of the room and often chatted with his friend while his classmates or I were speaking. As a result, on three separate occasions Student #1 asked a question that had just been explicitly addressed within the previous thirty seconds of class discussion. I consider these types of questions to be “bad questions.”

Student #2 was a contentious and hard-working student who earned a solid grade in my class. Sometimes, however—even near the end of the course—she offered poor answers to questions I raised during our classroom discussions. Akin to ancient Gnostics who sought insight that was hidden from the masses and only available to a select few who possessed the spark of divine knowledge within them, this student at times seemed disappointed by the clearly written, obvious point of a biblical book or passage. As a result, she routinely rearranged the text we were reading or essentially constructed a new text in her head that she found more interesting. She strove for a unique interpretation that no one else had ever voiced before.

At times, Student #2 would notice an exceedingly common word in two or three biblical books and suggest that they are connected thematically. In essence, she attempted to uncover a complex web of linked biblical passages that reveal a divinely encoded message for contemporary readers. For example, she suggested that the conjunction “but” in Genesis 8, Acts 2, and Romans 5 are all mysteriously connected. Without a doubt, later biblical writers frequently quoted from earlier biblical texts, but noting the appearance of a short, ubiquitous word like “but” in multiple texts without providing additional supporting evidence does not amount to a quotation of a previous source according to either ancient or modern standards. The word “but” occurs 5,012 times in the NRSV translation of the Bible. Student #2 wanted to connect only three of those 5,012 words without any justification for her decision. From my angle of vision, Student #2 provided a very poor answer. She relied upon instincts and logic in my classroom that she brought with her to Baylor’s campus and that did not align with any of the course’s learning objectives. In other words, she fell back on instincts and logic that she learned in a non-academic environment and imported those into my classroom.

In my opinion, Student #1 asked “bad questions,” and Student #2 offered “poor answers.” Of course, having argued that things such as bad questions and poor answers exist, we still need to consider how a professor—and especially a professor who senses a call to this profession—might respond to these bad questions and poor answers.

Examining Myself First

Perhaps the first thing I should do as a professor who senses a call to teach is to ask: “What can I do differently?” “How can I improve?” If my present approach fosters bad questions and poor answers, I need to ask whether I can alter my approach and eliminate some of those bad questions and poor answers—not in a way that intimidates or discourages students, but in a way that places the burden on me to prevent the problem altogether.

After reflecting on Student #1’s questions, I have now decided to give a quiz over the syllabus at the beginning of each semester for all of my classes. It does no good to lament that Canvas labels a list of assignments and due dates as the “Syllabus.” It also does no good for me to self-righteously conclude that a twenty-five-year old seminarian ought to be more conscientious about his education. I am the one who can eliminate that bad question from arising again. If I will simply hold my students accountable for reading the syllabus, I can arrive at an easy solution that benefits my entire class.

Second, after asking myself what Professor Emeritus and Master Teacher in Baylor University’s Department of English, D. Thomas Hanks, would have done in response to Student #1’s chatter at the back of the room during class, I concluded that once again I was in a position to prevent the bad questions from arising in the first place. On more than one occasion over the years, I watched as Tom graciously addressed similar classroom incivilities.46 Tom did not merely address poor classroom behavior because it offended him; rather he addressed the incivilities for the sake of all his students. On some occasions, Tom stopped talking and smiled while waiting for the disruptive student to recognize his errant ways and correct them. On another occasion, I witnessed Tom visiting with a disruptive student after class with a gracious smile and a clear explanation of why a different course of action would be advantageous to all. In essence, Tom always acted when faced with classroom incivilities. He never let problems fester until they created more problems. When I, however, chose to ignore Student #1’s back row chatter, it led to additional problems—including bad questions that disrupted the flow of our discussions. Before going any farther, I must first refine my pedagogical approach and eliminate the distractions I can.

Disposition toward Students

Next, if we are called to teach—that is, if we see our job as part of our God-initiated and God-directed vocation—then we must realize that our disposition and responses towards students who raise bad questions and offer poor answers will matter almost as much as the curricular content we present in class. Without a doubt, poor questions and answers can derail our curricular plans for the day or at least slow them down considerably, but our responses to offending students have the potential to make or break the entire semester. In particular, regardless of the answers we provide to bad questions and regardless of our technical responses to poor answers, as those who are called to teach we must first and foremost respond to our offending students with respect and gracious compassion, for numerous reasons.

First, practically speaking, a poor professorial response will negatively impact the entire class for the remainder of the semester. When students temporarily derail class by asking ill-advised questions that are clearly addressed in the syllabus or when they talk at the back of the room and then ask about the subject that was just discussed, a poor response from the professor to the offending student can have devastating effects upon the entire class. If the professor opts to treat the offending student with dismissive snobbery (“Someone didn’t read his assignment last night.”), condescending shame (“Surely you can do better than that.”), or sarcastic mockery (“Did Joel Osteen help you with that response?”), the entire class will notice. That type of harsh, professorial response will surely reduce bad questions in the future, but it will also reduce all questions and comments. Even if the other students know their classmate asked a bad question or offered a poor answer, most students will back away from the educational endeavor if they perceive the professor to be mean, condescending, or overly impatient.

Second, a poor professorial response will negatively impact the offending student. Many of our international students come from honor/shame cultures where teachers and their opinions are held in especially high esteem. As professors who are called to teach, we must be hospitable hosts who recognize how our responses can either increase or decrease a student’s sense of honor or shame for perhaps years to come.

In reality, regardless of our students’ culture of origin, honor and shame play a significant role in every setting that involves humans. As a result, there may be no better moment for a professor to exemplify her or his sense of calling than when the professor is forced to respond to a bad question or a poor answer in front of the entire class. That moment is precisely when the professor most needs to amass all of her creativity and resourcefulness in the hope of turning a negative experience into a positive one—or at least neutralizing the threat that the situation poses to the offending student’s honor.

If a student realizes that the professor sought to preserve or to enhance her or his honor amid a potentially embarrassing situation, that student may well read more diligently and think more deeply about the subject matter of the course moving forward. Regardless, when other students in the class perceive that the professor advocated for the offending student and sought to neutralize a potentially embarrassing situation, they too will take greater risks and engage in the educational endeavor more deeply because they perceive the professor to be one who has their back as well. Furthermore, it is in that moment—when a student has the potential to lose face in front of his or her peers—that the professor demonstrates to the offending student, to the class, and to herself what it means to be “called to teach.” When the professor lives out the spiritual conviction that God values all persons by ardently seeking to preserve honor and save face for even her poorest students, the professor begins to understand what sets apart those who are “called to teach” from those who simply enjoy the life of the mind.

Transformative Moments

Finally, as professors, we may hope to eliminate as many of the Student #1 type of offenses as possible—failing to read the syllabus and unfocused attention that leads to repetitive questions; however, when we teach with a sense of calling, we may well embrace the poor answers of Student #2. Instead of a problem, Student #2’s answer provided me with a tremendous pedagogical opportunity—one that I could not have staged on my own. Poor answers may well lead to transformational moments if we handle them properly. Student #2 applied real-world instincts and logic to the subject matter of our course. Her poor answer challenged me as a professor to define better the hermeneutic I was seeking to teach and to illustrate why an academically informed hermeneutic is more helpful than the one she brought with her to Waco.

In other words, all professors face the challenge of helping their students to inquire, reason, and write in line with the scholars from their own discipline.47 We all face the challenge of demonstrating why our academic discipline matters. That objective can only be accomplished, however, if we show our students the benefits of migrating from the angle of vision with which they entered to the angle of vision with which we hope they will they depart.

Years ago, I recall Professor Mikeal C. Parsons from Baylor University’s Department of Religion explaining to his graduate students that professors in the Humanities are not simply called to answer the questions that our students ask. Rather, we are first and foremost called to teach our students to ask better, higher, and more important questions. When I think back on the professors who most impacted me, each of them taught me to ask better questions.

Student #2 started out well, but she ended up offering a poor answer that grew out of her misguided, semi-Gnostic questions. Her responses rightly assumed that God has a word for God’s people, but she failed to consider the word of the Lord that was first addressed to the original recipients of Genesis, Acts, and Romans. In addition, she believed that the sixty-six books of the Bible are interconnected—notably, both Paul and Luke saw a similar type of connectedness between the events of the Old Testament and their day—but the student focused her attention on commonplace, English words rather than major, biblical themes like the redemptive work of God during the times of Moses, the Babylonian exile, and Jesus—redemptive works that transcend modern translations of ancient events and texts. In essence, she opted to focus on English conjunctions rather than God’s saving activity throughout the Scriptures.

Regardless, poor answers like the one that Student #2 voiced can set the stage for a teachable moment. If a caring professor can invite her to ask better questions and to try out better interpretive approaches, the door to transformational education may be opened. Professors who foster transformational moments, however, will first need to start at a similar beginning point as their students, and they will likely need to mine for the gold that lays amid the dross of the student’s initial answer.

Perhaps the professor who responds to Student #2 will explain how a quasi-Gnostic reading of the text actually defies the very standardizing purpose of the Scriptures, which the student herself passionately affirms. Perhaps the professor will describe the types of criteria Biblical Studies scholars frequently employ when identifying a quotation or an allusion to an earlier work. Perhaps the professor will demonstrate the exegetical payoff that accompanies informed interpretation of a singular biblical text instead of attempting to weave together all sixty-six books of the Bible at a single moment. Yet regardless of the tack professors may take, professors who are called to teach must recognize the grand opportunity that poor answers can sometimes provide when we aim for transformational education.

In other words, professors who are called to teach should realize that at times bad questions and poor answers can provide professors with a kernel of genius with which to work. If we can find and highlight that kernel of genius amid the student’s comments while allowing the chaff to fall away, we may be able to teach students to ask better questions and articulate better answers. Furthermore, professors who are called to teach should realize that one student’s misstep can benefit every student in the room while simultaneously making the professor a better teacher. In essence, one of the most important challenges facing professors who are called to teach surfaces when she seeks to identify the insightful but miniscule kernel of insight that is present in a poor question or answer and to demonstrate how someone in her own academic field might cultivate that same insightful kernel into a full-grown plant.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am arguing that our sense of calling as teachers and professors is revealed (perhaps, most clearly) in the way we respond to the repetitive, unnecessary, or ill-conceived questions that our students raise as well as the inadequate answers that they offer to our questions. Bad questions and poor answers may indeed impede our lesson plans. As a result, at times we need to think creatively about eliminating those dynamics in future classes. At other times, however, bad questions and poor answers provide us with golden opportunities to establish a hospitable classroom environment and to open the door for transformational moments. Shaming students has no place in the classroom of a professor who has been called to teach. Alternatively, if we think through our strategies for responding to bad questions ahead of time and if we listen for the kernel of genius that is often embedded in poor answers, we may help the offending students become better students while encouraging the entire class to test the waters of our academic field.

References

Boice, Robert. Advice for New Faculty Members. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

Clines, David J. A. “Learning, Teaching, and Researching Biblical Studies, Today and Tomorrow.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129.1 (2010) 5–29.

46. Boice, Advice for New Faculty Members, 81–98.

47. Clines, “Learning, Teaching, and Researching Biblical Studies,” 15.