Answerable Questions

I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.

Often attributed to Richard P. Feynman

I’m not too sure if Richard Feynman ever said that. It is probably in his character but I can’t be sure he said those exact words. Yet it rings true that I think that’s something of a start to work with.

In school teachers must set questions that can be answered and in order to be fair, they must have already had the answer in mind. And not everything can be the answer- you have to predefine what constitutes and answer and then accept what is right according to that. In other words, test and exam questions are optimised for predictability and order, not creativity and chaos.

What kind of world are we hoping to prepare our next generation for?

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