Essential questions

During this week's assigned readings Buehl emphasizes the importance of essential questions. He states that wherever you go or whatever your career may be it is crucial to ask those important questions to have a better understanding of certain things. At the beginning of the chapter, he gives an example of Bill James who is a preeminent baseball player, that asks himself questions like "What qualities make a good hitter?"Then he builds on that idea in a mathematical sense and allows students to make deeper connections He transferred these questions through a different disciplinary lens. As future educators, it is important to spark the same interest to our students and have them look at questions in a different way. Our aim should be to stimulate thought and provoke inquiry for our students so that they can ask more questions. Some mistakes that educators might make are that that they don't go to the core of the questions. Instead, we inform the students "yes, you are correct" or "no you're incorrect"  and do not let their minds explore other possibilities. Essential questions are the ones that lead a conversation, that invite other students to give their opinions. Students are able to look at the evidence and come up with conclusions on their own.






One of my favorite shows on Netflix is Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act. One might ask how this connects to essential questions. Hasan takes the approach of having his audience make conclusions on their own based on the facts surrounding political topics. He connects with his audience with a comedic take but asks critical questions surrounding controversial topics. In one of his shows centered on Saudi Arabia, he speaks of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on whether or not he is a true reformer. This question is posed to the audience, and Hasan builds on the idea. While the crown prince has legalized women driving in the state, there are many underlying parts to his regime that would counter the idea of a democratic rule. Hasan brings in facts and undisplayed ideas in the news outlets like the prince's arrest of many women fighting for civil liberties and those who protest his regime.The idea of a democratization in Saudi Arabia remains stagnant in the royal regime. Hasan presents these facts and figures and questions the audience. He utilizes comedy as an outlet to convey ideas so that these topics don't appear heated on stage but rather open to the audience's perspectives. When engaging with the audience he tries to pose critical questions and rather than push on certain ideas he lets the audience make their own conclusions.


The utilization of scaffolding and building on ideas allow students to garner perspective and build on critical ideas rather than just accept something they would later question. Students need to connect ideas and personalize the material to allow them to increase their depth of knowledge and synthesize the material they are learning. It becomes the responsibilities of teachers to not assert ideas and concepts but to build on them and ask those leading questions. This is what allows students to critically think on these ideas.