Essay: should students be encouraged to ask any questions

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I am a non-native English speaker and would very appreciate any feedback about my essay. Thank you for reading!

Should students be encouraged to ask any questions

Education is one of the most significant aspects of our life, and the time spent studying is probably the most profitable investment one can make. Our whole life, its quality and even longevity depend on the basis we founded learning in school and university. Therefore, the quality of education is crucial and is the top priority for everyone. According to the wide-spread opinion, one of the prerequisites to high-quality education is the atmosphere of freedom in the classroom, which allows and even encourages students to question everything. Instead of blindly taking teachers' words at their face value students are expected to doubt and check every fact they heard in a lecture. Followers of this view, believe that only this way a student can acquire new information efficiently and productively.

It is probably common experience, when after studying some subject and even passing the exams, some years later one have only vague and obscure memory about the studied subject. Recent research has shown that despite all efforts of the teachers, hours spent in classrooms and laboratories, dozens of written papers, after two years of graduation an average student could not recall even 10% of information he memorized during the study. Why? Because instead of truly understanding the subject, students were expected to cram for a test and drill endless exercises. However, there is a cure for this disease, which involves a complete shift in the paradigm of education, namely that students should question everything and try to draw conclusion themselves. For example, instead of just memorizing the formula of gravity, why not to follow the way Newton discovered this phenomenon and organize some experiments? After this experience, the bland facts described in the physic textbook will become much more exciting and attractive for a student.

On the other hand, there is a reasonable border where healthy curiosity can transform to straight disobedience hiding behind the mask of independent thought. Such limit is very subtle and only very capable and passionate teacher can organize the free discussion without letting their students cross the line.

Personally, I think that permission for a student to question given facts and check them by himself is a true treasure and a sign of very wise and mature teacher.