Questioning as a Path to Learning

Questioning as a Path to Learning

When I ask myself a question that interests me, then that leads me to seek my answers.

For many years I used the public library as my resource bank to investigate and explore.

There was a journey to the destination of finding a satisfactory answer to my questions.

Along the way I would often encounter other inspirational and informative materials.

They may have been in the books on the shelves beside the book the catalog listed.

I asked various people lots of questions.

I asked those that were considered experts and ordinary people .

I kept on seeking until I found my answer to my question.

And most of the time other questions arose along this path.

Some of those were intriguing enough for me to explore later.

So my times at the library and the books I checked out kept me engaged.

It was the way I gained the habit and life style of a lifelong learner.

During this process I became an interdisciplinary thinker.

That is because parts of my answers came for various fields.

I did not just seek in the psychology section or just in the self-help section.

I also explored the business management, marketing and creatively sections.

I gleaned insights from movies, magazine ads and TV shows.

When the Internet came along I used that for my resource bank instead of the library.

While preparing this article I searched online for the term ‘big questions’.

That took me to many sites.

Most of them did not help but a few did.

And I bookmarked the best ones to examine later.

During these journeys I came to highly value the power of questions.

I set out to collect the most challenging questions to ask myself and others.

I came to believe grappling with questions is the best way to motivate learners.

Some of the most challenging questions in my opinion are as follows:

UNIVERSAL

What is love?

What is reality?

What is truth?

What is beauty?

What or who is God?

What is art?

What is creativity?

What is the purpose of life?

What is the meaning of life?

What is justice and/or fairness?

What happens after a person dies?

What is right/wrong and good/evil?

What is worth dying for?

What is the best way to gain standards for morality and ethics?

How can we know anything?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why do good things happen to bad people?

If God is loving and all powerful then why is there suffering and injustice?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Can truth be known and if so how?

What determines the life of each individual?

Which of the following factors are important?

Free will

Fate

Predestination

Higher Power

God

Destiny

Peer pressure

Media

Advertising

Propaganda

Role models

Heroes and heroines

Personality type

Luck

Chance

Coincidences

Serendipity

Survival of fittest

Socio-economic status

Who you know

Hard work

Self-discipline

Education

Experience

Astrology

Karma

Parents

Acting out on fears, resentments, urges, lust, greed, insecurity, pride, shame, guilt, vanity, etc.

Cause and effect

Choices and consequences

Nature and/or nurture i.e. genetic inheritance and/or environmental factors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

How can a person understand the following:

Soul

Spirit

God

Body-mind connection

Brain-mind-emotions connection

Health and emotions and memories and psychosomatic matters

Angels

Demons

Devil – Satan

Heaven

Hell

Faith

Reason

Intuition

Honor

Freedom

Liberty

Success

Wealth

Power

Virtue

PERSONAL

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

Where is my home?

Where do I belong?

Who is in my family?

Who is in my community?

Why am I here?

Who can I trust?

What is my purpose?

What am I responsible for and who am I responsible to?

Who loves me and cares about me?

Who do I love and who do I care about?

How can I make a difference during my lifetime?

How can I become involved in something bigger than me and my family?

What will be my legacy after I have gone from this life?

What does success look like for me?

If I had unlimited time and money then what would I do?

What are my passions?

What makes me happy?

What do I enjoy?

How can I find satisfaction?

How can I improve and increase my self-esteem, self-worth, self-image, self-respect, etc.?

What is worthwhile as an investment of my time and talents?

If you were diagnosed to die in a year with cancer how would you spend your last year?

How can a person improve and increase the following character qualities?

This list is useful for individual self-improvement, parenting and teaching.

Humility

Kindness

Honesty

Generosity  

Self-control

Love

Patience

Perseverance

Compassion

Empathy

Integrity

Tolerance

Curiosity

Courage

Respect

Dependability

Responsibility

Accountability

Flexibility

Gratitude

Mindfulness

Open mindedness

Thoughtfulness

Understanding

Friendly

Authentic

Here are many more personal questions.

http://journalingquestionshub.blogspot.com/

Here is a link to my collection of lists of questions.

They relate mostly to Christianity.

I noticed that very few pastors or church members even consider these matters.

http://www.freewebs.com/jsohub/questions.htm

There are more than enough questions here to get any person going on a quest.

There are some that will resonate strongly with you.

Choose a few questions then invest your time and energy to explore each one.

The Internet is a great place to start but that is not the only source of inputs.

Also ask lots of people from all kinds of backgrounds.

Many people truncate their learning by not allowing themselves to even consider certain questions.

It was Socrates that said an unexamined life is not worth living.

Questions are proven ways to examine your life.

Here is a list of provocative questions with an interactive interface.

http://askbigquestions.org/questions

Purpose, Core Values, Mission and Vision

The following is based on applying lessons from the book by a seminary professor I know.

Ministry Nuts and Bolts by Aubery Malphurs.

The tentative name for the for-profit business is John Oliver Lessons.

God has led me to apply the lessons in the book I have been reading to this enterprise.

PURPOSE – why your organization exists, the reason it does what it does

•     I believe God has gifted and called me as a writer, publisher and marketer; therefore I must make it my top priority  to discover and develop my God given talents related to these.

CORE VALUES – why you do what you do (Christian ministries get these from the Bible)

•     intention to cause in the readers

•     accountability

•     responsibility

•     purposefulness

•     character of the content

•     personal

•     helpful

•     educational

•     supportive

•     inspirational

•     challenging

•     respectful

•     empathetic

•     holistic

•     equipping

•     writing style

•     simplicity

•     clarity

•     honesty

•     directness

•     Christian core

•     grace oriented

•     faith producing

•     Christ centered

•     biblical based

•     God glorifying

MISSION – what you are supposed to accomplish, what you plan or intend to do

•     Faithfully steward my God-given talents for producing and promoting  my lessons using effective systems.

VISION – your picture of the future of the organization in the months and years ahead. The leader of the organization communicates the vision to the board and to donors.

•     Persistently learning and teaching the wisdom, knowledge and skills that God provides. 

•     Consistently writing and editing my lessons.

•     Publishing my lessons using suitable kinds of online and offline media.

•     Blending online with offline communication methods where most appropriate.

•     Designing and implementing systems for carefully laying the theoretical foundations, providing plenty of options for practical applications, organically growing mutually supportive communities, reaching out to those who could be served and periodically monitoring operations to guide continual improvements.

•     Continually improving systems for marketing my lessons that are synergistic, sustainable and scalable. 

•     Finding my sweet spot(s) in these processes to optimize, then hire out or delegate the rest. 

•     Gradually and gracefully developing ways to improve my personal productivity related to all of this.

•     Holding in tension the fact that I might live for a few more decades or a few more months. And so plan, prepare and produce within these extremes. 

•     Aiming for there to be ways my lessons will  become available to the most people.  Therefore in most cases there will be free versions  of my lessons available.  

•     Keeping in focus my intention to excel at creating and marketing digital content in order to best lead my by examples. Expecting to instruct and guide college students in gradually growing a passive income during their years of study. This is with the view for them to continue improving  their digital inventory and profitable services after graduation. Then they will have income insurance. They can freely choose get involved in for profit and or nonprofit enterprises without looking primarily to them for paying bills.

•     Accept and embrace that my nonprofit organization named Our Stewardship Community will offer Global Educational Canals. Those will serve as ways for my digital lessons to travel cross-culturally using Community Centered Libraries. 

•     Pioneer new pathways to earn a handsome online passive income in order to afford to have the time and energy to also contribute my talents generously to nonprofit. And along this way to maintain holistic balance in my personal life.

•     My physical body is mortal therefore there will come a last day on this earth. I do not know when or how. But I desire for my lessons to continue to spread after I am gone. This is my legacy to future generations.  So there will be self-funding systems to make this happen. 

•     The Lord Jesus Christ has blessed me with an abundance of ideas for lessons. Most of them are Christian based. I must take great care to present my lessons as true  to the Bible and honoring to the Lord Jesus Christ. I must be bold in proclaiming the pure and simple gospel message. I will take great care to effectively serve seekers, new believers and those willing to mature in the Christian faith.

STRATEGY – how you do what you do, how you spend your time attempting to accomplish in the MISSION

•     I have not yet studied this part of the book.

•     When I have finished studying this part I will fill out this section.