Question:

"He who asks a question may be a fool for five minutes, but he who never asks a question remains a fool forever." Do you agree with this statement? Justify. Discuss on whether this statement plays a part in you and your team mates' process of attaining better learning today.

Respond:

“He who ask a question may be a fool for five minutes, but he who never asks a question remains a fool forever.” This seems to be so relevant to us in the class today.

Every day, we are encouraged to take self initiative in our learning. Questioning seems to be one of the simplest method for us to demonstrate this self initiative in learning.

When we question, there may be some silly questions that we may want to ask. At this time a point, it is our duty to clarify these silly questions that we may have whether it is with our group or facilitator.

In today’s case per say, it was quite clear that all of us tried to solve the problem as a class and are humble and thick skinned enough to ask each other question. In the first study period, the entire class were asking around from all the different teams in which we had no discrimination and segregation amongst the team already. We were willing to learn from one another as and when we had the similar questions. In the second meeting, we were all given the time to solve the problem statement. However, when it was around 1.15pm and most of us didn’t manage to solve the problem statement as yet, some of them started asking around. When I saw that, I asked them if they needed my help as I managed to solve the problem statement before any of them (with exception of Team 4) managed to solve it. At that time a point, most of them shot the questions that were in their mind at me. I slowly answered every one of them. In today’s case, we were asking each other and our facilitator questions to clarify our doubts on the topic and on our basic concept of the topic. In contrast, if those of us who asked the questions didn’t ask those questions, we wouldn’t be able to gain a clear understanding of the topic and would then be unsure of what the entire team is doing and unable to participate in any team discussions that is going on.

In our daily learning, I think it is not about feeling stupid or being foolish in asking questions. It is about clarifying your doubts. Clarifying your doubt isn’t a foolish thing to do. It is those people that do not and are not willing to clarify their doubt that is foolish as this would hinder their learning progress.