That's A Good Question ...

I love questions. A sincere question is an expression of curiosity and thought, two of my favorite character traits. My best lessons are not the ones I plan, but the ones that evolve from a spontaneous question.

The best question I have handled lately came from one of my fourth grade students, who was struggling to research an explorer whose last name was Duluth (which is all the student knew at the time). After apologizing for maybe asking a "dumb question", the student said, "Does it matter where you start a search on the Internet, like is it different if you start at Google or Yahoo?" An excellent question -- truly stellar -- from a student whose shining moments are sometimes few and far between.

After reassuring him that the question was far from dumb, I explained that the answer was not a simple yes or no. Knowing where to start a search on the Internet can make a difference in the quality and amount of information found. Google and Yahoo are both search engines, but Google searches tend to include Yahoo, so it is a larger source of web sites. Also, not all search engines rank the results in the same order. In some cases, you are better off not using a search engine at all, but going to a web site that specializes in your topic area, such the Wisconsin Historical Society web site. We looked at a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

Then, I explained that it is even more important which terms you search with and how you arrange them. Just typing in Duluth, for example, brought up all sorts of sites on Duluth, Minnesota. When we typed in Duluth explorer, we actually found a site that had his entire name. When we typed in his entire name "Daniel Greysolon Duluth" and surrounded it with quotation marks to let the computer know we needed all those words together in that order, we were on a roll. Adding the word biography behind his name narrowed our choices even more and led to some useful information.

The best part of the lesson? After all those tries, we had what I call an "aha" moment -- a moment when something clicks, and a student makes a connection. These are the moments all teachers live for...and mine was particularly sweet, because the student looked at me and said, "Do you think I would have found his whole name if I had used the encyclopedia first?" This was something the classroom teacher and I had tried to get all the students to do, so being able to say, "Absolutely, that's why I suggested it," was a great end to a teachable moment.