Affirm the Questions of the Children You Are Teaching

Hello, friends! I’m Elizabeth Urbanowicz with Foundation Worldview, and today’s teaching tip is a tip to help you foster a love for learning in the children you are teaching. And this tip is this: affirm their questions.

Often in the United States, our educational goals are very shortsighted. We want children to complete a certain curriculum or pass a certain standardized test. However, from a biblical perspective, one of our overarching goals should be to create a lifelong love of learning.

Lifelong learning is necessary no matter what career path our children one day choose. And biblically, lifelong learning makes sense and is essential. As God’s image bearers, we have been tasked with the responsibility of filling the earth and subduing it. We are God’s representatives here on earth, and we do a better job of having dominion over creation as we are continually learning more and more and more about the environment that God has placed us in.

Part of creating a lifelong love of learning involves affirming the questions of the children we are teaching. We need to make sure that we are showing excitement over the fact that they are curious.

Now, depending on the circumstances, we cannot always take time to answer questions immediately or to model how to find the answer well. However, we can take the first important step of affirming the questions the children we are teaching ask and showing excitement over the fact that they are curious and desire to learn more about the topic at hand.

For example, if a child you are teaching asks a very tangential question in the middle of a lesson, and you know that you do not have time right then and there to stop what you’re doing to help them look up the answer or give a thorough explanation, that’s okay.

What you can do in that moment is affirm their question and demonstrate excitement over the fact that they asked it. You can say something like:

“Wow, that is a great question. I’ve never thought about that before. I’m so thankful that God has given you a mind that is thinking critically about what we’re learning. You know what? We don’t have time to look at the answer to that question right now, but I’m going to write it down right here on a sticky note or a piece of paper. And when we have time later, we’ll circle back to that question and look it up together.”

When we respond this way, we clearly communicate to the children we are teaching that questions are welcomed, that their curiosity is embraced, and we set the tone for making learning an adventure rather than a drudgery.

Just as a reminder, today’s teaching tip was to affirm the questions of the children you are teaching.

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Thanks so much for joining me for this teaching tip, and I’ll see you next time.