Hands up if you still question what you are told

Children starting school constantly ask ‘why’, but they soon learn that questions are deemed ‘stupid’ by an education system that demands conformity, and this fear of being sceptical continues into adulthood, writes Clodagh Finn.

THE late American writer Gore Vidal said: “I’ve never met a boring five-year-old”. At the end of this back-to-school week, teachers all over the country might agree. However exhausted they are after meeting their new charges, it’s unlikely they found the school newbies short on curiosity, rascality or enthusiasm. The children were probably full of questions, too, because they know that the world is run on questions — not on answers.

The rest of us, though, have forgotten that. A father I know limits his bright-as-a-button son to five questions per session, and I wonder how teachers manage in classrooms that are the largest in Europe. The average class size at primary level in Ireland is 25. Let’s do the maths; even if you limited each child to five questions per day, that’s a staggering 125 questions.