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Saturday, August 17, 2013

365QOD- Day924

It Depends

"There are no stupid questions, only stupid people"-Ernest Chan

Many years ago I was assigned to teach a followup class after another professor had crashed and burned.  The students hated him and I think he hated them equally.

So I walk in and the first question was, "do you believe there are stupid questions?"  I paused for a minute and taught about it.  My answer was, "it depends."

I explained to the students that often when learning a new subject we tend to not know enough, and our question might seem stupid to someone who had done it for a while.  But and this is the big but, the person has to be willing to allow the questioner to pass through this period.

Now if the person had been doing it for a while and still ask beginner level questions then maybe Ernest's quote is valid.  But I still give the person the benefit.  It might indicate that they were not trained properly. Or even that they have not taken the time to understand what they learned.

Today's question is:
"Do you always ask brilliant questions?"

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