Promoting curiosity through students' questioning

Asking questions is central to intellectual effort; it is instrumental in bridging the gap be tween the known and the unknown. Question ing existed even before the time of Greek philoso pher Socrates and still prevails in classrooms. Questioning is a major teaching and learn ing strategy for teachers in Pakistan. Unfor tunately, teachers ’ questioning overrules stu dents ’ questioning, leaving neither space nor time to create an interactive environment that promotes curiosity and meaningful learning. Using an innovative approach, we attempted to implement students ’ questioning in an upper primary science classroom. The encouraging findings of our study and their implications are discussed in this article. The Context Despite government efforts since Pakistan’s independence in 1947 to implement more ef fective and purposeful education, Pakistan has a literacy rate of only 35 percent (World Bank 1993) and one of the world’s worst education records. Political, economic and social con straints largely account for the low standards of the public education system: the physical facilities and social environment are not con ducive to learning. A senior educator describes primary teach ing in Pakistan as follows: In the primary schools, science is taught by the general classroom teacher, an