John Holt on Question versus quiz mov

Let me expand on that just a little.

Let me make the distinction here
between a question and a quiz –

because it's very important.

Now, if I'm walking, as I do,
on the streets of Boston --

(I don't own a car.)

– and a car comes up along side,
and somebody sticks his head

out the window and says,
"Hey, Mister," or whatever,

"can you tell us how to
get to Newbury Street?"

or "Copley Square," or
wherever it happens to be,

that's a question.
They don't know.

They want to know.
They think I know.

So they ask me a question, hoping
to get from me the right answer --

which they don't have.

Now that's a legitimate question.
That's a search for information.

A quiz is something very different.

It sounds like a question –
It uses the same words.

But the intention is
altogether different.

I would be asking you a quiz if, believing
that I had the answer to something,

I asked you a question to
make sure that you had it.

In other words, this is a way
of testing your knowledge --

of making sure that your
knowledge agrees with mine.

Now little children understand very clearly
the difference between quizzes and questions.

Some of you will have had
the experience of asking

your little three year old or
four year old a quiz-type question.

And you may get the
answer, "I don't know" --

which is just a child's way
of refusing to answer what he/she
knows is not a real question,

not a serious question,
not an honest question.

Or you may get some silly answer.
That's another way of disposing of it.

One mother tells me that when she occasionally
loses her common sense for a second,

and asks her child a kind of quiz type question,
the child turns right around and asks her one.

Little children understand
that this is a quiz, not a question.

And they further understand
that all that all quiz-type questions

are a statement of lack of confidence.

This is a vote of no confidence.

Children resist being asked quiz-type questions
for the same type of reason they resist

being taught things when they
haven't asked for them --

because they realize
that this is you stating:

"I don't really think you know this."

This is a statement of
lack of trust and confidence.

And so they tend to react to it
with a lot of anger and resistance --

which I think is altogether proper.

And I'd hope when we get these signals,
we would pay attention to them.