WEBVTT

00:00:01.510 --> 00:00:04.480
Let me expand on that just a little.

00:00:05.579 --> 00:00:10.991
Let me make the distinction here 
between a question and a quiz –

00:00:10.991 --> 00:00:13.509
because it's very important.

00:00:17.676 --> 00:00:21.779
Now, if I'm walking, as I do, 
on the streets of Boston --

00:00:21.779 --> 00:00:23.600
(I don't own a car.)

00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.463
– and a car comes up along side, 
and somebody sticks his head

00:00:26.463 --> 00:00:29.606
out the window and says,
"Hey, Mister," or whatever,

00:00:29.606 --> 00:00:32.582
"can you tell us how to 
get to Newbury Street?"

00:00:32.582 --> 00:00:36.840
or "Copley Square," or 
wherever it happens to be,

00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:39.771
that's a question.
They don't know.

00:00:39.771 --> 00:00:43.730
They want to know.
They think I know.

00:00:43.730 --> 00:00:48.265
So they ask me a question, hoping 
to get from me the right answer --

00:00:48.265 --> 00:00:51.345
which they don't have.

00:00:51.345 --> 00:00:58.656
Now that's a legitimate question.
That's a search for information.

00:00:58.656 --> 00:01:01.050
A quiz is something very different.

00:01:01.050 --> 00:01:03.904
It <i>sounds</i> like a question –
It uses the same words.

00:01:03.904 --> 00:01:06.619
But the intention is 
altogether different.

00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:25.673
I would be asking you a quiz if, believing 
that <i>I</i> had the answer to something,

00:01:25.673 --> 00:01:30.020
I asked you a question to 
make sure that <i>you</i> had it.

00:01:30.020 --> 00:01:35.680
In other words, this is a way
of testing your knowledge --

00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:39.900
of making sure that your
knowledge agrees with mine.

00:01:42.386 --> 00:01:50.683
Now little children understand very clearly 
the difference between quizzes and questions.

00:01:50.683 --> 00:01:54.126
Some of you will have had 
the experience of asking

00:01:54.126 --> 00:02:00.199
your little three year old or 
four year old a quiz-type question.

00:02:00.199 --> 00:02:06.050
And you may get the 
answer, "I don't know" --

00:02:06.050 --> 00:02:11.079
which is just a child's way 
of refusing to answer what he/she
knows is not a real question,

00:02:11.079 --> 00:02:14.533
not a serious question,
not an honest question.

00:02:14.533 --> 00:02:20.850
Or you may get some silly answer.
That's another way of disposing of it.

00:02:20.850 --> 00:02:28.819
One mother tells me that when she occasionally
loses her common sense for a second,

00:02:28.819 --> 00:02:34.080
and asks her child a kind of quiz type question,
the child turns right around and asks her one.

00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:50.646
Little children understand
that this is a quiz, not a question.

00:02:50.646 --> 00:02:55.550
And they further understand
that all that all quiz-type questions

00:02:55.550 --> 00:03:02.148
are a statement of lack of confidence.


00:03:02.148 --> 00:03:04.956
This is a vote of no confidence.

00:03:04.956 --> 00:03:10.805
Children resist being asked quiz-type questions
for the same type of reason they resist

00:03:10.805 --> 00:03:15.409
being taught things when they 
haven't asked for them --

00:03:15.409 --> 00:03:20.749
because they realize 
that this is you stating:

00:03:20.749 --> 00:03:24.859
"I don't really think you know this."

00:03:24.859 --> 00:03:28.230
This is a statement of 
lack of trust and confidence.

00:03:28.230 --> 00:03:33.658
And so they tend to react to it 
with a lot of anger and resistance --

00:03:33.658 --> 00:03:36.442
which I think is altogether proper.

00:03:36.458 --> 00:03:42.989
And I'd hope when we get these signals,
we would pay attention to them.