Transforming questions with IS1 students

After being briefed by William, I got to know the topic of this period for International Studies 1 is: Globalisation. What a huge topic! What should I squeeze from the topic and bring to the 90 mins' classroom?

When comes to discuss about Globalisation, I appreciate thinking and thinking deeply. Asking questions to ourselves and the others is the first step to activate this part of brain activities. I am also struggling with how to make my thinking visible to students and vice versa. Therefore, I decided to refer to Visible Thinking: A routine for generating and transforming questions.

1. Pick an everyday object or topic and brainstorm a list of questions about it.
2. Look over the list and transform some of the questions into questions that challenge the imagination. Do this by transforming questions along the lines of:

   - What would it be like if… - How would it be different if… - Suppose that ... - What would change if ... - How would it look differently if …

   
   
3. Choose a question to imaginatively explore. Explore it by imaginatively playing out its possibilities. Do this by: Writing a story or essay, drawing a picture, creating a play or dialogue, inventing a scenario, conducting an imaginary interview, conducting a thought experiment
4. Reflect: What new ideas do you have about the topic, concept or object that
   you didn’t have before?

Here are the questions they asked:

1. How would your life be different if you don't have a phone or computer?
2. Would there be progressive rock if King Crimson had never released the Court of The Crimson King?
3. What would we use if we didn't have electric lamps?
4. Which earrings would you prefer? Plastic, iron or wood?
5. What if every time you clicked your computer mouse, it would scream loudly?
6. What would be different if people didn't exist?
7. How would it be different if the doctors take the blood tests with a pin/needle? what would change if the pin was lager?
8. Would your life change much if everything was just Black and White?
9. What would it be life if your house is made of chocolate?
10. What would you think if everybody wore same looking shoes?
11. How cool would it be if there wasn't plastic AT ALL in the ocean?
12. What would it be like if we didn't have music?
13. If everyone can live without IT, is IT worthless?
14. If the school says you can't use back bag, how would you carry your things around?
15. Would you think differently about your phone, if you know who made it?
16. What would it be like if we don't have books?
17. What is normal weird and what is really weird?
18. What is the purpose of keychain charms?
19. Are you relevant or enough in LIFE? And why (not)? What is the reason you think that way?
20. Why do I have to choose favorite color, food etc? Why can't I like everything and all equally?
21. What if you lost your phone for one day and found it the other day?
22. What would it be like if we didn't sit on chairs all the time?
23. What would have happened if curtains ever existed?

Before posting questions on the wall, they automatically came to me and asked whether their questions are good enough. My first reaction was always: what are you expecting from the answers? Why do you ask THIS question? 

For example, when I asked student who wrote Q15 to clarify his question, he said: I wanted to know whether people would change their opinions about their phone if they knew it is made by children in a factory in China.

I found his assumptions behind the question very relevant to globalisation and very interesting to me, personally, but I didn't expand the topic with him at that moment. I hope, by creating questions, students start to grasp the idea that there are often contexts even agendas behind the questions that are asked. To understand the contexts in which the questions were raised is an important step before we even start to look for answers, especially under such a rapidly changed globalized world. 

I asked students who wrote Q13 to highlight "IT" in her question so that others can see. She asked me back: would people even care? I said: YES! If we made it visible. It is exactly what the whole activity is doing: to make our thinkings visible.  


To follow up with some of their questions (will keep updating this part):

I hope students who wrote Q13 and Q19 would spare some time to listen to this podcast: BS Jobs: How Meaningless Work Wears Us Down

I also wanted to ask students who wrote question 3: when is last time you saw a non-electric lamp (not the candles for decoration)?

Challenge yourself by living your life with the "what if" part in some of the questions, even for a weekend.