The Power of Questions in Teaching: Rethinking the Taboo

The questions we ask as educators shape how safe, curious, and creative learning feels. This article looks at why that matters, and how to ask better questions when teaching.

5 Jan 2026 | By Wena Ho. Helsinki.

Pedagogy is not the mere act of teaching. It is the sensitivity of the interplay between teaching and learning, and how the subtlest choices of educators shape that relationship.

During my teacher training at International House in London, we talked about something called “taboo questions.” No, not the sensitive classroom topics often summed up as PARSNIP (Politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, and - depending on the acronym version - Pork). These were much more innocent-looking.

The biggest offender:

“What is …?”

It sounds reasonable. We come across a new word in a text and want to check if students understand it. Instinctively, we ask:

“What is proud?”“What is a jumble?”

The problem is not the intention, but the outcome. These questions mainly test whether students can define a word, not whether they understand it. Students might know the feeling, the situation, the use, but not have the exact wording ready. Silence follows. Or one confident student offers a dictionary-style answer while everyone else quietly checks out.

This is why teachers are trained to use Concept Checking Questions (CCQs). Instead of “What is proud?”, we might ask: Did you do something well? Or, in an expressive arts session, as we do: How does your body stand when you are proud? For “a jumble”, we could ask: Is it neat or messy? Pretend you are picking things from a jumble, how do you do it?

These questions gently guide learners to show understanding without forcing them to perform a definition on demand. The focus shifts from proving knowledge to demonstrating understanding.

Interestingly, I see a similar pattern in art workshops, especially in early childhood education.

Another seemingly harmless question is:

“Do you remember …?”

I have seen educators use it reflexively. Once, out of curiosity, I counted: five times in two minutes. Usually, we use it when we want to remind children of something we did before. Good intention, questionable effect.

We need to first pause and ask ourselves: what does this question actually do?

To begin with, it pulls children out of the present moment. Instead of engaging with what is happening here and now, they are suddenly sent on a mental scavenger hunt through their memory. They could barely remember what they had for breakfast, let alone what happened in last week’s session.

Second, it quietly introduces pressure. Research shows that starting around age 5, children begin to modify their behaviour based on what they understand is expected of them (Silver & Shaw, 2018). When we ask “Do you remember?”, we know there is a correct, or preferred, answer to the question: yes. To the learner, child or adult, saying no can feel like failure. They should remember. You expect them to remember. But sometimes, they just don’t. 

To be fair, using memory checks sparingly is not a crime. And if you choose to ask it, you also need to be ready to manage the outcome, especially the no. Do you frown upon it? Do you show disappointment? Or keep it light and move on to the important thing, what are we actually going to do now?

If the goal is simply to remind the group, there are gentler and more effective alternatives.

Instead of “Do you remember what we did last time?”, try:

“Last time, we explored this…”“

Anna wasn’t here last session, can someone tell her how we did this?”

Notice the shift. The task is no longer remember or fail. Memory becomes a resource, not a test. Children are invited to help someone else, not to prove something to the teacher.

So, what are good questions to ask?

One effective reference is Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an approach widely used in art education. It originated in the 1980s from the collaboration between Harvard cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen and the then-Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Philip Yenawine. By using VTS, educators facilitate a learner-centered discovery process by asking carefully crafted, open-ended questions that invite observation, interpretation, and dialogue, without right or wrong answers.

Core questions from this approach are:

“What do you think is going on?”

“What more can you find?”

“What makes you say that?”

These questions do something important. They keep attention in the present. They value thinking over remembering, noticing over knowing. In an art education context, they also open up space for imagination. There is no single right answer to perform, only possibilities to explore. And perhaps most importantly, they communicate to learners, of any age, that their way of seeing, interpreting, and making meaning truly matters.

Small questions create big impacts. Choosing what to ask with care is not about being clever. It is about being kind, to learning, and to learners.

Reference:

Silver, I. & Shaw, A. (2018). Pint-Sized Public Relations: The Development of Reputation Management. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Volume 22, Issue 4.

Yenawine, P. (2013). Visual Thinking Strategies. Harvard Education Press.