A Perfectly Reasonable Question
Of course it's a reasonable question. It's an excellent question.
How do you explain “why something happens” to students?
Here’s one of the most important insights we all can learn from Richard Feynman.
Imagine, a kid comes to you with a couple of magnets and throws a question at you, “Why do these two pieces of magnets repel from these sides and attract from the other sides?”
Option 1: You start explaining about how each magnet has two poles, directions of force, and that opposite poles attract each other, and the same poles repel.
Option 2: You first ask the kid what he already knows related with magnet or magnetic force.
When someone asks “why something happens?”, how do you answer why something happens?
It’s not that simple.
If you are wrestling with how to go about it, watch this video where Richard Feynman talks about the complicated nature of explaining “why” to others.
Feynman inadvertently demonstrated ‘how thinking happens’. Specifically, to be able to think and to ask question, what one needs to know already.
Ask “why” all you can but when you do not have enough prior knowledge, you will have to take an answer for granted.
Because, as Feynman puts it, when you attempt to explain ‘why’, you have to be in some framework that allows something to be true. Otherwise, there will be an endless series of whys.
Here’s a comical illustration.
Why do we eat?
Because when we are hungry, we eat.
Why do we get hungry?
Because we work and get tired.
Why do we get tired?
Because we burn energy.
Why do we burn energy?
Because…
Why?
Because…
Why?
Well, this could go deeper and deeper in any direction.
So when a person asks “why two magnets repel?”, the answer you give depends on whether that person is a student of physics, or doesn’t know anything about it. And to someone who knows nothing about it, the most appropriate answer would be, “They repel because of the magnetic force.”
Bottomline: Until you have a reasonable prior knowledge within a certain context or domain knowledge, you will have to take answers for granted.
And, this is the reason why teaching is so interesting and challenging.
Interesting, because students come in with all sorts of prior knowledge, with their own assumptions and folk knowledge. So, they might ask all sorts of questions.
Challenging, because unless every student has a similar level of prior knowledge related to the content being taught, they will struggle to understand your explanation.
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