Why We Need to Teach the Art of the Question
In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence—where answers are instantaneous and information is abundant—it is no longer enough to simply know. What matters now is knowing what to ask.
Recent analyses of how people interact with AI tools like ChatGPT reveal a striking pattern: most queries begin with “What” or “How,” while far fewer begin with “Why,” “Who,” or “Where.” This seemingly superficial observation points to something deeper: the shape of our questions is shaping the structure of our thinking—and revealing a great deal about the way we teach, learn, and imagine the future.
As an educator and researcher, currently developing cross-disciplinary learning models at Wellington College Bangkok and pursuing doctoral work on From Silos to Synthesis: Reintroducing Cross-Disciplinary Learning in Secondary Education, I’ve become increasingly concerned by what this linguistic pattern implies. It reflects an educational culture that prizes outcomes over inquiry, answers over curiosity, and content over connection.
If we are to prepare students for a future that is not only AI-literate but also critically, ethically, and creatively fluent, we must return to one of the most fundamental intellectual tools we possess: the question.
The Questions We Ask Shape the Minds We Build
Approximately 60% of AI queries begin with “What” or “How.” These are pragmatic, outcome-oriented prompts. They reflect a society conditioned for speed, clarity, and utility—all valuable traits, but insufficient on their own. They serve the logic of productivity rather than the spirit of understanding.
In contrast, “Why” questions—the bedrock of philosophy, ethics, and critical inquiry—are comparatively rare. “Why does this matter?” “Why did this happen?” “Why do we believe this?” Such questions don’t yield tidy answers. They invite ambiguity, invite reflection, and require us to confront causality, consequence, and context.
Other question forms—“Who,” “Where,” “Which”—are similarly neglected. These help us locate ideas in people, places, systems, and decisions. When they are absent, we risk dislocating knowledge from the very world in which it operates.
This is more than a linguistic pattern—it’s a symptom of a deeper cultural condition: one in which the process of thinking has been eclipsed by the performance of knowing.
A Mirror of Siloed Thinking
Here lies one of the great ironies of contemporary education and technology. We have built AI systems trained on vast, interconnected corpora of human knowledge—capable of drawing threads between philosophy and physics, art and economics—and yet we use them in the most linear and compartmentalised ways.
In my own practice at Wellington College Bangkok, we are challenging this fragmentation head-on. My PhD research focuses on reintroducing cross-disciplinary learning in the crucial years of early secondary education. We are trialling thematic, project-based modules that deliberately collapse subject boundaries in favour of conceptual synthesis.
One such project, The Garden of Knowledge, invites Year 9 students (aged 13–14) to explore the interconnected nature of knowledge through scientific, artistic, and historical lenses. An artwork inspired by the growth of roots might lead to explorations of colonial botany, ecological systems, or the metaphorical networks of data and language. Students work both independently and collaboratively, with each idea branching into others like roots sharing the same soil.
Rather than stopping at “What is a garden?” or “How does it grow?”, they are guided toward questions like:
“Why do certain knowledge systems dominate others?”
“Who gets to decide what counts as valuable knowledge?”
“Where do art and science intersect in the way we imagine the world?”
These are the questions that rarely appear in typical AI interactions. And yet, paradoxically, they are exactly the kinds of questions AI could help us pursue—if we approached it with a spirit of inquiry rather than efficiency.
Education’s Missed Opportunity
By engaging AI merely as a tool for instruction or automation, we are—metaphorically—using a telescope to swat flies. These technologies could help us map complex ideas, interrogate assumptions, or simulate ethical scenarios. Instead, they’re being used to shortcut essays, reword emails, or summarise content already known.
This stems from an educational system still defined by subjects in isolation, content-heavy curricula, and assessments that reward accuracy over ambiguity. Teachers are stretched, students are hurried, and inquiry is often squeezed out in the name of outcomes. The result? A missed opportunity—not just to expand knowledge, but to model thinking as an art form.
We are not only outsourcing answers to AI. We are, gradually and subtly, outsourcing the very act of questioning.
Toward an Interrogative Culture
If we want to prepare students for a world saturated with machine intelligence, we must reimagine the purpose of education itself. Classrooms should not simply prepare students to use technology—they must equip them to interrogate it.
This means:
Designing learning that encourages broader, deeper, and more contextual questions
Reconnecting subjects to surface shared tensions, metaphors, and ideas
Using AI not just for productivity, but for reflection, comparison, critique, and creative divergence
Instead of asking “What is the answer?”, we might begin with:
“Why is this question being asked in this way?”
“Who is affected by this knowledge?”
“Where are the blind spots in this argument?”
“Which other disciplines might help us think more clearly?”
These are not easy questions. But they are the questions that lead us toward wisdom, not just information.
Conclusion: The Future Belongs to the Inquisitive
At its best, AI can be a partner in thought—a mirror to our assumptions and a window into new perspectives. But for that to happen, we must change not just how we use these systems, but how we teach people to think alongside them.
If we continue to ask machines narrow questions, we will continue to receive narrow answers. But if we cultivate a generation of thinkers who ask better, braver, more generous questions—questions that cross disciplines, challenge orthodoxies, and consider consequences—we open the door not only to technological intelligence, but to something deeper: intelligent humanity.
Because in the end, the future will not be built by those with the best answers,
but by those with the deepest questions—and the courage to ask them.
