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me on Facebook and visit my website, http://www.bfoswaldauthor.com.Thank
you.
One
of my many perks as a college professor was the wealth of interesting anecdotes
that students shared with me about themselves, their families, and their
friends, especially those in my human development and marriage and family
classes. Some of those were shared with the class, some with me privately. A
large number of the anecdotes shared by my women students concerned an attack
of their developing self-esteem, one of the most important of human territories.
An
example of this attack that I heard all too often: A student seeking my
attention would open with, "This is probably a stupid question." These
prefaces rankled me because I told each class at the onset that I did not
regard any question based on a need or desire to know, stupid, and probably
reaffirmed that dictum several times during our nine weeks together. I have no
doubt that the questioner had heard me because she would most likely be one of
my sharper students and the question that followed would be very well put.
(Unfortunately the more timid students with the onus of this epithet weighing
heavily upon their minds would not ask. This possibility angered me even more.)
When
was she taught, and by whom, that her questions were stupid? She had probably
heard that early on and by the time she began her education she believed it so
thoroughly that she apparently expected that rejoinder from her teachers—and
unfortunately may have even heard it from some.
Ignorance
is the state of not knowing; stupidity is the state of knowing yet acting
contrary to the knowledge. To tell a child who questions in an effort to know
or understand something that she has asked a stupid question is to imply that
she is stupid and therefore demeans her. This crushing of the bud of developing
self-esteem is a trespass most egregious and rightly deserves censure.
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