In my sophomore year of high school, everyone had to take a speech class. Beside the natural nervousness that comes with public speaking, the class was pretty tame. We would learn about certain aspects of communication for a week or so, receive an assignment for a speech, have time to complete the speech, and spend a couple days listening to students give their presentation.
It wasn’t during the speeches from my peers that I learned something interesting, it was the time that I was sitting at my desk, falling in and out of sleep, that I heard something that I still remember three years later.
My teacher asked us what percentage of our everyday dialogue we think is spent asking questions. My first thought as a high school student was a very low percentage. I wasn’t the most willing to participate in class discussion or ask a question out loud when I was confused about something. I remember immediately shaking my head to silently indicate that it must not be a whole lot. The teacher then informed us that roughly 90% of daily communication is spent asking questions.
I was absolutely shocked. I thought that either the statistic was incorrect or I was a special case. There was no way that I asked so many questions in a day, but the more that I thought about it, the more I agreed.
Just talking to a friend between classes could bring up several questions.
“What’s up?”
“How are you doing?”
“How is your day?”
“How was your weekend?”
“How was your test?”
“What are you doing after school?”
“Are you going to the game this weekend?”
And much more...
I was instantly aware of all the questions that the people around me and I ask. I started to think of what general conversation didn't at least start with a question. It all started to come together for me and the statistic made more and more sense. It made me realize that on a day to day basis if we are asking more questions than we are making statements, we are always learning. Maybe we aren’t always taking classes or reading books or walking through art museums, but we are learning. We are learning about the people around us, even if we have already known them for six years. We are learning about people even if we have already spent the whole day with them. We are learning the small things that cannot be taught in a classroom.
