THE POWER OF QUESTIONING AND DOUBTING

Every system needs to be reviewed in order to be improved. This earth needs constant reviewing for us to discover the best new ways to address the rising problems.

This post is an Introduction to our serial posts under the title UNDERSTANDING THE REASONS FOR GRADUATES’ JOBLESSNESS AND HOW YOU CAN ESCAPE IT with the aim of shedding light on the major reasons why 95% of graduates from our various higher institutions has continued to be jobless and will continue to be if they continue learning they way they have been learning. With the posts in this series, we hope to help school children, undergraduates and society to better understand the nature of these causes and as well provide the best solution to it.

We will like to present the posts in question-and-answer format. Which means each post will be an answer to a question, and that’s why the title of this introductory post is THE POWER OF QUESTIONING AND DOUBTING.

In 1939, H. B. Drake, wrote, "The student is like a traveller; but before a man can travel with enjoyment and profit he needs both preparation and experience. First, he must understand the language of the people among whom he is to travel. Second, if he is wise, he will, on arriving, find a reliable guide who can point out to him the chief features of distinction and interest [to be observed and examined]. After this he will be equipped to wander by himself and make his own discoveries... Otherwise, he will be bewildered and go astray".

People who ask questions never miss their way. When you stop questioning your ideas, attitude and ideologies, your life will soon get stocked and unable to make great impart

Questioning and doubting are two different most important indicators of a sound mind and intelligence. It is a sign of curiosity that often leads to discovery. There is no inventor or pioneer of a worthwhile idea without these two habits. Today, discovery of new things are not so common among students and people, because they have stopped questioning the existing ideas, ideologies, protocol and patterns since many, knowingly or unknowingly, are either satisfied with existing order of things which they think introduction of new ideas will generally create a problem or are unreasonably afraid of changes.

Therefore, whether you know it or not, 95% of students are in school today learning to maintain the existing order and patterns of our old ways of doing thing and expect to see new results. (This is one of the reasons why most graduates are jobless). No. This is not actually school’s fault, but that of students who don’t understand how school is organized to train students for society, old or new, industrial or internet. More will be shared on that later. Jesus Christ says we cannot put new wine into old wineskins and expect both to be preserved together if not the wineskins will break and the wine spilled away.

Every system needs to be reviewed in order to be improved. This earth needs constant reviewing for us to discover the best new ways to address the rising problems. And this can only be done through questioning; that’s how we can bring development into community – by the discovery of new order of things as we question the veracity of our old ways.

However, many probing minds have gone atrophied since those that ought to nurture them to maturity have been bought into simplemindedness of status quo as the best standard way of doing things to get it right. This is how we get to where we are today in Nigeria and many African countries with education system that only produces unproductive scholars and jobless graduates.

One radical truth about life is that everything and concepts and ideas in life are subjected to questioning. Those who make impacts in life, and who have changed the courses of human life are those who never stop asking plausible probing questions about the existing order and pattern of things which the simpleminded takes to be normal. A student who never questions his or her teachers and lecturers’ ideas on certain concepts by believing that everything they say or claim is true is not thinking, and such a student can hardly do anything for himself. You can be sure that such a student will be a photocopy of those teachers.

Therefore, for our students to escape joblessness and uselessness after graduation, there are a number of questions they ought to ask whose understanding will better position them to learn and develop the right skills they will need to transcend the life after school. It is such important questions we will be asking and providing answers along with other posts on different topics. The radical understanding of which we believe will better keep them focus and help them achieve the very best ‘results’ in all their involvements in any citadel of learning.

If we adequately use it well, the power of questioning and doubting is the needed tool to improve our lives and societies. Never stop asking plausible questions as a student: It will lead you to discover the truth. And the wellbeing of your future is attached to it.

By Akerele Segun Helen

Read the next post WHY MUST I GO TO SCHOOL?. Also read UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF EDUCATION. Go back home.