(37th Entry) The power of asking questions…

Very seldom do I sit down to the computer with absolutely no idea what I am going to write about. People often wonder what I use for writing. They ask if I use voice recognition or… Actually voice recognition doesn’t work for me. The computer doesn’t understand me. I actually use a computer keyboard. I type 25 to 35 words per minute (I don’t really know.) depending on what I’m writing. I learned how to type on an old Underwood manual typewriter when I was very young. It’s much like the story of learning to play the drums. I just started playing, eventually made sense of the keyboard and over time began typing.

Curiosity is a wonderful thing. Over the years I’ve given many talks to school children. Kids are great. They have a natural curiosity. I knew that the teachers would have told the children all about me before I walked into the classroom. I can only guess at what the teachers might have said. When I would walk into the classroom, the teacher would introduce me. Usually the teacher would then walk to the back of the classroom.

I would simply turn around, write my name on the board in big letters, turn back around to the kids and say, “Hi, my name is Charlie and I was born this way. Do you have any questions?”

Side note: For this illustration I found there were two types of teachers. The first and most common was a reaction of shock on the face of the teacher. The second was a teacher who would smile, relax and lean against the wall. By that single cue I could tell in an instance what the next steps would be.

In the classroom where the teacher was uptight, I would inevitably have to coax the kids into asking questions. I would have to begin a conversation, saying more about myself and eventually ask the kids if they knew anyone with a disability. This would then almost always begin a dialogue.

In the classroom where the teacher was relaxed and smiled, the kids almost always jumped in with questions. These were the really enjoyable talks.

These really are the two choices that we have in life. How we approach life, live our lives.

My point in giving talks in this manner was to emphasize over and over that the only way that we can learn to understand others who are different than ourselves is to ask questions. I literally would repeat this multiple times during my talk.

Why is it that so many of us are afraid to ask questions? How can we begin to understand someone different than ourselves when we have no clue who they are or what they’ve been through? Without asking questions all we can do is assume. And we all know what that means!

Of course if we’re not even able to ask ourselves questions, then asking others is quit problematic. If we’ve asked questions and others have reacted negatively towards us, then this can make us shy away from asking again as well.

Well… I guess I had something to write about after all.