Written by: Hamid Akbari, Ph.D. Dean of College of Business, Winona State University 

 

Saying "I don't know" is a necessary condition for engaging in lifelong learning and enhancing one's intellectual vitality. Mahatma Gandhi reminds us to: "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." The idea is to be on your toes in terms of curiosity and learning throughout one's life. This happens in a natural way when we are born and through our infancy and early childhood years. During those years, we are filled with curiosity and zeal for learning about the things we don't know. This should resonate well with the joy and frustrations experienced by parents answering the incessant "why" questions of their young children. Unfortunately, a lot of children, as Einstein believes, stop asking questions and are rather expected to answer the questions once they begin formal schooling. In a way, they're expected to state what they know based on someone else's knowledge rather than asking question based on their curiosity. Thus, if the necessary condition for lifelong learning is saying "I don't know," asking questions provides the sufficient condition as a mode of inquiry and learning.

 

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