On the Asking of Questions

Abstract

I had just left a class that I held to have been an utter failure, and I was walking disconsolately back to my office carrying my books and papers. I felt as I supposed the tragic Sisyphus might have as he pushed that rock up the hill: engaged in a useless and frustratingly endless task. In this particular class we had been discussing John Updike’s The Centaur, a novel I have over the years adored, and one I considered an appropriate final text from which to read in a Foundations of Education class occupied by first- and second-year students who were studying to become teachers.