Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

The free exchange of diverse, even conflicting views through questioning is at the heart of universities’ core mission and commitment of nurturing an open and diverse community dedicated to learning.

On addressing their students, educators in all ages from a variety of institutes have achieved a consensus of the key terms concerning free speech on campus:

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“Questioning”, according to Socratic philosophy, is the “act of processing and critically thinking about the productive use of information and coming to one’s own conclusions”(Woodruff 15). Students embrace these conclusions because they feel that the ideas are theirs, from conception to conclusion. This metacognitive activity “enables students to be autonomous learners, empowering them to control their learning”(Hunkins 19). Responses to the ancient philosophy are made then in the 2016 published speech of “Free Speech Is the Basis of a True Education”. Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, defines “productive and informed questioning” to “involve challenging assumptions, arguments and conclusions”. Zimmer also points out “questioning” is bred in “the free exchange of ideas”, the atmosphere in which “everyone can contribute and flourish, argument is relished, not feared... it is the freedom to actively join the debate as a full participant. It is about creating a context in which genuine debate can happen”(Zimmer, 2016). Similarly, Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard University, when delivering the 2017 Commencement Speech, reminds universities to see to their core educational mission--- “to provide students with the most enriching education possible”, and educational commitment--- to practice the notion that “truth cannot simply be claimed, but must be established through reasoned argument, assessment, and even sometimes uncomfortable challenges that provide the foundation for truth.”(Faust, 2017)

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Guided by the core mission and commitment of university, to offer students the most enriching education possible and equip them with the ability to establish truth requires efforts in questioning. For students, questioning brings out what uniquely belongs to themselves. By raising questions they are pushed to rethink what they breed in mind and remodel their mental productions. Just as how Woodruff, classicist and the dean at The University of Texas, describes the speciality of questioning by affirming that “nothing is more important to education than the resources that learners bring to it”(Woodruff, 27). For faculty, by employing the methodology of encouraging students to question, they consolidate the mutual relationship through interaction. It is implied through the philosopher Plato’s writing that Socrates would encourage his pupils to ask carefully crafted questions in an effort to get them closer to the truth through their own examination of a subject(Robinson, 2017). Thus it establishes a cooperative relationship between educator and student and empowers the student to take control over the interaction. As the controlling agency shifts, teachers are pushed to update their teaching resources in fear of falling behind the questioning from students. So in questioning, both students and faculty are engaged not only academically but emotionally to become more deliberate and calculated as they articulate their research need.

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Deliberate and calculated thinking, which turns out to be the direct fruit of questioning, encounters an unavoidable collision of a variety of ideas, including unorthodox even offensive ones. Being critical is a large part of deliberate and calculated thinking, allowing a person to not only seek out all information he already knows, but to also accept unexpected findings. A 2008 research conducted by Assessment and Qualifications Alliance illustrates the procedure of critical thinking: asking informational questions which the person knows the common answers; examine the answers in the light of the evidence that supports or refutes it; synthesizing the findings by applying the new information learned from questioning and discussing(Mulnix,44). Usually the discovery of the “new” and “unexpected” during in procedure poses a threat to the steadfastly accepted concepts. A scientist, for example, if discovering the results of an experiment contradicts what is expected, causes a tremendous tumult in his field. But those who bring out the unexpected ideas do not intend their ideas to be threatening; it is their deviation from popular commonsense, moreover, forceful questioning, that is marginalized as “unorthodox” even “offensive”.

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Only when the academic atmosphere on campus is inclusive enough can the attainment of those “unorthodox” even “offensive” ideas be possible, which means an environment that supports the free exchange of ideas should be present. When everyone possesses the freedom to actively join the debate as a full and equal participant, viewpoints put forth that are thought by some or even by most members of the university community to be offensive, unwise, or wrong-headed are not suppressed(Whittington, 2018), as controversial speech and robust debate are expected in an inclusive environment. As the ancient Chinese saying goes: “To let the arts have free expression and the schools of thoughts contend without restrictions.”

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Conclusively, questioning embodies a diversity of ideas, and universities facilitate an environment of free exchange of ideas to embrace diversity for the sake of educational mission and commitment. In this way, universities’ lifeblood is held in the tongue of free speech.

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Work Cited:

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Hunkins, Francis P. “Teaching Thinking Through Effective Questioning.”    Christopher-Gordon Publishing, Inc., 1989.

Faust, Drew Gilpin. “2017 Commencement Speech” May 25, 2017

<https://www.harvard.edu/president/speech/2017/2017-commencement-speech>

Mulnix, J. W. "Thinking critically about critical thinking". Educational         Philosophy      and Theory. 2001, 44.

Whittington, Keith E. “Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech”              <https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11356.html>

Woodruff, Paul. “Socratic Education.” Philosophers on Education: Historical     Perspectives, edited by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, London: Routledge, 1998,         14-31.

Robinson, Shannon Marie. “Socratic Questioning: A teaching philosophy for the    student research consultation”

<http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2017/socratic-questioning/>

Zimmer, Robert J. “Free Speech Is the Basis of a True Education” Aug. 26, 2016             <https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/22294133>