Reflection 54 – Asking The RIGHT Questions

As someone who taught for several years, you always encourage students to ask questions in order to foster their knowledge. With time, I learned that not all questions are useful! You need to guide students to ask the RIGHT questions because sometimes you can be dragged into useless conversations, and this applies to every aspect of our lives. I used to teach research methods at AUC (a boring class to say the least ), and of course the most essential part in any proper scientific research begins with asking the RIGHT research question. One of the fundamentals in such questions is to avoid asking what is commonly known as double-barreled questions; in other words, asking two questions in the same question! What really got me to remember those boring academic examples is nothing more than ALS, and especially in the last year when I lost my voice and before being connected through Tobii.
Probably the most severe time in my life was during my stay at the ICU. In just a matter of days, my entire life was turned upside down. From the comfort of my family and my house, I found myself laying in this strange place with all those strangers SUDDENLY taking control of my life; from doctors to nurses to caregivers! Who are ALL those people?! Not only this, but I can‘t communicate anymore. I was definitely not prepared for this stage and I had no idea it goes hand in hand with the ventilator. Anyhow, there I laid helpless and cutoff from the world. Any communication from now on had to be in the sort of questions that I needed to answer. And this is when I realized the importance of asking the RIGHT questions. Typically with such a case like mine, you must stick to YES or NO questions, and you should avoid asking me those stupid (sorry, I have to spell it out ) double-barreled questions (if you already forgot what this term means, then you should look up once again and maybe have your memory checked ). Asking yes or no questions are easy to answer with a nod or any other facial gesture. But when people insist on asking me those double-trouble questions, then I need to move my lips with the correct answer. And take it from someone who learned it the hard way, most people are horrible in lip reading, and of course I don‘t blame them for that. One more last piece of advice in case you run someday into someone like me.
When you can‘t understand someone for whatever reason, then you need to know WHAT to ask. Some of those around me were clever enough to figure this on their own. So, they would begin by ruling out certain scenarios and asking me multiple yes or no questions to identify the exact issue I am struggling with. For example, is it something about my body; is it the lower half; is it the upper half; am I in pain and so on. Of course, you need tons of questions to arrive to what I really need, but at least asking the proper questions leads you into the right way. On the other hand, asking wrong questions would get me (and actually still gets me) very quickly both infuriated and frustrated! This whole painful but beneficial experience brought me back to how small toddlers get cranky when they are not able to express themselves clearly in words!
My Advice: YOU, being able to talk, is a blessing beyond your imagination, so you might as well use it in something beneficial for yourself and others. And if we meet one day and Tobii is not working for whatever reason, make sure to ask the RIGHT questions or else I will kill you .