On last Sunday afternoon, while trying to make polite conversation with my four-year-old granddaughter, I asked her a dumb question: “Did you have school this week?”
“No,” she replied sleepily.
This surprised me so I followed up. “Why?”
She got a faraway look. “I don’t know. It’s probably summer break.”
It was at this point that I realized the problem. We were talking late on a Sunday afternoon, near the end of an active and eventful weekend, during which her family had hosted lots of visitors and also had gone on a beach outing.
From her perspective, she hadn’t been in school for any of that. And at the age of four, she’s probably still in the process of working out what a week is, actually, and how it differs from a weekend.
As for the issue of whether it’s summer as or not right now, that may well be one of the disadvantages of growing up in California. You’re never quite sure what season it is out here.
The incident reminded me of exercises I used to conduct in my classes for journalism students on interviewing techniques. I’d recommend that reporters should always try to be aware of how the structure of their questions might influence and sometimes even dictate the answers they receive in return.
Of course, many reporters elicit specific answers deliberately, especially with bad guys. (Just watch “60 Minutes.”)
But the best reporters try to elicit the truth, as opposed to the answer they want to hear. There’s often a very big difference.
Then again, it’s worth noting the unexpected value of simply asking dumb questions, in journalism or in life.
Which leads me back to the conversation I had with my granddaughter. Perhaps a smarter question would have been “What did you do at school?” But then I might never have learned that we’re already on summer break out here!
(This piece is from January 2023.)
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