Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

Are we going to be a nation?
If so, what form of government are we going to choose?
And how will the people be part of resolving it?
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to declare
independence from Great Britain and its tyrannical king. The next day John
Adams, in one of his famous letters to his wife, Abigail, wrote, “Yesterday, the
greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a
greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men.” From there, a
nation of ideas evolved.
Some 240 years later, O’Connor was worried. We were losing our sense of
history, civics, and our understanding of these big questions, she feared. Our
schools were failing us. As a parent, years earlier, she had been struck by how
little time her children and their friends spent studying how government worked.
It had only gotten worse. She felt young people urgently needed to learn what
“citizens have to do and decide” if they were to participate in the world around

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them.
The words hit me hard in this place, especially as I considered the polarizing,
paralyzing debate that passed for political discourse outside. Benjamin Franklin
had said, “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” But
citizens need to know whom to question and how, if they are to do it effectively.
Motivated by the conviction that citizens must understand the basics of
government if they are to question and change it, O’Connor started iCivics, an
online teaching tool that uses games and interactive exercises to help young
people learn how government works and how they can be part of the process. At
the time we spoke, more than 100,000 teachers and 3 million students had
visited iCivics, playing its educational video games more than 10 million times.
O’Connor wanted future generations to understand and to engage America’s
foundational questions:
What is the role of government?
How do we balance individual liberty with social responsibility?
What does responsible citizenship entail?
Justice O’Connor seemed as proud of her iCivics initiative as her years on
the bench. Hers was an astonishing career. She broke virtually every barrier that
got in her way. She made history in her own right as the first woman to serve on
the Supreme Court. But helping young people appreciate the American
experiment and what it asks of them as citizens was a mission that lit her up.
“I think we’ve achieved something,” she told me modestly.
Ask to Lead
Debbie Bial is passionate in her belief that young people who ask the next
generation’s questions will be its leaders. Debbie founded and runs The Posse
Foundation, an organization that identifies extraordinary high school students
based on their talents and leadership potential. Mostly from inner cities, the
“Posse scholars” are paired with colleges and universities that provide full
tuition. The groups of students that go to these schools are known as Posses.
They are the most engaged, motivated, and diverse kids you could ever meet.
When they get to campus, many take on leadership roles or start new student
organizations. Most are the first in their families to go to college. I have worked
with Posse scholars for years and served on the Posse Board. I’m a true believer.

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The Posse recruitment and selection process is structured around stimulating
and often intensely reflective questions. Debbie builds communication skills and
leadership qualities into the scholars’ experience by constantly asking them
about themselves and the world around them. At student gatherings, board
meetings, and staff retreats, Debbie uses question exercises as “catalysts for
dialogue.” She shows participants pictures or news stories about a topic that cuts
close to home—race, class, climate, the election—and asks: