“Something we forget is that, in order to serve the students, we also must serve the teachers. We nourish that curiosity, the learning, and we spark that thinking — new thinking, among people who have tremendous expertise — then you really are onto something.” ~ Patty Gómez

Patty Gómez is a teacher and chair of the World Language Department at an independent school in southern Florida. Originally a material science engineer, she brought her problem-solving chops to teaching and sought tools to help her do her job well.

One of those tools is the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), a curiosity-centric thinking protocol from the Right Question Institute.

Seeing the model’s success in her classroom, Patty imagined its potential for her department as well.

This is a conversation about the rewards of being brave, the advantages of agreed-upon processes, and the joys of collaborative discovery.

What I love about the Question Formulation Technique is that we get to be a little bit more in charge of the process. We leave it less to chance. We don’t control the outcome — that’s the beauty of it, we just don’t know what the outcome would be — but we can definitely be sure we’re going to set curiosity in motion.

Listen to Choose to Be Curious #278: Question Formulation & Cultivating a Collaborative Culture of Curiosity, with Patty Gómez.

This is the story that led me to Patty Gómez.

I’ve had the pleasure of featuring The Right Question Institute (RQI) and its wonderful work twice before:

The Right Question Institute with Andrew Minigan: The Right Question Institute has pioneered an elegant and deceptively simple way to generate more and better questions, no matter who you are or what your circumstances. Andrew Minigan, PhD, then Director of Strategy for RQI’s Education Program, joined me to explain.

The Right Questions for Legal Empowerment, with Naomi Campbell: Naomi Campbell directs RQI’s Legal Empowerment program, leading RQI’s efforts to promote the adoption of the Right Question Strategy in legal practice settings serving low-income communities. The work is aimed at offering a simple way to integrate capacity-building into practice at the micro-level, as part of a systemic change strategy at the macro-level.

Learn more about the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). Check the events calendar for upcoming trainings.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Entrance Shaft 11” by The Depot, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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