Max Pfingsten, who comes from US and is the philosophy teacher, shared his view why at UWC, questions are more important than answers? "Answers are for followers. Questions are for leaders. UWC is here to train the leaders of tomorrow, to think from new perspectives, to analyze the ideas of others and come up with their own, original ideas, to make the big decisions and discoveries that will impact, not just their lives, but the lives of people all around the world.”

My name is Max. I teach philosophy at UWC Changshu.

Max at office

I can imagine the surprise on your face, dear reader. Surely, you must be thinking. 

"Philosophy? Really? He teaches philosophy? Why? What for?"

I’ll admit, philosophy seems like a very obscure topic to be teaching to high school students.

And if all I was teaching my students was “what did Confucius say?” or “What did Plato say?” Then I agree, it’s pretty worthless, unless they’re trying to impress people at a party.

However, my job as an IB philosophy teacher is not so much teaching the content of philosophy. Rather, my task is to teach students how to philosophize, how to think for themselves and come to their own understanding.

This approach is not unique to philosophy. In every discipline at UWC, from economics to physics, from history to mathematics, we teachers strive to have students actually understand the subject, come up with their own methods, and find their own answers, rather than simply following the methods and memorizing the answers of the past. 

We’re not teaching students WHAT to think, but rather HOW to think, how to use their minds to make sense of the world around them, and their place within it.

At the heart of this approach is a very simple value: At UWC, questions are more important than answers.

A machine can answer a question. No matter how good you are at math, a calculator will always be faster. No matter how good your memory is, a book is far better at recording information. Indeed, with the internet, we have thousands of answers at our finger tips instantaneously. The skills we need today are not memorization, or application. In this digital age, the most important skill is being able to determine which the RIGHT answers are.

That’s why questions are so important. Questions are how we determine which answers are good, and which ones are bad. Today’s problems are the result of yesterday’s bad answers. We need to reexamine the answers of yesterday, and find what helps us, and what hurts us. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes, and end up with the same problems.

More importantly, questions are how we find new answers. Today we need new answers more than ever before. We will not solve today’s problems by using the answers of yesterday. We will never discover a new formula by memorizing old formulae. We will never invent anything new by slavishly copying the old. We will never find a better way to live and prosper sustainably if we continue to cling to old, unsustainable paradigms.    

As King Wu Ling, of the Kingdom of Zhao said over 2000 years ago, “A talent for knowing the ways of yesterday is not sufficient to improve the world of today”.

With students during Project Week 

Finally, answers are for followers. Questions are for leaders. UWC is here to train the leaders of tomorrow, to think from new perspectives, to analyze the ideas of others and come up with their own, original ideas, to make the big decisions and discoveries that will impact, not just their lives, but the lives of people all around the world.

I am so honored to be part of that process, and so excited to see what these leaders of tomorrow come up with!