Thunk Questions
What is a thunk question?
It's a type of question that makes you stop, think and consider alternative perspectives.
A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start looking at the world in a whole new light. Ian Gilbert 'The little book of Thunks'
Example of thunk from Ian Gilbert
With a water shortage looming could you harvest puddles? Who owns the water in them?
What colour is Tuesday?
Why are thunks important?
Why should we use thunks and what are the benefits?
Develop alternative perspectives
Develop thinking and problem solving
Improves creativity and innovation
Improves philosophical thinking
Improves understanding of how language plays an important role in thinking
Why do thunks work and what are other related ideas
Socratic method or Socratic dialogue
Questions help you to focus and invites you to think and answer them
Quote from Piaget “Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.” Thunks create this unknown space.
Language & communication is riddled with potholes (traps)
intentions
definitions,
pre-suppositions,
opinions,
assumptions,
approximations,
biases,
prejudices,
non-sequiturs
How to use thunks
create thunk questions
facilitate a discussion
How to create thunk questions
Combines opposing views
Combines alternative views
Combines a new perspective
Changes assumptions and inferences
using metaphors eg animals, gardens, popular modern activities
What images?
What social media post?
Apple versus windows?
Movie, character, book, magazine, cartoon
How it started
Matthew Lipman was a professor of philosophy in the USA. He used thunk questions to help children to think philosophically. This was further developed by Ian Gilbert who wrote a book called 'The little book of Thunks'.
In computer programming, a thunk is a subroutine used to inject a calculation into another subroutine.
Thunks are primarily used to delay a calculation until its result is needed, or to insert operations at the beginning or end of the other subroutine. They have many other applications in compiler code generation and modular programming.
The term originated as a whimsical irregular form of the verb think. It refers to the original use of thunks in ALGOL 60 compilers, which required special analysis (thought) to determine what type of routine to generate