Questions Vs. Knowing the Answers

Fairy tales can be written in such fashion as to promote questions, as opposed to just delivering answers. It is a curious but historically understandable feature of our current learning systems that questions take a back seat to answers and yet, it is clear that our society's path forward requires the ability of students - at any age - to continually ask questions. In elementary school science we learn "the answer" as to why the apple falls. What if this material was presented so that students instead wondered how the apple got up there in the first place? This could lead students to a series of questions that would open up new worlds of inquiry. We can only imagine where such students would eventually take our world. The concept of gravity is a linear one - what goes up, must come down - but the additional question of "how did the apple get up there?" will expose the student to systems thinking - without ever speaking the term out loud.