The value of wonder

In a world with instant answers, asking questions is the skill that matters.

This essay first appeared in the April 2026 newsletter of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) (full transparency: I’m a proud Board member). NAMLE is the largest membership organization dedicated to media literacy education in the United States, and reaches thousands of K-12 educators across the country. If you want to support the teachers helping young people navigate an uncertain world, consider giving a donation.

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🎧 Listen | 5:18 mins

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Just look it up.

It feels like this is now the default answer for every question these days. Even small moments of curiosity get truncated by the ability to just look it up.

Unfamiliar with something on the menu at dinner? Let’s not ask our server who’s trained to talk about food. Quick, google it before they come back!

Noticed an interesting flower on this morning’s walk? Let’s send a pic to ChatGPT. We must know what it is right now!

I jest – mostly. There is, of course, a certain power and something magical about having the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. But how will our ability to learn on demand change the way we think? The way we ask questions? Our willingness to sit in our own wonder?

Anyone who has taught knows the feeling of looking out at a silent classroom. And anyone who has been a student knows the fear of raising your hand. Asking questions has always been a fraught experience; it exposes yourself as someone who doesn’t know something that others already do.

Now that I’m at an age where younger people come to me for advice, I’m realizing how much of my own life has been enriched by my comfort with not knowing things. Not willful ignorance, of course. But there is a certain resilience that can only come with going through the process of learning, and being okay with looking a little lost along the way.

For example, I was never the best math student. But I didn’t have to fear math tests because my teachers credited showing your work as much as getting the right answer. The act of trying – of communicating your thinking in your long division or geometry proof – was what mattered most.

I’ve taken that philosophy to places far beyond the classroom. After college, I moved abroad and spent time in places where I don’t speak the local language. Could I whip out my phone to translate simple orders at the bakery? Sure. But it’s much more rewarding (and often faster) to find commonalities with people – like the universal language of pointing and miming – rather than focusing on how to overcome my limitations.

It’s a mindset that does more than open you up to unexpected moments of laughter over a baguette. It also builds your confidence and resilience in moments of uncertainty.

Somewhere in France, feeling confident and capable post-baguette | Source: Jena Wuu

Here’s the tension though. Young people are entering a work culture that rewards algorithmic thinking above almost everything else. Employers’ fervor to incorporate AI in as many workflows as possible is creating a standard that doing more is the same as doing better. And in this job market – especially for young people competing with machines for entry-level work – digital fluency is no longer a special skill on your resume but a basic necessity.

So the pressure is on. To know things faster. To communicate with certainty. Because that’s how the LLMs do it.

But being comfortable in curiosity and rushing to know things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Because in our new world, asking questions is a core technical skill. There may be no bad questions, but when using AI there are definitely better and worse ways to formulate one.

And there are bad answers, presented as complete. AI makes answers cheap and instant, so our role as humans is to interrogate what it gives us. We need to know where there’s context that the AI can’t be aware of. Understand where there are outliers and exceptions. And make decisions on where and how to apply the outputs AI offers us.

Technology can only replace human judgment if we allow it to. Those who will thrive are the ones who use it as a tool – not a crutch.

As is so often the case, teachers are on the front lines of helping young people navigate all of this. Nobody knows what the future will look like. And it’s no small task to prepare students for a world that rewards certainty while offering none.

That’s why it’s such an honor to serve on the NAMLE Board. This community has always understood that teaching students to think is different from just teaching them to know. And that distinction has never mattered more.

Because even if the world runs on 1s and 0s, life doesn’t. And that’s one of its best features. ◾