For Teachers of Students Who Don’t Ask Questions

While reading Peter Kreeft’s book, Socratic Logic, I came across this anecdote that all teachers will appreciate:

There is a story that Aristotle, after one of his lectures, was disappointed that his students had no questions afterwards, so he said, “My lecture was about levels of intelligence in the universe, and I distinguished three such levels: gods, men, and brutes.  Men are distinguished from both gods and brutes by questioning, for the gods know too much to ask questions and the brutes know too little.  So if you have no questions, shall I congratulate you for having risen to the level of the god, or insult you for having sunk to the level of brutes?”