Conversations with students always leave me inspired. Recently, I was in an Akanksha school observing a math class on area and perimeter. As I walked around, I noticed a few students in a group had written “sq cm” for perimeter.

I bent over their desk and asked, “What does square centimeters mean?”

One student confidently said, “You write square cm for area.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why is it square cm and not just cm?”

Another student jumped in, “You write cm only for perimeter.”

Meanwhile, the student who had made the mistake started correcting her work, probably realizing the error. But before she could erase it, I stopped her.

“Wait. Let’s think about this.”

I took out my pen and drew a 3 × 2 grid on rough paper.

“What’s the area?” I asked.

A student counted the squares. “Six.”

“Great! Is there another way to find it?”

Another student said, “We can multiply! 3 × 2 or 2 × 3.”

“Perfect. Now, how do you write the answer with units?”

A student replied, “6 cm square… or square cm?”

And there it was again. Why?

I wasn’t able to get them to see it, so I tried one more time.

I drew a triangle with a base of 4 cm and a height of 2 cm inside a centimeter grid.

“What’s the area?”

One student used the formula.

Another counted the squares in the grid.

A third student… didn’t care (we all have that one kid, right?).

They all arrived at 4 cm², but I could tell they hadn’t fully connected the idea.

So, I explained: “Since you’re counting squares, you write ‘square cm.’ If you were counting cubes, you’d write ‘cubic cm.’”

And just when I thought the discussion was over, a student surprised me.

“What if it’s raised to the power of 4?”

I paused.

Square and cube make sense… but what about 4?

That’s when I smiled. I had asked this to teachers during a PD session once. And now, a 7th grader was asking me.

I asked, “Do you know the name of a four-dimensional shape?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I’ve read that time is the fourth dimension!”

Wow.

“That’s right! And what’s the name of a four-dimensional shape?”

I left him with that question. I hoped he’d say “tesseract,” but remembering words is not the point! These questions are everything you need.

Why Does This Matter?

This moment reminded me of something important:

Students don’t need to have all the answers. But they should never stop asking questions.

Sometimes, understanding comes before fluency. Other times, fluency comes before understanding. The order doesn’t matter—what matters is that students have the space to think, explore, and wonder.

And isn’t that what learning is all about?

I left that classroom smiling. Not because I had “taught” them something, but because they reminded me why I love teaching in the first place.

So, to all educators out there—let’s create classrooms where students feel free to ask, “What if it’s raised to the power of 4?”

What’s the best question a student has ever asked you?

Written by:

Rajat Sharma, Instruction Specialist for Mathematics at The Akanksha Foundation