Finding the color of the sky: Inquiry in teacher preparation

Defending Public SchoolsVolume II

Teaching for a Democratic Society

EDITED BY

KATHLEEN R. KESSON AND E. WAYNE ROSS

Praeger Perspectives

— 2 —

Finding the Color of the Sky:Inquiry in Teacher Preparation

CECELIA TRAUGH

Sometimes I think the conditions of everyday oppressions, of survival, renderso much of our imagination inert. We are constantly putting out fires and find-ing temporary refuge, which makes it difficult to see anything beyond thepresent. As the great poet Willie Kgositsile put it, “When the clouds clear/Weshall know the colour of the sky.” When movements have been unable to clearthe clouds, it has been the poets—no matter the medium—who have succeededin imagining the color of the sky, in rendering the kinds of dreams and futuressocial movements are capable of producing. Knowing the color of the sky isfar more important than counting clouds. To put it another way, the most radi-cal art is not protest art, but works that take us to another place, allowing usto envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.1

We live in a time, I believe, when human liberties and democratic values arethreatened and, within this context, a time when Americans seem to haveforgotten (or at least set aside) the vision of public education as a vehiclefor furthering large democratic purposes. I begin this chapter with this pas-sage from Robin Kelley because I think he describes a condition of our bodypolitic generally and in schools and teacher education, particularly. The en-forced circumscription of daily life in schools and classrooms drains our en-ergy, deadens our thinking and imagination, and helps us forget the humanroots of education. However, he opens up a possibility. As poets, we “clearthe clouds” and “know the color of the sky.” For me, and I think for Kelley,this means we work to be clear about human and democratic values and

18 Defending Public Schools

through those values “envision a different way of seeing . . . a different wayof feeling,” a different way of creating relationship.

Alongside this passage I put a metaphor spoken in other times of greatconstraint in public schools by a friend, colleague, and supporter of grassrootsteacher activism, Lillian Weber. She urged all educators to “find the cracks.”2

This idea always brings to my mind the image of a crack in a cement side-walk or an asphalt parking lot through which blades of grass or dandelionsare growing. Left alone, that growing thing will contribute to the crumblingof the pavement. Working with teachers in New York City’s public schools,I frequently share Lillian’s image in the hope of their seeing possibilities foraction in their daily teaching lives. The metaphor is appreciated and readilyunderstood by most everyone; however, the process of finding a crack andknowing what seeds to plant is less clear.

Together Weber and Kelley speak of what teachers need to be able to doin order to “wake up” and fulfill their educational and human responsibili-ties to their students. Seeing the color of the sky and defining our aspira-tions in terms of large human values will make us better able to find cracks,see the possibilities in those cracks, and know what seeds to plant in them.In this chapter, I discuss descriptive inquiry as one way to help teachers bethe poets they need to be to educate children in deep and liberating ways. Ibegin with descriptions of context, that is, Kelley’s “conditions of everydayoppressions,” of descriptive inquiry itself, and of the conflicts teacher edu-cators must confront when these two different energies come together. I thendescribe how several teachers have used descriptive inquiry to find cracks,see differently, and grow as educators of children.

EVERYDAY OPPRESSIONS

The stories I relate here were originally told by New York City teachersworking in the public schools while earning their teacher certification andmaster’s degrees in education at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus.3

New York City schools are engaged in a massive effort to improve the qual-ity of public school education and raise the standards of the education chil-dren receive. The system is trying to re-create itself by standardizing contentand practice. “On the ground,” this standardization translates into controlover how classroom time is spent, how classroom space is organized, howteachers respond to and even see children, and how teachers grow and de-velop in and through their work. These stories are examples of only a fewof the ways teachers and children have their imaginations and thinking ren-dered inert, their visions of each other as human beings dangerously nar-rowed, and the potential of their relationship, the core of teaching andlearning, diminished significantly.

A teacher in his second year tells of being handed the mandated dailyschedule. He immediately realized that he was “out of compliance.”

Finding the Color of the Sky 19

That morning I had finished a two-day read aloud and discussion of the bookAnnie and the Old One. The story is about an old grandmother and her grand-daughter who does not want her to die. The granddaughter does many dis-ruptive things to prevent the rug from being finished since that is when the“Old One” has announced she will return to the earth. There was so much todiscuss and the kids were so engaged that I made the decision to just let thediscussion flow. . . . We ended up spending about 2 hours on this book andthe various dilemmas it presented.

This teacher was significantly “out of compliance,” as the mandated time for“Content Area/Literacy Centers and Guided Reading/ Conferring” was halfan hour, and if he had been “caught,” the consequences could have beenserious.

In a journal entry in her Classroom Inquiry course, a special educationteacher wrote of how she uses her anecdotal reports to document her children’sproblems with learning and behavior. As her professor, I challenged her onthis practice and asked what would happen if she described what the childrenwere able to do and the gains they were making alongside their weaknessesand misbehaviors. She told me that her supervisors require her to only writeabout the problems her children have. “Otherwise, how could we make a caseto parents?” This teacher’s circumstance is elaborated by a kindergarten teacherwho wants to use inquiry to tackle a difficult question. She asks:

How can teachers meet the needs of kindergarteners that are already labeledas learning disabled? This is one question that definitely boggles my mind. Howdoes a child at such a young age get stuck with a label that is going to carrythrough with them throughout their school years, before they are able to writetheir names or read a word in a book? . . . Whatever happened to “all childrenlearn and develop differently?” This concern has made me paranoid, because ithas me looking at my own [five-year-old] child a little more closely, wonder-ing if she is retaining and learning information “appropriate” for her age.

A student in an advanced Classroom Inquiry course selected the follow-ing passage in a teacher research text as important to think about:

If one of the goals of staff development is to “get everyone to do the samething,” then teacher research would be a bad model to follow. If, however, thegoal is to get each teacher to look more critically at teaching and learning (ratherthan acting as thoughtless drones who “implement the program,”) then en-abling teachers to become reflective practitioners could be one of the best formsof staff development.4

She responded to that passage as follows:

The goal of staff development at our school is, in fact, to get everyone to dothe same thing. It is more like a staff training in a new curriculum, or in a new


teaching method, being passed on—handed down, to be implemented by us,who are required to behave during staff training sessions as if we are “thought-less drones.” I do not see any real development of teachers taking place, be-cause we are not asked to reflect on our practices—past or present—or to con-tribute to the discussion. . . . In the teacher education I am receiving (at LIU),I am expected to think (question) reflectively on varied information gatheredduring teacher research and analyze how each piece might be of benefit to [my]students. At the same time, the profession demands that I behave contrary tomy training, that I should not think “out of the box,” that I should believe inself-contained special education classrooms instead of the inclusive model, thatI should accept a points-reward system as the only one that can satisfactorilywork for my students. In order for me not to have to shift between two gears,I have to enact the best form of staff development on my own and constantlyreflect on my practice.

Why do I name elements of these stories as “everyday oppressions”? Becauserendered inert as thinkers, imaginers, and seekers of meaning, teachers be-come “objects” and become subject to manipulation, and they, in turn, edu-cate children into habits of mindlessness.

DESCRIPTIVE INQUIRY IN TEACHER PREPARATION5

In arguing for the inclusion of teacher research in the knowledge basesfor teaching, we are not simply equating teacher research with practitionerknowledge or with any kind of writing by a teacher, nor are we attemptingto attach to the term teacher the higher status term researcher in order toalter common perceptions of the profession. Rather, we are proposing thatteacher research makes accessible some of the expertise of teachers and pro-vides both university and school communities with unique perspectives onteaching and learning.6

The teacher educators in the School of Education, Long Island Univer-sity, Brooklyn programs believe that helping students of teaching learn howto approach teaching as inquiry enables them to approach work in classroomsand with children as primary source material, develop a consciously criticalstance, and begin to imagine different ways to think about and work in theirschool settings. Collaborative descriptive teacher inquiry plays an importantrole in helping students learn how to reimagine and rework settings thatdon’t work for children. For us as teacher educators, inquiry helps reworkthe balance between theory and practice so we can better help our studentsground learning in prior knowledge, direct experience, and work with chil-dren.

Descriptive inquiry asks educators to observe and describe their work andthe work of their students. Through disciplined processes, these educatorsraise questions about teaching and learning and generate new approaches and


understandings. The inquiry processes help create inquiry communities inschools and other educational settings. In these communities, participantswork together to imagine/create shared educational visions, learn new waysto talk about students and their capacities, and develop an educational dis-course based both on human values and on what is particular to the schooland its people.

Descriptive inquiry aims at the development of a stance, a way of look-ing. This stance is distinguished by several qualities.7

• It is a stance that does not seek the authority of the quick or single/universalanswer. It works not to frame issues as “either/or.” It works to enliven the imagi-nation.

• It is a stance that recognizes the limits of our knowledge of other people and ofthe world around us. It tells us that we have to work to keep dialogue open andfluid. When we get stuck in only seeing in the way “it is supposed to be,” wecan’t see what else is or could be there.

• It is a stance that rests in our “living” the question and in the connections ques-tions allow us to make. This allows us to both contextualize and deepen anyunderstandings that come through that living and to bring difference to the tableand keep it there.

Conflicts Generated when Different Energies Come Together

Teacher educators at LIU, Brooklyn, are committed to having descrip-tive inquiry as a core of the program. Our aim is to develop teachers who,as active inquirers, observe, describe, reflect on teaching and learning prac-tices, and know how to frame meaningful questions. This commitment putsinto play a set of values that differs in many ways from those values currentlybeing enacted in New York City schools, the schools in which our studentsteach or hope to. Overall, these differences are about conflicting visions ofwhat it means to educate. Particularly, some of these differences include:8

• Standardization and, in turn, a kind of simplification and objectification of peopleand of educational issues in contrast to the variety and complexity that comes fromincluding individual voices, questions, and differences;

• Prescriptive questions and expert answers in contrast to ongoing inquiry and theacknowledgment of the limits of our knowledge;

• Rule-based teaching methods and teacher-proof materials in contrast to viewingteachers as practical intellectuals who can learn to exercise professional judgmentand to teach in ways responsive to the children and particular context of the class-room;

• A focus on children’s problems and what they can’t do in contrast to recogniz-ing and describing children as filled with diverse and multifaceted capacities; and

• A focus on punishment in contrast to developing relationship and community.


DESCRIPTIVE INQUIRY IN ACTION

Jeannette9 was introduced to observing and describing as modes of in-quiry and knowledge making in her first semester of her undergraduate pro-gram. She learned to describe children using the format of the DescriptiveReview of the Child.10 This offered her a way of seeing and thinking aboutchildren that was entirely new to her and to her classmates. Jeannette hadto consider and make room for this different way of seeing and thinkingalongside her habitual ways of considering children and how they are in class-rooms and other settings. Completing a Descriptive Review was the begin-ning place for Jeannette’s reconsideration. The work she did laid the groundfor becoming an observer of children and understanding them in their termsand so giving them room to be persons in their own right. It also laid groundfor her to reconsider the role of the teacher. This ground became a place towhich she returned as she proceeded through the program and reflected onher readiness for teaching.

Jeannette’s first close description was of a natural object, a branch. Shedescribes this first attempt this way:

I began from the stem and then worked myself out to the different branches.Drawing the branches was pretty simple but it became difficult when I tried todraw the individual leaves. The leaves took on different shapes, shades and full-ness. In sections where I had most difficulty drawing exactly what I saw, I drewwhat I felt would be closest to what I saw. At first I believed I wouldn’t havegreat difficulty drawing the branch, but then I realized that I was incorrect.Half way through the drawing I knew that I would not be able to draw it ex-actly as I saw the branch, but I would come as close as possible. The drawingturned out all right but it taught me that I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.11

Jeannette names here some basic truths about knowing and representingwhat we know. What seems simple, a branch, in reality is complex. In hereffort to capture what she sees, she is not able to do it exactly, perfectly. Herdrawing must be an approximation, as any effort to capture reality and notover-simplify it must be. Jeannette also notes that she needs to resist mak-ing snap, habituated judgments.

Reflecting on the Descriptive Review she developed this first semester inher education as a teacher, Jeannette connects not judging with developingunderstanding. In addition, she includes a new idea about teaching: It is okayto have questions and to keep them open. It is okay not to have an answer,especially if that answer comes in the form of a label for a child.

It is strange, but the thought that keeps coming up to my mind is the answerthat I had given on the first day of this teaching and learning course. . . . “Ihave a habit of having to know the answers. If there is something that is leftunanswered, then I am not content and it will eventually get the best of me. I


need to learn to accept the fact that I will not always have or get an answer.”And this is actually what this descriptive review has helped me to learn. I havebecome better at dealing with questions left unanswered. I have come to real-ize that not all unanswered questions are a sign of inability. Instead, I can nowlook at a question as a foundation on which to build. The process has taughtme not to strive for short conquests (categorizing a child) by trying to answerall questions, but instead to gain greater triumphs (understanding a child).12

Jumping ahead two years to Jeannette’s student teaching semester, we findher writing another Descriptive Review. A couple of things stand out to mein this work. One is that she uses this review as a place to think about a childwho poses problems for her and for her cooperating teacher. This is unusual,as student teachers often feel vulnerable and protect themselves from poten-tial critique.

The main reason why I chose to write about Franky was that I found him tobe a challenge. I could have written about other students in the class, but Frankymade me wonder as a future teacher, how can I or will I ever be able to reachthis child? My first instinct when it came to writing this paper was to avoid anystudents that may pose a problem for me, but this I realized was simply beinga coward. How can I avoid a child who needs help? Whether or not I find theprocess of trying to reach a child difficult should not be the cause for not at-tempting to do what the child expects and needs of me.13

A second point I highlight is Jeannette’s efforts to capture this child’s com-plexities. Even though he is “difficult” to work with, Jeannette wants to seehis various sides. She works to aptly describe Franky and so honors him. Thefollowing are examples I have pulled out of the full Descriptive Review. Ichose this first passage because, in it, Jeannette tries to capture a compli-cated point through description.

As for the adults, I find that Franky is at most times more helpful than coop-erative. What I mean is that he is usually easier about helping an adult set upthings, or put away things, than he is about having to behave a certain way.He simply doesn’t appreciate being reminded what he should or shouldn’t bedoing. If he is being asked by the teacher to sit down and listen or don’t dothat, at times he’ll get angry and yells, “Oh my God!” and he’ll stump off with-out permission and doesn’t return even when he’s being asked to do so by theteacher.

In this second passage, the generosity of the descriptive space Jeannette iscreating is increasingly evident.

It is apparent that Franky does have some behavioral and academic difficulties,but I would like to end this child study on a good note by saying that Frankyhas had some really good moments. One day during Spanish writing the class


was asked to look up “n” words in their books by the substitute teacher. It tookFranky a few minutes longer than it should have taken him, but eventually hedid start. He walked over to the bookshelf, picked up the bin of books withthe green labels on it (he did this on his own) and brought it to the table. Hetook his sheet of paper and pencil and began looking for the “n” words. Atone point he even started helping the other students. “Here, you can use thisbook. There are some “n” words in it.” At times, a couple of the other stu-dents would accept his help and take the book from him to write their ownlists. As I observe him, I can see how confident he appears to be. He is focusedand appears to be a real serious worker. As he glances through the book, I cansee a spark every time he finds an “n” word. He actually enjoys finding thesewords and has even said, “I am good at finding words.” This is Franky’s sec-ond time at looking for Spanish words in the books and on both occasionsFranky has had a positive experience because I feel that he believes that he isat this point at the same level as everyone else, which is something that doesn’treally happen quite often. This time around, Franky didn’t only work well onhis own and did a good job about writing his word list, but he in turn was alsoable to help another student. What a moment.14

This work with the Descriptive Review and the inquiry it fosters is basic tothe stance toward children Jeannette is developing. I find her stance to bedescriptive and generous. Elements of that stance are the importance of:

• trying to go beyond the simple surface of things and capture the complexity ofreality;

• rather than falling back on quick judgments, working to understand by aimingto see multiple facets and so more than one possibility in children and in events;

• keeping questions open as an element in the development of understanding ofchildren and teaching.

Terri15 was introduced to observing and describing as modes of inquiryand knowledge making in her second semester as a master’s student in spe-cial education through learning to use the format of the Descriptive Reviewof the Child. This experience was followed in the fall of 2003 with a courserequiring her to document and study an aspect of her teaching practice. ForTerri, it was the question-raising process that was deeply important.

Initially I wanted to focus my study on the role of fear in my classroom man-agement. However, after weeks of observation and personal reflection, my ques-tion about my proposed topic began to change. The more I observed mystudents, the more questions kept popping up. I realized that classroom man-agement couldn’t be based on fear because the fear factor in controlling howothers behave can backfire. In other words, the students may adhere to rulesand regulations only because they are afraid of repercussions from me. This doesnothing to teach them why they must follow certain rules. All of this was onmy mind.


At the same time, I also began to see that what I wanted for my classroomhad to be part of a broader scope. If I want to be a good teacher, then I haveto do things that would leave a lasting impression on my students. I realizedthat one cannot be an effective teacher in a classroom where the students areout of control and the teacher is stressed out and unable to manage behavioralproblems. . . . There is no argument that good teachers need excellent class-room management skills.

However, I wanted more than that. I wanted my students to know as theygrow older and are no longer in my classroom that they must still be respon-sible for what they do. The way we live our lives as teacher or students (in thiscase) will impact on the quality of our lives. So the focus of my study will beon how I can teach my students the importance of making right choices overwrong ones.

As far as the focus of my study, my research is more clearly defined. Fromclassroom management and fear to helping students make right choices, mystudy has changed over time. Now, I think it has a more positive theme, thatis, of really helping my students as opposed to trying to find a punishment tosuit every infraction. I also know that I must serve as a role model and do thingsthat constantly involve them in making their lives better.16

Terri’s inquiry has opened up for her some very large questions: What areright decisions? What are wrong ones? What role does a teacher’s moral andethical position play in her teaching? These are questions that have been partof philosophical debate for scores of years. There are no simple answers.Terri’s willingness to raise the question about fear as she did early in thesemester and then to let her question evolve as she talked to children andsaw her behavior and relationships with them through their eyes is a “cloudclearing” in Kelley’s terms. It shows a kind of courage needed to imagineand make profound changes in practice.

Andréa. My last example is a brief story told by a New York City Teach-ing Fellow, a master’s level student in her second year of teaching. She toldthe story in a paper about how she identified the focus for her “capstone”inquiry project.17 This African American student was teaching kindergartenin District 13, Brooklyn, and was required to do a mandated ninety-minuteliteracy block with her children. This block of time must contain indepen-dent reading, shared reading, guided reading, and phonemic awareness in-struction.

During our first month of school, all of the kindergarten teachers were pulledtogether for a grade conference.…At this meeting we were informed that therewould be additional expectations placed on the children’s literacy developmentfor this year. They would be expected to have mastered fifty sight words, knowall their letters and sounds, be reading on an ECLAS reading level of a 2 orbetter, and be operating on a phonemic awareness level of 2 or better. Theseare pretty realistic goals and, at first, we were all open to the grade goals being


set. However, the next list of demands was upsetting to say the least. [The REAGrant Literacy Coordinator] announced that our mandatory daily independentreading time for K should restrict students to only read books that we haveprechosen for them and placed into individualized plastic bags labeled with theirname and color-coded to match their guided reading level. In September, wehad not as yet completed our ECLAS assessments to place students in guidedreading groups. Nor had we had a full month of school as yet. All the teacherspresent, especially me, were visibly displeased with this new “independent read-ing” requirement. I did not feel that selecting books for children and placingthem in plastic bags that were appropriate for their reading level was appropri-ate in September. When we began to verbalize our disagreement with her plan,she revised her statement and told us that it was a goal for January. She thenexplained that independent reading will be the first issue that we should all beaddressing because of the increase in school time designated for that purposeonly. Children are expected to be counted present at 8:25 A.M. and are expectedto be engaged in reading books until approximately 8:45 A.M. on a daily basis.

After this meeting, I was angry. I did not like the fact that my pupils’ aca-demic goals were being dictated to me by another entity. Who were they toimpose all these rules for literacy on me? Who were they to make me imposeso much pressure on five-year-olds during their independent reading time? Whowas I to argue with more than twenty years of experience? Why was my stom-ach in knots? Do I feel comfortable restricting my students to certain booksand not giving them choices? How can I do my job without rocking the boat?While all of these thoughts were going through my mind, I couldn’t help butthink that this would be a good subject for my research. I’ve already got thepassion, now how to go about observing my students while they browse.

I decided not to concentrate on the pressures of our academic goals and tofocus more on what my class does during independent reading. My focusingquestion is what effect will browsing books have on emergent readers? I beganstudying my children during independent reading time on the carpet. It wasimportant for me to let them have the use of the entire classroom library andgive them choices. We arranged the library by reading level baskets and thenadded genre baskets. We have several genre baskets with books on the follow-ing topics: animals, transportation, family/friends, fairy tales and folktales, so-cial studies, ABC books, and math books. The philosophy behind my methodof free browsing for my class is that I believe it is important to allow my pupilsthe freedom to select books, read picture cues, and use their own language totell a story from pictures. This way, when I begin teaching reading strategiesin small groups, they will have a designated time to be free to practice theirreading skills, without any scrutiny or assessment from me.

At this point in her discussion, the teacher shared a story about her ownlearning to read. In it, she tells how her experience influences what she doeswith children. “If it had not been for the patience and resilience of my par-ents teaching me to read, I would not be able to provide an environmentand give my children choices so that they can become emergent readers inmy classroom.” And, then, she lays out aspects of her stance regarding lit-


eracy and her questions about the educational context within which sheworks.

Whether they are simply browsing, reading picture cues, making up their ownimaginary story, or paraphrasing from memory of a read aloud, children canmake sense of print on their own terms. Every child comes to school with hisor her own personal plethora of knowledge. They may not be familiar withconcepts of print or one-to-one correspondence, but most of them are able tospeak and listen. Through language experience and exploration with text, dur-ing shared readings, read-alouds, and their own personal manipulation of books,kindergarteners will be able to “read” a book using all of the schema and readingskills that they know to date. They will identify pictures and say aloud whatthey mean to them. After reading instruction and several lessons on readingstrategies, they will be ready to tackle texts on their reading levels all on theirown. However, I believe that for every child this miracle may not happen withinthe confines of one year. Maybe it will all come together for them during firstgrade. In Community District 13, reading strategies are introduced in kinder-garten so that mastery of an ECLAS level 6 will occur before a child enters thesecond grade. After early childhood grades, children are expected to performon and prove they are meeting their grade standard by passing their annual mathand English Language Arts Stafford 9 tests. Because of the disappointing num-bers of children who are failing these standardized tests, our city education lead-ers are looking to introduce academic instruction on reading and inquiry-basedmath at the kindergarten level. Kindergarten teachers are expected to teach fromthe standards books, and “free play” has been obliterated. The amount of pres-sure that academic kindergarten places on the teachers and the students whostudy and teach balanced literacy is paramount. These pressures to have ourkindergarten class reading on an ECLAS level of 2 by the end of the year, withmastery of 100 basic sight words, sometimes causes a huge imbalance when onewonders if the expected academic goals of kindergarten pupils are developmen-tally appropriate or not.<

A difference of idea and value opened up a line of inquiry for this teacherwho then documented what happened during independent reading time inher class. This story illustrates the way teachers can use inquiry:

• to help locate themselves in relation to the mandates they face;• to help keep their focus on children;• to help them develop knowledge from their work, in this case knowledge about

beginning reading; and• as an element in their development as thoughtful decision makers in their class-

rooms.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Creating a context within teacher education where inquiries of the kindillustrated by Jeannette’s, Terri’s, and Andréa’s work can happen is essential


if teachers are to be what our democratic society needs them to be, that is,“genuinely free-thinking intellectuals, models of critical thought, creativelyengaged and caring individuals who are responsive to student interests, andwhose full cognitive and affective powers [are] evident in the quality of theirprofessional judgments.”18 Descriptive Inquiry gives us a location in whichwe can do the kind of work necessary to “know the colour of the sky” andto “find the cracks” and plant the seeds.

“Freeing our imaginations from slavery may be the most difficult strugglewe have ever faced…[and] we…must do the complicated intellectual workof dreaming and imagining.”19 As I suggested earlier, for New York Cityteachers, engaging in that difficult struggle and doing the complicated in-tellectual work runs counter to many of the workplace values and expecta-tions to which they are accountable. Teacher educators also must do the“complicated intellectual work” of confronting the conflicts and understandthe contradictions we create within our students. Done well, the inquiriesour students undertake become collaborative projects with us and their fel-low students joining them. But it is hard work.

In the stories I share, I cite many questions students have generated outof their work. The questions are the potential “cracks” in the sidewalk.However, it is important to note that the act of asking a question about one’swork has become more and more difficult for teachers. Teachers seem to belearning that questions are signs of weakness and not knowing and so mustbe kept private and unspoken. Helping teachers believe what they may sayto their students, that questions are a form of thinking and evidence ofstrength, is hard intellectual and emotional work.

Teaching is a human enterprise and requires us to recognize and valueour own humanity and the humanity of our students. However, the schoolcontext of labels, test scores, and fear of misbehavior and loss of control cancut educators in schools off from themselves and parents and children. Help-ing teachers to look beyond/underneath these blinders is part of the ongo-ing struggle to inquire and break old habits. It is also hard intellectual andemotional work.

The context of standardized curriculum and methodologies and of high-stakes accountability makes it more and more difficult for teachers to valueand exercise their own intellectual powers. The idea that they can gener-ate understandings they can act on out of the details of their classroomsruns counter to being held accountable for implementing a set of cannedpractices. Teachers must locate themselves within this tension unless theyare to either become the proverbial cog, the “thoughtless drone,” or leavethe work of teaching. Helping teachers find their agency and voice is partof learning the inquiry process and, again, is hard intellectual and emo-tional work.


I close with a further thought from Robin Kelly. “I am urging a revolu-tion of the mind. This is no mere academic exercise. It is an injunction, aproposition, perhaps even a declaration of war.”20 Fiery words for teachereducation and for teachers. However, without such intellectual and spiritualfire, teaching and the education it aims for will continue to lose their po-tency.

Finding the color of the sky: Inquiry in teacher preparation

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