kitchen table math, the sequel: inquiry-based inquiry

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

inquiry-based inquiry

Reform...is not easy, but how we conceptualize things makes a difference. The viable alternative we have been exploring involves reconceptualizing the whole of education as inquiry. For us and the teachers with whom we work, education-as-inquiry represents a real shift in how we think about education...We want to see reading as inquiry, writing as inquiry, classroom discipline as inquiry, and both teaching and learning as inquiry. Instead of organizing curriculum around disciplines, we want to organize curriculum around the personal and social inquiry questions of learners...Inquiry as we see it is about unpacking issues for purposes of creating a more just, a more equitable, a more thoughtful world...Theoretically, education-as-inquiry finds its roots in whole language, sociopsycholinguistic, or, these days what we prefer to call socio-semiotic theory or what others call cultural studies.
(Harste & Leland, 1998. p. 192-3)

Martin Kozloff quotes this passage in a post to the DI list.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least they admit what they think education is for:

" for purposes of creating a more just, a more equitable, a more thoughtful world"

Myself, I prefer the non-communist version.

But in my state, if you're feeling blue that you just can't make that more equitable world, you don't have to go into teaching anymore! you can go to grad school in Social Responsibility!

http://www.scsuscholars.com/2008/04/thats-education.html

Catherine Johnson said...

I can't look.

Speaking of not looking ---- I have yet to read your fraction posts!

I'm a little behind.... (I should solicit somebody to write a sine & cosine post!)

LSquared32 said...

So what do you need to know about sines and cosines?