Lessons from lessons: reflections and reminders from the classroom

“Teaching, like any science or art, demands craftsmanship. The complexity of teaching requires time and space for continuous learning and reflection, both individually and collectively.” (OECD, 2025:8)

I recently had the privilege of returning to the beautiful International School of Uganda to spend another week with the staff – supporting their work in building a culture of inquiry and, in particular, examining the role of pedagogy in nurturing deep, conceptual understanding and learner competencies.  Once again, while we engaged in some teacher workshops and planning sessions, the bulk of our learning time was spent in classrooms.  We designed/choreographed lessons and then met afterwards to discuss  and reflect on what we noticed, what we learned and what got us more curious.  On the third day, as I walked out of a classroom the wonderful PYP coordinator (shout out to Sarah!) turned to me and simply said: “I just love teaching!”  Three simple words that went straight to my heart. ‘Same here!’ I said as we walked upstairs to the meeting room, our arms laden with baskets, markers, chart paper, books, loose parts, post its up the stairs, ‘Aren’t we lucky to do this?’  Not for the first time, I felt the enormous privilege of the career I have chosen and to which I have dedicated almost 42 years. For me, teaching has never simply been a job – it is a vocation and it is a choice to work in service of the community.   I am not sure whether it is my imagination, or whether it is fact that I hear less about the joy and satisfaction of teaching than I used to.  I certainly hear a great deal more about its difficulties and I absolutely acknowledge that conditions and expectations have changed significantly over the last 40 years. But, at the risk of attracting the ire of my readers, I think there are times when we can become so lost in what is challenging and so in need of a download about the difficulties of the job we have chosen, that we can forget the power of acknowledging the joy it can bring. We may feel it – but we forget to say it out loud.  Yes – I am all too aware that I am not in the classroom full time … but I am in them enough to be reminded of the gift that teaching can be and I, for one, never want to forget that.  So thank you, Sarah, for that moment when you chose to say it out loud!

The first few months of 2025 have seen me in many different countries and many different classrooms.  Back home, now, I have taken some time to think over the hours and hours of ‘learning labs’ conducted in many different schools and to consider some of the reminders and insights these lessons have given me. Not just about the nature of inquiry pedagogy but simply about teaching itself.  So, in no particular order, I offer some lessons from lessons …

1.    It’s all about making connections!

Year 4, ISU

Yes, I know this already … but the more I teach, the more I understand about  facilitating opportunities for learners to make connections – with each other, with their prior knowledge, across learning areas and between concepts.  This is not new, of course. – connection making is the foundation for conceptual understanding, but it has been so fascinating to design tasks and power up our questioning to support this cognitive process in learners.  Here, the grade 4 learners are using concept mapping to check in on their understanding of some of the concepts central to their inquiry. This strategy continues to be one of my favorites. It is so revealing to both the educator and to the learner.   

2.    Opportunities for exploring, theorising, experimenting and predicting prior to direct explanation can heighten curiosity and the desire to find out.

Year 2, ISU

In many (not all) lessons, we opted for an immediate rather than gradual release of responsibility.  Exploration prior to explanation can pay off big-time. Giving learners a chance to do some ‘figuring out’, to draw on their prior knowledge and share their theories and ideas naturally activates curiosity, reveals uncertainty, generates a hunger to find out and, most of all, cultivates intellectual humility.   The children in year 2 at ISU are not only theorising about which material might be the most waterproof but discussing how they would design a test to find out. All this before we find out more about the concept of fair testing.  The beauty of this is in the way it supports a willingness to change our minds.

Year 4, Immanuel Primary School, SA

3. The language of materials is powerful

The benefits of loose parts to help learners explore and express their thinking is well known. Each time we open up opportunities for learners to share their ideas using intelligent, non-specific materials, I am reminded of the importance of flexible forms of communication. The ephemeral nature of loose parts gives increased permission to the learner to take risks, to revise thinking and the concrete and visual supports other ‘languages of expression’ including speaking and writing.  It was so great to see loose parts available to children in the upper as well as junior classrooms at Immanuel Primary in SA.

4. The best ‘provocations’ are often on our doorstep, and first-hand, direct, shared experiences are gold.

Year 1, International School of Manila

I have written about this before but recent lessons have reminded me that we often do not need to look too far or spend hours carefully curating our classrooms to provoke thinking.  Keeping it real and staying awake to the environment around us offers so much.  At the International School of Manila, year 1 students were fascinated by the fact there were plants randomly growing in seemingly inhospitable environments in the school yard  - the perfect provocation to lead into theorising about seed dispersal.

5.  A brave, intellectually stimulating classroom environment is built on a foundation of trust and connection – and fun.

Class games played in year 4, UWCSEA

The year 4 students at United World College of Singapore were deeply engaged in a collaborative game when I walked into their classroom to teach. There was shared laughter, encouragement, risk and delight. Their teacher made a conscious, daily effort to build connection, have some fun and create community. I can feel this community atmosphere seconds into walking into a classroom. When kids have each other’s back – when there is a spirit of ‘we’ over ‘me’, the challenging work of inquiry is so much easier to cultivate.  

6. Learner competencies such as collaboration, creativity and curiosity are amplified when we are intentional about how we are cultivating them. 

Split screen learning intentions for year 4 students at BCIS

The metaphor of the ‘split screen’ classroom is one I learned from my colleague Guy Claxton. It is SO helpful when I am introducing a session. It reminds both the learners and me that we are always inquiring into learning itself as we engage with the content of the lesson.  Each lesson I have the privilege of facilitating reminds me how important both my language and the clarity of intention are in maintaining a strong focus on the WHY behind the learning engagement.

7. Active learning doesn’t mean fast and frantic.  Slow and deliberate helps us go deep.

Year 1 students at the International School of Belgrade

The temptation to teach at a fast past is real - and understandable!  We want to keep children’s attention and manage the many competing demands of the day.  But engagement can be achieved as, if not more, effectively by slowing the pace – by allowing pauses, by welcoming silence, by encouraging revisiting and refining rather than moving on, by allowing children time to think and by modelling a slower, more considered way of being.  We were fascinated to watch how focussed and thoughtful the year 1 children at the International School of Belgrade were when encouraged to slow down and notice the detail as they observed fascinating invertebrates. 

8.  Building children’s capacity to reflect on and manage their own learning can be part of every lesson.  

Year 4 learners at Jakarta Intercultural School

I wish I had understood this more in my early years of teaching. I am sure that many of the children I taught were motivated by the desire to please ME rather than to own the learning themselves.  The longer I teach, the more I realise how simple it can be to empower learners to take more ownership of their learning. It may be through a couple of strategic questions or, something more extended such as the way the year 4 children at the Intercultural School of Jakarta ranked their collaborative competencies during the creation of a Rube Golberg Machine.

9. Every lesson, every day can be an opportunity for professional learning.

Kindergarten at IS Manila

The teacher as researcher is a concept very familiar to early years teachers in particular.   For me, years of teaching in a ‘learning lab’ environment (with other teachers observing or perhaps being filmed) has helped me embrace this concept so much more authentically.  The power of having more than one educator in the room, of intentionally observing the dance between teaching and learning is brought home every time I gather with those educators to reflect on the lesson.  We notice more. We wonder more. We learn more.  I know I am a better teacher for it – for having cultivated a kind of intentionality and ability to observe what is happening while it is happening.  Learning labs help me sustain my ‘beginners mind’  - seeing the art of teaching as if for the first time and staying open to the unexpected. Watching each other at work can be hard to organise in a busy school – but it is so profoundly worth it.

10. Good teaching is complex, challenging and deeply satisfying. Quality teaching can’t be scripted although it can, of course, draw on resources and guidelines. While I have a deep commitment to inquiry-based pedagogy, regular teaching continually reminds me of the role that explicit and even direct instruction have within a broader culture of inquiry. There is no ‘BEST’ practice as such – what works depends on what the objectives are (what works for what purpose?) and, of course, on the myriad differences between learners, contexts, environments and cultures.  As the recent OECD report I have referenced states “There is not one single approach that is ‘better’ than the others.” (2025:15) One thing I notice repeatedly about learning labs is that they help educators return to, what for most is their north star. Teaching. Many schools would do well to elevate the sacredness of the time we spend working directly with our learners, to value and celebrate and inquire into the fascinating and complex choreography and skill that underpins each lesson across the day and to see the classroom as the best context for professional growth.

 

“Teaching is inherently complex. Teachers need to navigate the complexity of the often unpredictable and sometimes chaotic realities of classrooms, where students have diverse needs and abilities, resources are limited, time is constrained, and numerous day-to-day challenges arise. They need a deep understanding of both content and pedagogical strategies informed by research, but also adaptability, creativity, and responsiveness. Teaching is a science, but so too an art and craft.”

OECD (2025), Unlocking High-Quality Teaching, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f5b82176-en.

Curiosity as an antidote …clinging to wonder as the tide rolls in.

“Wonder is the thread that stops us from giving up or surrendering to cynicism. Wonder is the thread that allows us to make and remake education landscapes free from orthodoxy and certainty. Wonder is an ache and belief that provokes us towards imagined worlds in which we make education good and right.”  (O’conner and Gomez, 2022:50)

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” Rumi

‘Stay curious, ask questions, stay open minded, slow your thinking down, keep wondering …’ This is some of the ‘self-talk’ that has preoccupied my mind for several weeks now.  Central to my work, indeed, central to my identity as a teacher and a learner, is an inquiry stance. So it follows that when faced with ideas and beliefs contrary to my own, I have to work even harder to cultivate that stance. But cultivate it I must - especially in when it comes to current discussions about ‘The Science of Learning’ and the accompanying pedagogical implications championed by some systems/schools. One of the most influential educators in my early career was the late Donald Graves.  His book ‘Writing: teachers and children and work’ instilled in me a passion for the kind of learning that happened with and forchildren rather than to them. Looking back, I can see how Graves’ work helped develop values that remain central to my teaching practice: agency, curiosity, collaboration, authenticity and depth. As I learned to confer with individual children about their writing, often inspired by their interests, I came see each child as unique, both as person and learner. It instilled within me some much needed humility as I realised just how much expertise and experience even my youngest learners brought to the classroom. Conferring with children taught me learn to listen and to resist automatically defaulting to telling and explaining before I listened. What a gift that was to me as a young teacher! Without even realising it, I was developing my ‘image of the child’ as agentic, capable, connected and curious. I devoured so much of Graves’ work, but there was one thing he wrote that returns to be over and over:

“The enemy is orthodoxy.”

 I have found myself thinking a lot about that phrase over the last couple of years – and even more so over the past weeks as a somewhat imposing wave of  ‘The Science of Learning’ continues to roll into the educational discourse here in Australia. While I am working in classrooms around the world, constantly impressed by the capacity of young people to own their learning and, with guidance, develop deep and powerful understanding about their world,  I am also reading through documents explaining ways to introduce the ‘science of learning’ to schools.  These directives purport to provide clear guidance on ‘best practice’ and together with the seductive phrase ‘evidence-based’, identify ‘preferred’ instructional strategies that generally involve a lot of teacher explanation and demonstration as a means to ensure proficiency.  I am receiving messages from perplexed young teachers who have been directed (yes) to re-organise their flexible seating in the classroom and place children are in permanent rows, facing the front. The language in some of the documents I am reading seems to suggest there is one path to learning for all children. An orthodoxy of sorts.  But as I am reading, and as I am receiving these messages I’m trying hard to walk the talk – to read and listen with an open, questioning, critical mind. I know I need to be able to make connections, find points of common thinking, extend my thinking, notice what is challenging and what I am called to challenge.

Forgive me for getting all ‘meta’ with this, but it has been intriguing to notice my own responses to documents in which I feel the subtle (and not so subtle) subjugation of inquiry.  My initial, natural reaction is one of defensiveness – especially when tired old tropes appear that suggest explicit instruction is absent from an inquiry approach or when inquiry is characterized as involving ‘minimal teacher guidance’ (such as in the oft quoted research paper by Sweller et.al. from the early 2000s.)  As Seth Godin recently pointed out: “they’re apt to set up inquiry learning for failure by using a caricatured version of it, a kind of pure discovery rarely found in real-world classrooms, with teachers providing no guidance at all so that students are left to their own devices.” To be honest, anyone who thinks they are ‘doing inquiry’ by simply sending kids off to figure it all out on their own does not understand the approach at all.  So, when inquiry is dismissed as ineffective, one always needs to ask ‘what do you mean by inquiry?’.  My hunch is that this phenomenon of over-simplification is also true of direct instruction. There are silly, ineffective and extreme versions of both.

Anyway. I read on. I breathe. I listen.  I notice my reaction is not so much to the ideas and advice but to the whole concept of “best practice”, of  THE science of learning. It’s the sense of orthodoxy to which I react even more so than the content.

I remind myself… ‘Stay curious. Ask questions. Notice. Wonder …’

I find myself wondering: How can I use this material to help me and the teachers I work with reflect, re-think and clarify?  How can we bring intellectual humility to all this AND stand by the values we hold of curiosity, creativity, agency, differentiation, depth and authenticity?  It’s not easy, but with an open mind, we can find elements that connect with and add to our knowledge, as well as ideas we might question and challenge. Accepting such directives without question and without consideration of our local contexts, values, beliefs and needs of our community would be intellectually lazy - as would failing to read views of those equally steeped in learning sciences but who draw quite different conclusions (see some suggested reading below).  We teach our students to be critical inquirers – so should we be.

No educator should ever feel they have ‘arrived’ at a place of complete understanding about teaching and learning. We are NEVER done learning and always need to grow and adapt to new information. When system level policies seem to fly in the face of some of our deepest held beliefs, we need to stay open to growth and to the benefits of changing our minds. This has been true for me in the literacy area where, in reading the excellent work of Burkins and Yates (2021) I have had cause to rethink some of my understandings about the teaching of reading. Their work is amongst the best examples of resisting orthodoxy – of bravely entering the conversation about the science of reading, embracing new thinking, letting go of some dearly held ideas about reading instruction AND remaining committed to balanced, meaningful learning for children.  Similarly, I continue to yearn for a ‘both/and” approach, eloquently stated by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond and Dr. Pamela Cantor principal researchers, and also experts in learning sciences, in the Design Principles Project (2021):

“a teacher can skillfully blend inquiry-based learning with strategic elements of direct instruction using multiple modalities of learning that help students draw connections between what they know and what they are trying to learn.”  (https://k12.designprinciples.org/)

When I sat down to write this blog post, I thought I was going to pick apart the numerous dogmatic arguments made by some who champion what they call ‘the’ science of learning, but that’s not where I needed to go. Others far more qualified than me have done that eloquently and I encourage you to read their pieces (links below). In the end, this post was really just about me trying to BE an inquirer – to stay in the space that Rumi calls ‘the field beyond’ and hold on to the power of wonder to fight my own cynicism and, at times, despair.  This has been my attempt to avoid ‘doubling down’ and instead to amp up my curiosity so that I can keep learning and growing. So, in the spirit of wonder, the best I can do with all this is to leave you with some of the questions that have been rolling around in my head as this strange battle of ‘best’ practice rages on. I hope these questions might be helpful to you as you engage in continued dialogue about the complex, demanding, vital and ever-evolving work we do:

·      How can we argue for what is best without asking, ‘best for what purpose’?  And if the answer is, ‘for learning’, then what kind of learning do we mean? What do we think school is for in 2024 and beyond? How might we bring this question to the staffroom?

·      Where are our points of agreement? How might we find common ground? We all want to do the right thing by children and their families. What are our shared values?

·      What can I learn from the particular view of the ‘science of learning’ being promoted in schools? How might the advice on ‘explicit instruction’ help refine the moments when, during an inquiry, we do indeed engage in direct teaching? Can I do a better job of that part of my repertoire? How might a better grasp of high quality explicit instruction assist us to work with some students for whom ‘release of responsibility’ might take more time?

·      Is there one, universal ‘Science of Learning?’ I note that MANY critics suggest otherwise. What do other respected researchers in the field of learning have to say?  Whose voices are we not hearing/reading?

·      What is really meant by the term ‘knowledge rich?’  Whose knowledge? Why privilege this? What about, for example, indigenous ways of knowing that might have a very different context, purpose and approach?

·      What does ‘evidence-based’ really mean? In schools in which I work – such as those who use Kaser and Halbert’s ‘spirals of inquiry’ model, evidence of  impact is drawn by careful analysis of a range of data about the children within their communities. What counts as evidence?

·      In his excellent forward to Claxton’s ‘The Future of Teaching and the Myths that Hold it Back (2021) Dylan Wiliam states that while those advocating a more traditional approach to teaching have ‘empirical’ evidence on their side, this is, according to Wiliam, largely due to the fact that researchers have focussed on the “… easily answered questions. It is much easier to decide whether one teaching approach is better than another if the goal is to get students to balance chemical equations than if the goal is to debate effectively the science and ethics of genetically modified foods:” (2021: xix).   I find this an enormously helpful reminder when reading claims about evidence from research. What kind of learning has the research focussed on? How do we avoid sweeping generalisations and interrogate the evidence more productively?

·      To what extent has ‘warm data’ informed this work?  (I am only just learning a little about this concept but it seems very relevant) “Using only analysis of statistical data will offer conclusions that can point to actions that are out of sync with the complexity of the situation. Information without interrelationality is likely to lead us toward actions that are misinformed, thereby creating further destructive patterns. “ (Batesoninstitute.org)

·      How can we tackle the question of ‘what works’ in a more nuanced way? Should we not also be asking, ‘what works, and for whom and where and under what conditions’? (Wrigley 2018)  How do we ensure that we keep the focus on the needs and characteristics of the local communities of learners in which we work?

·      If explicit teaching is deemed more ‘efficient’, is that amongst the criteria for effectiveness? To what extent do we value efficiency? Are there things that we could and should teach efficiently? What requires time and depth? What can stay on the surface? When we talk about effective learning – what do we mean?  How might we share that with each other in more open and honest ways? 

·      Systems all over the world talk about the importance of learner agency – indeed it is one of the key principles in the most recent OECD education report. What impact might a strong diet of direct and explicit instruction have on learner agency? How can we help teachers navigate their way through a sea of mixed messages?  

·      As an educator with a strong commitment to, and deep understanding of, a more constructivist approach to teaching and learning, how can I do a better job of challenging the persistent myths about inquiry?  Why DO these myths persist and how might I take some responsibility for that? What new stories can I tell about inquiry as a stance that might better reflect the nuanced and sophisticated work so many teachers are doing?

·      What might I need to change and rethink about the way I talk about teaching and learning that invites professional dialogue and productive collaboration rather than division and conflict?

·      How do I best support colleagues who do extraordinary, deep and loving work with children and who so very deftly and effectively scaffold and support exploration before or with explanation. How do I help people resist a culture of orthodoxy and continue to value their expansive and flexible repertoire? How can I support teachers to be informed AND to feel they can intelligently defend the range of approaches they might use according to the needs and context in which they are working?  How might we meet in the field beyond?

Already, some of these wonderings have been the seed for some powerful dialogue with fellow educators. There is nothing like being challenged to help one clarify and refine thinking and this is best done in the spirit of inquiry where curiosity does indeed remain a powerful antidote to cynicism and despair and, if nurtured, create fertile ground for continued professional growth.  I have found the following posts and articles helpful. If you have been engaged in conversations about ‘THE’ science of learning, what question s have you found yourself pondering?

Just Wondering …

Wrigley, T. (2018). The power of evidence: Reliable science or a blunt set of tools? British Educational Research Journal, 44(3), 359-376. 

O’Conner, P. and Gomez,C. Slow Wonder: letters in imagination and education, 2022:50

Claxton, G. (2021) The Future of Teaching and the Myths that Hold it Back. Routledge.

Hannon, V. (2021) Thrive: The Purpose of schools in a Changing World, Cambridge

https://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/clt/

https://ckarchive.com/b/4zuvheh5nv9dki6ovveola3v24l77

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/topic/deeper-learning

https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/writing/there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-science-of-learning

https://www.guyclaxton.net/post/the-sciences-of-learning-and-the-practice-of-teaching

www.Batesoninstitute.org

https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/

https://www.shyambarr.com.au/blog/beyond-cognition-embracing-the-multifaceted-nature-of-the-science-of-learning

https://smata.substack.com/p/there-is-more-than-one-science-of?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

https://bevanholloway.com/2024/04/16/424/

https://blog.aare.edu.au/explicit-teaching-mandate-a-pushback-now-is-critical/

https://bevanholloway.com/2024/10/10/some-readings/ (numerous readings exploring some of the challenges of a hard-line approach to the ‘science of reading’)

https://bevanholloway.com/2024/10/08/there-is-more-than-one-science-of-learning/

Listening to small moments of wonder

On my final walk of the summer holidays, I decided to take a different path towards the beach. A little way along I almost stepped on this guy …a beautiful echidna, snuffling for ants and seemingly oblivious to my presence. It let me stay so close I could see the strange curve of its claws, the  colour of its spines and the tiny hairs on its beak.  This glorious, strange monotreme, unique to this country. Right in front of me and endlessly fascinating. This was a small but beautiful moment of ‘awe and wonder’. It slowed me down and drew me in. What a generous parting gift from nature as my holiday came to an end.  For me, such encounters, never fail to be exhilarating.  I can literally feel my heart respond, beating loudly in my chest, my breath quickening and the smile growing on my face.  I am alone, deeply connected  and fully present.

I am fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time in the natural environment. It is the source of my well-being and the sustenance of my curiosity. As has been noted by many, being in nature also helps keep our ego in check. It literally puts us in our place.  We are reminded that we are indeed, a tiny speck in what is a much bigger universe. We don’t matter as much as we think we think we do.  The natural environment is also the place I can rely on to nurture my curiosity – a disposition so vital to inquiry.

My echidna encounter was, of course, a simple, natural provocation. As I kept walking, I was aware of the questions ‘bubbling up’ in my mind.  ‘Why didn’t it walk away? Does it have a burrow/nest somewhere? Why do I only ever see them on their own? Are they solitary? What are its predators here?  I have written elsewhere  about what I feel to be at times, and a necessary emphasis on artificially constructed provocations for children. Or the sense that at times children are required to ask questions about things that they actually have no genuine curiosity about.

As we move into a new year, and after several weeks of being immersed in the natural environment, I am convinced yet again, that the best way to provoke, curiosity or and wonder in our learners is to remain open to the natural provocations that are around us each day.  Whilst there are copious resources and advice about cultivating curiosity these days (my own work included!), perhaps the best advice is the most simple. Get outside and, as the wonderful astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Dyson implores, get out of their way. Use the natural world, the surrounding community, the school grounds, a walk around the block. The world will provide.  And be curious. Share your moments of curiosity and wonder with your learners. Susan Engel and others who have done the deep research work in this field conclude that the role of the adult in nurturing children’s curiosity is critical.  I know that my little Echidna story and video will find its way into my teaching in the coming weeks. I will show children the photos and clips I took and share how I felt, what I noticed, and the questions that I walked away with.  It will be real and it will be from the heart. I may show them how I did some further investigation or they may start sharing their own moments of wonder from their holidays. Or both! Either way, I plan to intentionally and authentically be the curious learner I want to see in them. (And, no, they won’t need to be studying ‘animals’ to warrant that moment.)

Cultivating curiosity in children begins with cultivating it in ourselves. It means giving ourselves permission to take an unexpected pathway, slow down, notice and wonder. My time away was filled with small moments of wonder and awe gifted to me by nature. The politics of the birds in my garden (why are some species so much more aggressive than others?), the changing landscape of the beach I have walked since childhood (where have all the shells gone?), the sudden arrival of hundreds of dragonflies (why now?), the fog hanging so low over the ocean on a warm morning (why fog? is this basically a low cloud? What causes this?).  These musings not only help me continue to walk the world with a curious mind but provide me with something simple, real and rich to share with learners.  

… and when I do, I want them to reciprocate. I want to create a culture in which THEY excitedly bring their small moments of wonder into the classroom like precious jewels cupped in their hands.  Not only do we stimulate creativity and imagination through such sharing , we light the spark for true dialogue and discovery.  Each moment of genuine wonder has the potential to connect with powerful and transferable concepts. My Echidna encounter connects to concepts such as diversity, adaptation, environment and behaviour: ‘from little things,’ as singer Paul Kelly writes, ‘big things grow’

 In almost all cases, the authentic moments of wonder experienced by learners be easily traced back to the curriculum. Knowing your curriculum deeply helps you let it go and give yourself permission to lean in close to your learners and say, “I’m listening, that sounds WONDERful, tell us more …

How will you nurture your own and your learners’ curiosity as you begin the year?

How will you stay awake to the simple provocations the world will bring to you?

Just wondering…

 Kath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Staying awake to the world: taking time to inquire into and build our own "background knowledge"

We’ve just passed the winter solstice here in my part of the world. In Victoria, teachers are in their final week of what feels like the longest term in history. Many colleagues  are visibly exhausted from months of remote teaching and adjusting to new ways of working back at school. My overseas colleagues are also now counting the days down until the school year comes to an end in the northern hemisphere.  This past weekend was the first one for almost four months in which I had not worked in some capacity – either delivering online workshops, writing or planning.  We are all, undoubtedly in need of some time out.  Immersing ourselves in things that take us away from the world of teaching is vital for rejuvenation: for our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. This past week, I have also been reminded of how important our engagement with the world beyond teaching is for, ironically, nurturing the quality of our teaching.

 One of the most profoundly important elements in designing for inquiry learning is the dialogue we have around the ‘planning table’ about the concepts and big ideas that lie at the heart of any inquiry journey. If the journey is exploring the ‘way living things adapt to changing environments’ it is not enough simply to find a few resources and develop some activities – we need to interrogate our own thinking about this big idea.  What do we really understand about adaptation? What background  knowledge do we bring to this?  If our inquiry is into the ‘role that the arts can play in changing the world’, we must ask ourselves how we feel about this statement? What lived experience do we have of this phenomenon? What examples have we heard about? Read about?  If we are supporting children to inquire into the ‘relationship between sustainability and materials’, what decisions have we made recently about choices of materials in our own lives? What do we really understand about the science of materials? If we are designing a journey of inquiry to examine the concept of exploration, how far have we come since our own impoverished education about our history? How many of us might have made the same mistake as our Australian Prime Minister did recently when he claimed we 'did not have slavery in Australia?  

 

When we engage learners in a process of inquiry, we most often begin by spending time tuning in to their prior knowledge. We identify their ‘first thinking’, theories and ways of seeing the ideas they are inquiring into.  But do we do this sufficiently for ourselves?  How often do we give ourselves time, as a team, to discuss our own experiences, positions, perspectives and understandings of the very things we are inviting our learners to inquire into?    And how often do we take the time to inform ourselves when we feel less secure in our understandings of the issues that sit at the core of the conceptual understandings we have designed for learners?   In my experience, the stronger inquiry teachers – the ones who question with most dexterity and bring a more intentional disposition to their observations, are the teachers who have the better grasp of both the concepts and the ‘content’ the learners are exploring.   I have always been wary of the glib phrase: “Inquiry teachers can learn alongside the children”.  While there is certainly truth in that (I have learned SO much simply being part of an inquiry journey with groups and individuals) it doesn’t mean we are ‘off the hook’.  Our ignorance can prevent us from asking better questions, helping learners make connections or pointing the way to critical information that can help struggling learners make meaning.  In fact I have often observed in my own teaching that the deeper my understanding of something is, the better I am at listening, waiting, questioning and holding back to support the learner.   Even when we might be assisting learners in a personal inquiry that goes well beyond our own field of interest and expertise, we need to know enough about how to connect to and locate others with the expertise … and that, in itself, requires us to stay awake to the world around us. 

 At the very least, taking time to inquire into our own understanding and experience of the conceptual landscape into which we are taking our children can help fuel our own curiosity. True inquiry teachers have what Susan Engel (2015) so beautifully calls “hungry minds’. They become fascinated by the questions children are raising, they are curious about their own ways of thinking about and seeing the material they are sharing with the class. They are voracious learners with open minds and open hearts Spending time connecting with our own experiences and understanding of and questions about the field our learners are inquiring into is time well spent.  It doesn’t mean we need to be experts on every discipline. Primary classroom teachers are generalists by nature. But that doesn’t excuse us from being informed.   So what might this look like? How can we stay more awake in the world and keep our minds hungry?

 Some ideas…

  • Prior to a planning meeting, ask each person in the team to locate a clip and/or reading to share with others. These might not be resources you use with students but may fuel your own thinking about the issues.

  •  If you design inquiries under a compelling question (broad/open ended/conceptual and non-googleable) go round the table sharing each of YOUR initial responses to the question.  How have your individual life experiences shaped your view of this big idea? How might that impact on your dialogue with learners? 

  •  Consider having staff book/movie clubs using texts that are not directly about teaching. Imagine a whole staff here in Australia reading and discussing Bruce Pascoe’s “Dark Emu” or collectively viewing the documentary “The Australian Dream” about Adam Goodes.  What a fantastic way to bring the spirit of inquiry and powerful dialogue into the staffroom! 

  • Share your favourite podcasts with each other - the ones that help you really grow your brain. Watch some Ted talks together.

  •  If as a team, you are feeling less confident in your background knowledge, invite someone with expertise to come and spend time with you or ‘zoom them in’ to your planning meeting. Be inquirers. Most people with expertise in an area are delighted to have an opportunity to share their passion. 

  • If there are places you might take your students as part of the inquiry (gallery/zoo/museum/parkland/historical site) why not have your team meeting at the site after school or on the weekend? 

  • Read. Or watch some clips. Or listen to some podcasts.  Or talk to people that have passion and expertise in this area. Come to your planning meeting ready to share some case studies or examples of the big ideas that will drive the inquiry.

  •  When planning, as yourselves: What is it that we hope our students will come to understand as a result of this inquiry?  And commit to documenting these as full statements (students will understand ….) not dot points/questions/phrases.  It is easy to generate questions like “What is sustainability?” or “How do people express their culture through the arts?” or “What does it mean to be healthy” and never actually discuss the conceptual understandings that might be developed through those questions.  

  • Most importantly, give this work time.  I would argue that these conversations are just as important as the design of learning tasks.  They help us connect to the why. They help us get clarity about our own thinking. They help reveal our biases, our blind spots and our confusions which can pave the way for poor questioning and missed opportunities when we are engaging with children. 

While there is a strong emphasis on learning processes in inquiry, it remains the case that powerful inquiry is fuelled by content of significance.  We can’t get to those conceptual understandings without exploring case studies and examples that gradually help us see patterns and make connections.  As inquiry teachers, we need to remain awake to the world around us. We need to have hungry minds that stay relentlessly curious about the way the world works and the way we understand the world. We need to keep pushing ourselves out of our “comfortable knowledge bubbles” and be prepared to be the geographers, historians, scientists, authors, mathematicians and artists we hope our students will be. And when we don’t know, we need to experience the thrill of the hunt – to yearn to know more. 

So my wish for you – as so many of you take a much deserved break, is that you can spend time revelling in the joy of your own learning about things that go beyond teaching.  So go find those podcasts, visit that museum (even if online), talk to your engineering/landscape gardener/pharmacist/builder friend about their job, listen to some music you have never listened to before, go look at some art, read some long form articles, take a walk in the forest and ask yourself what you know about the ecosystem around you, catch up on some documentaries…and enjoy cultivating your own curiosity.   You’ll be a better inquiry teacher for it. 

How do you ‘stay awake to the world’ amidst your busy life as a teacher? 

 Just wondering

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Relinquish, restore and renew: three questions to take on your journey

It has been an intense few weeks here in Australia – indeed all around the world.  As I said in my previous post, I have found myself steeped in the very practice I have spent my professional life researching advocating – inquiry.  When I am asked what inquiry might “look like” in a remote teaching and learning context, my first response is that it looks like what it IS right now!   We are all asking questions. going into the unknown, exploring, gathering data, figuring out what is working, what isn’t, changing our thinking, asking more questions…at a ‘meta’ level, we are undertaking a huge, collaborative inquiry.  And I would argue that we are also each moving through a very personal inquiry too – as individuals within our personal communities - beyond our role as teachers.

A lot of people are talking about the opportunity for reflection as our lives are forced inward - both literally and figuratively. As someone who has long championed the vital role that reflective thinking plays in the classroom, I couldn’t agree more. Somewhat paradoxically, for these past 3 weeks, I have found some of my own reflective practices falling away.  I routinely write a journal entry each night – I have done for years. But for the last 3 weeks my journal pages are empty. I only just picked it up again yesterday. Maybe it was the shock of it all, maybe the fact that I have spent most of my days writing (rather than teaching/facilitating) or maybe my routine is just out of whack.  Regardless, the call to reflect might be too soon for many of us who are currently scrambling to “pivot” (word of the month) our lives from what they were to what they are now. 

Here in my home state of Victoria, teachers had just 3 days prior to their holidays to pull something together in preparation for school closures.  Hardly time for thoughtful, reflective, deep engagement.  But now, on the eve of my local schools beginning term 2 (with a strange mix of schools being open but families urged to keep kids at home) -  I am wondering about where our inevitable reflections might lead us? 

The weekend before we moved into a level 3 shutdown, I watched a fascinating clip by the scientist Jem Bendell whose work focusses on the concept of deep adaptation particularly in response to Climate Change (remember that global crisis?).  Watching this clip through the lens of the current pandemic made it even more fascinating. So many of the points he raised about our response to climate change were just as relevant to this crisis. 

 “We are not in control anymore  - and we will act without knowing whether we will be successful in this very uncertain time” 

 In the quest for deep adaptation Bendell poses three questions. 

  •  What is it that we most value – what do we want to keep?

  • What is it that we must let go of ?

  • What is it that we could restore? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZJtFZZYmM&vl=en

 There is much more to these questions and his framing of them than I will do justice to here - but I urge you to watch the clip.  It certainly gave me food for thought. Bendell’s questions made me wonder. What questions am I noticing myself asking as I am suddenly forced to live a VERY different existence? What questions might help me make meaning as I ponder the possibility of returning to schools at some stage in the future? What questions might we ask ourselves as we move through to the ‘other side’ of this (we need to start asking them now – regardless of how far away that time might be.)

So, here are my 3R’s, as questions they may be of help to you too – in your thinking about teaching or even in your life aside from teaching. 

Relinquish

What might I let go/give up? What is this teaching me to do without or release? 

In my persona l life,  I am challenging myself to reconsider my insanely busy schedule. Can I relinquish the busy-ness that dominates my life as an educator?  As an inquiry educator I wonder if this experience will help teachers relinquish control? Will it help them see the power of really trusting learners? Can we relinquish our need to make all the decisions FOR learners that they can make for themselves?    

 Restore

What might I restore that has been lost, forgotten or compromised?

In my personal life, I feel like my commitment to my own health and wellbeing is undergoing a kind of ‘restoration’  - I am walking regularly again and I am practicing yoga for the first time in many years.   What could be restored in the service of inquiry learning?  I would love to see the restoration of the permission to be spontaneous. Veteran teachers often become a little ‘misty eyed’ when I speak of seizing the moment. It would be lovely to see it restored.  AS authors share clips of themselves reading aloud to kids around the world, I long for the central role that reading beautiful literature aloud in classrooms once had. Is it my imagination or are we doing less of that these days?  Restoration is not about harking back to the past…(thank goodness we have moved on from so much of what was NOT good inquiry). It is about ensuring that things of VALUE are not lost.

Revolutionise

What might I change? 

People all around the world are revolutionising their practice in response to his emergency. I wonder – what might look different when we return?  What is already different? This is a time for restoration but it is also a time for renewal. My family has had to completely revolutionize the way we use and share our house. We now have a recording and a dance studio in what was once a bedroom and a spare room. And it has been an amazing creative opportunity. We may never change it back!   What might be revolutionalized in your classroom? What is already new and more effective in the way you are working remotely? I am already hearing teachers noticing the power of kids being able to have more control over their days and their timetables. Perhaps you might revolutionize your approach to timetabling to ensure greater learner agency.

 Some people have started to refer to this moment in our history as ‘the great pause’. I love that metaphor. A ‘pause manifesto’ was recently posted on the ‘dolectures’ website:

 “Do you give yourself permission to pause? And if not, why not? That is a big question, but if you can create small pauses, you might be able to start to get some perspective on that and grow the sense of space and the feeling of agency you have over your own life.”

 https://www.thedolectures.com/blog/the-pause-manifesto

 Pressing the pause button may mean we stop to ask ourselves some beautiful questions  - and have the time to listen to the answers.  So thanks to the inspiration from Jem Bendall, these are mine:

What will I relinquish?

What will I restore?

What will I revolutionise? 

For those teachers embarking on this strange, new journey (my heart is with you fellow Victorian teachers!!) would these question be helpful to take with you?

Just wondering