about, and later, what they learned
(Ogle, 1986). Done well, this can be
a powerful strategy, particularly if, as
its inventor recommended, it reminds
teachers that “learning shouldn’t be
framed around just what an author
chooses to include, but . . . involves
the identification of the learner’s questions and the search for authors or
articles dealing with those questions”
(p. 569). Too often, though, students
are pushed to come up with questions
on the spot rather than given sufficient
time to reflect on what they’d really
like to know. Worse, those questions
may then be ignored. I remember visiting a school where a science unit on
the human body had been kicked off
with the students’ (fascinating) questions. The teacher proudly posted the
resulting list on the wall—and then
proceeded to teach the unit exactly the
way she had originally planned.
Of course if the lesson itself is
created by students’ questions, then
they can’t be ignored. James Beane
(1997), working with his wife, Barbara
Brodhagen, designed a model for
middle schools that asks students at
the beginning of the school year to
ponder things they wonder about
themselves (How long will I live?
Will I be like my parents?) and then
meet in small groups to find points of
overlap among their questions. They
then repeat the process for questions
they have about the world (Why do
people hate one another? How did
religions evolve?) before comparing
the two sets of topics to see where they
overlap. Finally, as a whole class, stu-
dents try to reach consensus on broad
areas of shared interest—and with the
teacher’s help, they design units of
study to answer their questions.
These investigations, on themes
such as “Living in the Future” or
“Conflict and Violence,” form the basis
of the entire year’s course of study,
which draws as necessary from (and
weaves together) virtually all the con-
ventional disciplines. Experience with
this method suggests that students in
the middle grades, an age group often
regarded as particularly challenging
to teach, become highly motivated
scholars because the curriculum is
centered on their questions “rather
than on the mastery of fragmented
information within the boundaries of
subject areas” (Beane, 1997, p. 18).
Thoughtful practitioners and
theorists who recognize the value of
turning students’ questions into the
engine that drives instruction tend to
be deeply skeptical of the predominant
model of school reform constructed on
top-down, one-size-fits-all standards.
This model has reached its apotheosis
in the Common Core “State” Stan-
dards, which illustrate a tendency to
confuse excellence with uniformity
(Karp, 2013/2014; Kohn, 2010;
Shannon, 2013). Many educators
object not only to the high-stakes tests
that are attached to the standards or
the unprecedented role of the federal
government and corporate foundations
in the whole enterprise, but also to the
pedagogical model that underlies such
initiatives. The first response of any
thoughtful educator when presented
with something like the Common
Core standards is not “How do we
implement this?” but “Should we be
doing this at all? Do such standards
make it easier or harder to create
lessons where students’ questions are
at the center?”
True, it is often possible to find
connections between the projects that
grow from students’ questions and
standards that have been imposed
