from above. Deal and Sterling (1997)
offer one example: Kids wonder why
Ivory soap floats while other soaps
sink, and the teacher can link their
investigation to a mandated unit
on density and mass. But there’s a
crucial difference between starting
with students’ questions (and perhaps
reassuring one’s superiors that the
resulting exploration overlaps with
prescribed standards) and starting with
a list created by distant authorities
but occasionally attempting to enliven
those curriculum units by asking kids
to suggest some questions. The former
is authentic teaching supplemented
with a strategy of self-protection; the
latter is an abdication of our educational responsibility.
Questions Asked
for What Purpose?
Finally, we need to consider not
only the best way to create student-centered inquiry (thereby supporting
the development of those students
as learners), but also how to foster a
lifelong disposition to question what
one has been told (thereby supporting
students’ development as participants
in a democracy and as human beings).
The latter doesn’t refer to a bundle of
skills, such as those identified with
“critical thinking,” but to whether and
how one is inclined to use one’s skills.
To promote the idea of questioning
is to swim against the tide. From their
first days in school, students are care-
fully instructed to do what they’re
told and stay out of trouble. There are
rewards, both tangible and symbolic,
for those who behave “properly” and
penalties for those who don’t. Children
are trained to sit still, take in what the
teacher and textbook say, and regur-
gitate it on command—all of which
fosters a tendency to avoid questioning
and a reluctance to express outrage
even about outrageous things.
Nevertheless, teachers with
enough commitment—and sufficient
courage—can challenge these norms
through multiple strategies (Kohn,
2004):
n Set up regular opportunities to cul-
tivate skepticism. Former high school
history teacher Jim Nehring told me
he gave his students photocopies of
four different textbooks’ accounts
of the Salem witch trials, which
provided strikingly different expla-
nations, each in a tone of absolute
certainty. Students gained not just a
deeper understanding of the event, but
also a realization that one shouldn’t
uncritically accept textbooks or other
authoritative pronouncements.
n Explicitly invite students to ask
probing questions—and model this by
inviting them to challenge you. Bring
a second adult into the classroom,
someone with a different point of view,
to remind students that the teacher’s
perspective isn’t the last word (Smith,
1986). Before conducting whole-class
discussions, allow students to meet in
small groups “to gain confidence and
to develop a position collectively . . .
Explicitly invite
students to ask
probing questions—
and model this by
inviting them to
challenge you.
