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15 February 2011

Fund the Art of Inquiry

It was hard to diagram the direction my questions would lead the lesson on contractions with 'not'. My student teacher understood, but I was more confused then when I started. I realized how important it is to train new teachers how to question. Lawyers are taught and provided many hours of written and oral practice. Investigators are trained in the art of interrogation. Counselors of all genres are provided with instruction in using the right question at the right time delivered in the right way to solicit a given response.
Yet, teachers, tasked with eliciting specific thoughts within our students each an every day, are not taught how and when to ask questions. We are told of the taxonomy and given lists of action verbs to begin our statements, but nothing regarding inquiry.
Not all the issues with education today are related to budgets. I believe many are related to preservice and inservice training opportunities.
Professional development in the creation of more effective educators is the key.
Quality spending before increased allocations, I say!
Educate the educator in the areas of greatest impact on student learning.
Learning how to formulate and administer a deliberate sequence of questions is one of the areas we should be funding in earnest.

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