The Balance Trap

'We have a balanced approach.’ 

I keep hearing it – the word ‘balance’ being used to reassure me that an inquiry approach is still alive in a school, as tables are reorganised into rows and cookie-cutter slide decks are distributed.  While the concept of balance is meant to feel comforting and agreeable, it can quietly erode very foundations on which a culture of inquiry is built.  In this context, the last thing we are going for is balance.

 Hear me out.

To say we are experiencing turbulent and tense times in education right now would be an understatement. I witness this tension played out daily in staffrooms and planning meetings, over coffee with teacher friends and, of course, in online spaces where a degree of anonymity seems, at times to override the art of respectful discourse.  While I have found myself gradually retreating from social media commentary, my work does require me at least keep a foot in that door.  And when I do step in, there it is – the ‘Punch and Judy show’ as Claxton describes it, replete with endless arguments about ‘best practice’ and ‘evidence’ and ‘what works’.

 Those of us less enamoured with the current push (and in some cases a mandate) for a return to direct instruction across the curriculum often suggest we need a more ‘balanced’ approach – a kind of compromise or ‘sweet spot’ between what continues to be placed as opposing ends of the pedagogical continuum. I have noticed the way this idea of ‘balance’ is used by those who might argue for a more student- centred pedagogy as an attempt to reconcile the tension between what can be called “direct” teaching and inquiry-based teaching or between agency and compliance.

 But what if balance isn't the goal? What if inquiry isn't something to be balanced with direct instruction, but rather a fundamental stance that determines when and how we use all pedagogical tools?

 Balance. It is such a comforting word - and often for good reason.  A balanced diet, work-life balance, a balanced view – these all suggest that we’ve managed to get it right – we have found a more agreeable place between extremes. Balanced is neat, satisfying and neutral. When we are balanced, we are not at risk of falling or failing.  We get to have our cake and eat it too.  Balance doesn’t rock the boat (literally!)  - everybody gets a prize.

 I’ve been having a good, long think about it.  I think our platitudes about balance are little more than thinly veiled fence-sitting, people pleasing or perhaps worse, a failure to bravely stand by a set of principles and values that guide our work  – and an understandable but worrying avoidance of a discourse ridden with conflict.

When a school community chooses to intentionally grow a culture of inquiry, they do so based on principles defining the purpose of school, the image of the child, and the role of the educator and the role of the environment.  The ethos of inquiry sees the ‘pedagogical compass’ underpinned by the values of agency, equity, democracy, collaboration and curiosity, drawing on the rich and impressive bodies of research that support the cultivation of an inquiry stance to both teaching and learning.

 The pedagogy of inquiry is characterised by a thoughtful and varied repertoire. Being ‘explicit’ (directly explaining, modelling, breaking something down step by step ,etc.) has always been part of the repertoire but to suggest that it is somehow ‘in balance’ is misleading at best and problematic at worst.  When the pedagogy of inquiry is strong, the educator spends much more time questioning, listening, facilitating, pausing. observing, scaffolding, negotiating  - within learning engagements designed for high interactivity, active engagement, deliberate cultivation of competencies, deep understanding, problem finding and solving and sustained dialogue.  This is sophisticated and deep work – and requires educators to be creative, collaborate and design in response to learners’ needs.  Scripted programs and pre-determined, generic slide decks simply do not align with those values.  It is highly intentional work that honours learner agency and voice as well as acknowledging the ‘100 languages’ available to the child as means of investigation and expression.

 Of course, Incorporating some explicit teaching into inquiry-based pedagogy is, quite frankly, a given. Positioning inquiry pedagogy as ‘minimal guidance’ and a free-for-all is an old, tired argument. In four decades of working with children and educators on cultivating an inquiry stance, I have witnessed abandonment of guidance and support on very few occasions. I think we can all agree that providing guidance is a key role of the inquiry teacher.  That guidance takes many forms – questioning, listening, observing, suggesting, modelling.

 But here’s the thing. I am not intending to strike a balance. It’s not a 50/50 thing.  And when we do talk about ‘balance’ in this way, we run the risk of perpetuating the false dichotomy at the root of so many current arguments.

 If I truly see the child as a capable, competent, curious learner with the right to be an active participant in their learning journey, and if I bring an inquiry stance to my teaching, planning and assessment,  then the pedagogy of inquiry will drive my work: influencing the way I curate the classroom environment, the assessment practices, documentation, the language I use and the kind of relationships I nurture with children and their families.  

 I make no apologies for employing a pedagogy that is driven by a belief that children deserve time to think, to be in dialogue with educators and peers, to play, experiment and problem solve.  Explicit teaching (explaining, demonstrating, modelling, step by step processes) are in my repertoire but they are used at the point of need, and for children who require additional or earlier support.  Like a pinch of salt or a teaspoon of chilli, well timed, direct teaching can add significant value to the process. Of course, I am fully aware that there are many educators in furious agreement with this and yet they are currently hamstrung by mandates that leave them feeling helpless. I understand the significance of the moral injury incurred.  But at the very least, we can keep asking questions, we can think carefully about the language we use to talk about pedagogy, we can raise the question of ‘balance’ in our conversations – we can be ‘half a shade braver.’

 Inquiry is not a subject. Inquiry is not something we do on Tuesday  and Thursday afternoons to balance the pedagogy of transmission used the rest of the week. Inquiry does not need to be ‘balanced’ with direct teaching. Inquiry is a stance, a culture and a way of being. That way of being evolves from and feeds a way of seeing … the child, the educator, the purpose of school and the concept of learning itself.

So before we promote a ‘balanced’ approach – let’s ask ourselves what we mean. Are we avoiding the contradiction of slavishly following a scripted program in the morning by “doing inquiry” in the afternoon?  Are we letting ourselves off the hook when we set the classroom up in rows (strugglers at the front, flyers up the back) but claim to ‘do lots of turn and talk’ so it is ‘balanced?’Are we appeasing anxious parents who read the headlines rather than being clear about the principles that guide our pedagogy and the research that supports it? Are we in danger of seeking balance as a form of conflict avoidance and ultimately eroding the power of inquiry?

 Just wondering …

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!”  Four 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.

Tight yet loose: questions and resolutions for the year ahead ...

For many educators in the southern hemisphere, the end of the school year bumps up against Christmas, and then the end of the calendar year. It’s a LOT. I have long envied those in the Northern Hemisphere for whom the long summer break and the festive season do not coincide and where Christmas concerts do not overlap with farewell functions and classroom pack-ups! Here, the end of the year is typically an exhausting blur of report writing and forward planning, where everything seems to happen all at once.

 Today is the 6th of January.  For at least some of my Northern Hemisphere colleagues, this mean returning or soon to be returning to school. Even those of us still on our longer summer break, are starting to allow ourselves to think – even just for a small moment – about the school year ahead. By now, the blur of those last frantic weeks has settled and, perhaps, we are allowing some deeper, quieter reflection to emerge.

Whether halfway through or beginning a school year, the early weeks of January are typically a time of resolution.  A quick inquiry into the etymology of the word ‘resolution’ yields some fascinating results. The Latin root ‘resolvere’ means to loosen, undo or settle’ and to ‘reduce things to simpler forms’.  Later, the meaning evolved to include the idea of the ‘power of holding firmly and the character of acting with a fixed purpose’.  These almost contradictory notions got me thinking about the relationship between loosening or undoing,  in order to reform and renew - so perhaps they are not contradictory ideas at all.  An obvious analogy for me is when I notice an error in something I am knitting or crocheting. Although it is often tedious, I know the outcome will be better if I undo, go backwards and re-do more carefully. 

 Bringing an inquiry stance to our work as educators means a preparedness to regularly ‘loosen’ and undo our thinking in order to re-think and refresh our understandings.  After four decades in education, I am acutely aware of the ease with which my ways of thinking and acting can easily become calcified. It can get harder and harder to loosen my comfortable grip, undo habits and change. At the same time, I want my core values to keep me grounded – to ‘hold firmly’ to the heart of the work I do. It’s a tight and loose way of thinking.  

 One of the keys to resisting calcification of our thinking is, of course, to question. To regularly question ourselves and bring questions to our team that invite reflection, dialogue and perhaps, new resolutions.  Here are some of my favourite questions to loosen thinking …

• Why am I an educator?  What brings me to this work? Has my ‘why’ changed over the years?

• How do I see this work? Is it a job? A career? A vocation?

• How do I ‘see’ children?  What is my image of the child?  How does this image influence the way I teach

• How do I see myself as a teacher?  What metaphors do I currently hold for myself as a teacher?  

• How do I see the curriculum? Friend or foe?

• What is learning? How do people learn? How would I explain what learning is to others?

• What is the role of the environment in learning?   

• What does this classroom space – and the way it is curated – say about teaching and learning?  What might it say about what I value?

• How have I changed as an educator over the years?  What might I want to change in the year to come?

• What am I most curious about right now? What am I hungry to learn more about or learn to do or be?

• What do I consider to be the main purposes of schools? 

• Who are my role models as an educator? Why?

•  How can I keep myself inspired and passionate?

•  What might I need to untangle, loosen or simplify?

•  What might I continue to hold tightly? Why?

 My hope is, that as a new year unfolds, we all have opportunity and time to allow such questions to deliberately unsettle our thinking, and invite reflection and dialogue.  One view I unashamedly hold tightly is that teaching, as the late Ken Robinson so wisely reminded us, is not a ‘delivery system’ – it needs agile, responsive, creative and thoughtful educators willing to regularly revisit and articulate their ‘why’. I hope some of these questions can find their way into your thinking and discourse with colleagues as a new year begins. 

What questions would YOU add to this list?  

 Just wondering …

Valuing children’s voices as we map the journey ahead ...

There are many reasons why this is my favourite time of the year. They are both personal (I get to pack away my suitcase and be at home for an extended period … and there are Jacaranda’s flowering everywhere!) and professional. This is the time of year when some of the schools I partner with here in Australia take the time to deeply reflect on the school year behind them and begin to make plans for the year ahead. The thinking involved in this process is rich and complex. We need to be critical, reflective and creative and there is something about the time of year that seems give us permission to take it slowly, to sink in to the conversations we need to have and to give ourselves time to consider the work we do more deeply. 

 One of the processes we use to support our reflection is to gather data from every single child in the school and to use that data not only to help us understand the strengths and challenges of the year behind us but to inform the ‘map’ we develop for the year ahead.  In a few of my partner schools, teachers have chosen to nothave a fixed scope and sequence or program of inquiry.  The “units” developed with and for this year’s children are just that – for this year. We recognise that contexts, interests and needs change and we want to be responsive to that.  We already have a ‘scope and sequence’ within the mandated curriculum – but we can be responsive and creative about the contexts we harness to uncover that curriculum.

 I have used this process for several years now and with several schools. We ask children (in various ways) to respond to a range of questions including what they would love to learn more about in the year to come, what they think is important to learn about (often linked to current events or issues in the local and global community), what they have found meaningful and engaging this year, what they hope to explore in more depth or what they hope they will continue doing/learning in the year to come. We gather data about their concerns and their joys and the skills and dispositions (learning assets) they feel are their strengths and challenges.  Every, single child contributes information (through 1-1 interviews, surveys, drawings, written responses) and each collaborative team of educators is given time to analyse, identify patterns and themes, reflect on what the data reveals and consider the implications on the journeys of inquiry that we tentatively project into the next school year.  The seeds for the process were planted in me many years ago when I read the work of Professor James Beane, Michael Apple and of course the late Garth Boomer here in Australia.  Negotiating curriculum with learners is certainly not a new idea but one that deserves revisiting.

 I love what this process reveals. Although we gather reflections and feedback from kids throughout the year, there is something powerful about this big moment of pause. I see teams of teachers delighted, surprised, challenged and affirmed but, best of all, I see teachers really listening and noticing - intent on honouring the voices of children. 

 In many ways, the current climate is rife with confronting contradictions for educators. On the one hand, policies champion the value of learner agency, student voice, diversity and differentiation. On the other hand, the current breathless zeal for direct instruction (in literacy and numeracy at least) has prompted a return to one-size-fits-all programs and scripts that favour whole-class teaching, with little or no attention given to the context and needs of particular group of learners. Not only is student voice stifled but teacher voice is too.   This is a time that is challenging us to re-examine our beliefs and understandings about children, pedagogy, curriculum and the purpose of school itself.  And to know what we stand for and why.

 One of the fundamental principles of inquiry as a stance is the right of the learner to participate in the decisions made about and for their learning and a belief in the expertise and insight of the educator to design for learning in response to observation and documentation. Does this mean children make all the decisions? Of course not!  But it does mean that educators must choose to listen - and to consider ways they can design learning experiences that both honour interests and take children’s thinking further.  This process supports the idea of ‘relational pedagogy’ which emphasises reciprocity, joint involvement, respect for children’s ideas and theories, and emphasises meaning making. (Hedges, 2022:125)

 There is so much that is revealed in the process we work through. There are definitely some key differences across contexts that mean the maps we create are bespoke for each school. But in each school, staff noticed some recurring themes that naturally lent themselves to journeys of inquiry.  And as I stood back to think about the data across schools, I found myself jotting down some of the overarching questions that framed the most prevalent interests we noticed. Children tend to ask more specific, focussed questions but the bigger conceptual ideas to which they connect can be summarised below:

• What does it mean to be a friend? How can I build and sustain healthy relationships with others?  How can I manage the challenges of relationships?

• How can we care for other living things?  How can I learn more about the natural world and the diversity of animals with which we share the earth?

• What can we do about climate change? How will it affect us? Why don’t leaders do more to look after the planet?

• What’s it like in other parts of the world? How do other people live? How are we the same and different?

• How do things work?  What makes things function? How are the different parts of things connected?

• What does it mean to belong? How can I belong?  How can I be brave and true to myself and be part

  What dof a group?

• How can I use my creativity to express my ideas? How can I become a more accomplished artist (visual/performing)

• Why do wars happen?  How can we keep ourselves safe? What can we do about conflict in our lives?

• How can cope with the challenge of failure? 

 And, time and time again, children tell us that their learning is enhanced when:

• Teachers are kind and make them feel seen

• They get to go out of the school and have real, direct experiences in the world around them

• They get to ‘do art’. – when they can design, make, create

• They have time to play

• They don’t feel rushed

• They feel successful and proud of their learning and can share it with others

 In a beautiful article (link below) Educator Jane Style challenges educators to tap into the ‘scholarship in the selves’ in contrast to the ‘scholarship on the shelves’. She invites us to consider that the curriculum walks in the door with the children, reminding us that they come to school with their ‘life texts’.  Listening to the voices of hundreds of children over the last 2 weeks has been such an affirmation of this idea. And when we do listen, we are so often blown away by the depth and passion in children’s voices and are compelled to take them seriously.  And it is not too great a challenge to weave those interests, passions and concerns into our plans and to find connections with the curriculum.  This process helps bring the curriculum to life. As we acknowledge, for example, the sheer volume of children interested in and worried about their friendships and the navigation of their social world, we see connections to the health curriculum and the possibilities of linking to broader, transdisciplinary concepts such as connection, cause and effect, change and interdependence.

Inviting learner voice into the process of mapping for inquiry is energising, creative and connecting work. Each time we go through this process, I see teachers leave the room excited and uplifted about the prospect of the learning that lies ahead.  I feel both their sense of agency together with  a strong sense of connection to the children for whom we are designing the learning. And who have the right to be part of that process.

https://www.nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/Curriculum_as_Encounter.pdf

What role to children play in your designs for inquiry?

Just Wondering

What a broken heart reminded me about teaching, learning and inquiry

In early June this year, my healthy, vibrant, eldest daughter contracted a serious (and mysterious) infection that left her gravely ill and with a damaged heart.  I managed to get to London within 24 hours of her being admitted to hospital. Little did I know we would not be leaving for three months, 6 weeks of which would be in hospital.  We are back in Australia now for continued treatment and I am gradually back working in schools. While my sole focus at the time was on caring for my sick child, this rather personal post (a few months down the track) is a reflection on some of the ways this traumatic experience got me thinking about our work as teachers.  Writing is my main ‘meaning making’ strategy … I hope some of that meaning making resonates with you.

 So. What did I learn (or understand more deeply?)

Fear is the mind-killer. (Frank Herbert)

Never has this famous phrase (attributed to Frank Herbert) resonated with me as much as it has over the last three months.  The intense, all-encompassing fear that drenched my body on hearing bad news, on being told of possible consequences of infection, or the side effects of a procedure walked with me every day. And what I noticed, of course, was that when it was strongest, my mind would go blank. There was no room for anything else. No rational, considered thought – just a jangle of internal panic made worse by having to ‘put on a brave face’.  Doctors would be explaining something to me and I simply could not take it in.  Schools are not hospitals, but for too many children, schools can be a place in which fear dwells. Whether it be fear of not getting it right, fear of being ‘cold called’, fear of separation, fear of not belonging … And when fear enters our body, our minds shut down. Fear is indeed the mind killer, and classrooms must be safe places for our learners to flourish, to take risks, to think and to struggle productively.

Being comfortable with uncertainty is easier said than done

I have been banging on about living with uncertainty for decades. It’s one of the catch cries of those of us who champion more progressive ways of approaching teaching and learning.  Over the last three months I have lived with more uncertainty than I can remember ever having experienced before.  For weeks, we dwelt in a sea of unanswered questions and were adrift in the unknown.  There was nothing edifying about that state – it was completely enervating. When I reflect on it in terms of classroom cultures, I am reminded of the paradox of uncertainty.  That in order to live well and comfortably with uncertainty– we need some certainty. Dependable routines, predictable parts of the day and week and other known elements provide anchors that allow the unexpected to delight rather than derail. Our children are better equipped to manage the unknown when there is plenty of ‘known’ to lean on. 

Questions get better over time

Many of us see questions as the jewel in the crown of inquiry – and indeed, it is hard to imagine an inquiry classroom without them.  Questions were certainly an important part of this experience but, as is the case with so many journeys of inquiry in the classroom,  the more we learned, the more helpful and considered our questions became. Life brought us a terrifying and unexpected ‘provocation’ but in the absence of information and in a state of ignorance (and fear) the journey began with experience and listening rather than a surge of questions.  When the questions did start to bubble up, I found myself monitoring them, withholding some, choosing the ones that felt the most important at the time.  I also recognised the power of the pause: the space between the intense and constant discourse. As an inquirer, sometimes NOT asking questions but simply learning to accept what was, felt more helpful than endless probing.  I have seen it over and over again in classrooms – questions being asked for their own sake rather than questions being thoughtfully formulated for genuine purposes.  I still have lists of questions in my journal that I decided not to ask.  

Our whole body teaches and learns

There is nothing like a traumatic experience to remind us of the connection between the mind and the body. Typically, schools are places that have privileged the cerebral over the manual, thinking over doing and the rational over the emotional.  In the throes of a challenging, confronting, high-stakes experience one is quickly reminded that the body is responding and anticipating. It was my gut – not my head – that told me, at times what my daughter needed or that decisions being made felt wrong (and turned out to be).  It was helpful that I had read Guy Claxton’s book “Intelligence in the flesh” , reminding me that emotions and all the physical manifestations of them are part of our” intelligent equipment.”    I needed to listen to my body, to think of it as an ally to my mind, as did my daughter - even when infection had ravaged hers.  Classrooms are places where children are so often taught to ignore their bodies, to still and tame them. We talk so much about thinking - but less about feeling. We ask them to listen to us  - but we need also need to ask them to listen to their body. AND we need to be more attuned to what their bodies tell us.

Inquiry is indeed a cyclical process

The journey of inquiry begins with a purpose.  Whether it be pure curiosity, a desire to make or create something, a longing to understand something more deeply or, as in my case, a desperate need to find out and understand. On revisiting my journal, I can clearly see the spiralling, cyclical nature of a journey of inquiry. As we gather in new information (from experience, from experts, from reading, from viewing, from experimenting and exploring) along the way, we try to sort it all out and make meaning …and new seeds are planted for new lines of investigation.  New questions evolve and so we continue to explore. There is nothing linear about it, although each time we cycle through that process we do take our learning deeper. We change our minds, we broaden our perspectives and the unknown becomes known. As a journey of inquiry unfolds, it can be a challenge to remain open minded and even more of a challenge to change one’s mind.  And yet this is what we must be prepared to do in order to grow and understand something more deeply. Over the course of six weeks there were numerous times where we received either conflicting information or at least different perspectives and opinions in response to the same question.  This is the nature of most research journeys. The terrain is not smooth and the answers are not consistent across sources. And, as more evidence is gathered theories are refined, new possibilities and pathways present themselves.  From gastroenteritis, to a bad migraine, to meningitis to infective endocarditis … new evidence shifted thinking. Our doctors needed to stay open and curious – and so did we. Helping our children understand the gift of changing one’s mind and staying open to the perspectives new information brings is one of the fundamental elements of a true inquiry process.

Without meaning making, information is of little value.

For the first time in a long time, I experienced what it was like to have to take in what were huge amounts of complex information on an almost daily basis - much like our children are often expected to do.  Unlike some of our children, I was anxious to learn, I wanted to understand, I wanted to find out as much as I could.  I felt like my daughter’s life depended on it. But even with that – even with that intense purpose, the information itself was rarely sufficient. Here’s what I noticed: I noticed that when the doctors left the room after answering our questions and sharing information with us, we needed two things. We needed to talk and to check our understanding with each other. We needed to ‘co construct’ meaning together and to make sense of it all as best we could.  And sometimes all that talk needed to wait. We needed to pause. To walk slowly around the hospital foyer, to sit in quiet stillness and watch the clouds out the window before we could speak. We needed to give our addled minds a rest before the meaning making began.  Classrooms are often busy, fast moving and intense environments that provide insufficient time for processing and meaning making.  We all need time. Time to talk with others AND time to process things quietly, and the permission to stare vacantly out a window and allow our thoughts to meander as we gradually build meaning.

Explanation, and demonstration are necessary elements of inquiry.

Just as we can overstate the importance of questions, we can underplay the importance of direct explanation. Of course, I did some of my own independent research – in fact I was in constant inquiry mode not just about my daughter’s grave illness but about how to get around London, where to stay, etc. But when it came to the information I needed about Gretta’s illness, I needed to hear it from the expert. And I needed it explained carefully, slowly and simply. Often several times.  Yes, I read information, studied diagrams and even let myself google some things while deliberately staying away from others … but I needed direct explanation from those with the knowledge and experience. In our zest to engage children as inquirers, it can be easy to dismiss the power of a well-placed, well executed moment of direct instruction and explanation.  Explaining, demonstrating, modelling are vital ingredients in our pedagogy and need to be intentionally woven into the fabric of inquiry.

Teaching is strengthened by the team

When I wasn’t overly anxious, I became fascinated by the constant collaboration I observed between various medical staff we would encounter each day. Doctors rarely did a round on their own. Nurses, students and other colleagues would come into the room, clearly having had discussions with each other. Gretta was seen as the patient of the team - not of one single doctor. There were numerous times when her case was taken to a multidisciplinary team’ for discussion. This was a moment when the vocabulary of our two worlds - medicine and education were one and the same! These multidisciplinary meetings provided doctors with specific expertise to be informed by the expertise and insights of others. Decisions were never made by an individual but rather through dialogue within and across teams. This collaboration was incredibly reassuring. We all have blindspots and we can all benefit from the perspectives and specific skill sets of our colleagues. Great teachers see themselves as team players too - seeking out the insights of others, collaborating routinely as they plan. It’s we over me.

The physical environment matters.

We all know our surrounding environment impacts the way we feel and think and hospitals are a profound reminder of this. The lighting, the noise, the lack of fresh air, the lack of privacy, the comfort (or discomfort) of the beds, the space or lack of space to move … I could go on. There are reasons why some of the more clinical elements of hospitals need to be the way they are, but we have no such excuse in the classroom. When we were moved from a busy, chaotic, ward with no windows and an incredibly noisy atmosphere to the quiet of a single room with a view - the impact on our mood was immediate and dramatic. The simple joy of being able to look out a window, to watch birds circling or study the shape of clouds over the endless days made such a difference. I could see the anxiety in my daughter fall away - the calm around us helped create calm within us. Our wellbeing is bound to our environment in ways we are not always conscious of until that environment changes. The same is true for classrooms. As someone who visits many, many classrooms over a year I can attest to the direct relationship between the way the space is curated and the culture of the learners in the space. Consideration, in particular of the quality of light and sound should be on every teachers’ mind as they think about their learning space. And beauty. Please consider beauty. There was a wall of art works in the foyer of the hospital to which we gravitated over and over again. I can still see them in my minds eye now. An aesthetic balm to the struggle we were in.

Relationships are, indeed, everything.

Like classrooms, hospitals are places in which rank and power are dominant forces. I don’t think it is too far a stretch to say that being a patient in hospital can at times be like  being a child in a classroom. Like a school uniform, the hospital gown itself seems to represent a kind of vulnerability and powerlessness. Being in a hospital (even as a carer not a patient) for 6 weeks reminded me of the concept of institutionalisation and its impact on agency.  By far, the key ingredient in nurturing both my and my daughter’s sense of agency was the way individual staff communicated with us.  It was pretty simple really.  Staff who genuinely listened, used our names, were encouraging, showed empathy, took a little time to learn something about my daughter as a person – not just a patient, who smiled, enjoyed a laugh and, despite working in the most horrendous conditions at times, remained kind and professional … these people were gold. They made ALL the difference. They had every reason to be jaded and grumpy. The abuse they received from many patients made the average classroom pale by comparison. And yet, for the most part, they remained positive and professional. Feeling heard and valued has enormous benefits on wellbeing and on our sense of self. Agency flourishes when we trust ourselves, and the way others choose to treat us has a huge impact on that trust.  While tests, scans, medications and the incredible knowledge of doctors saved my daughter, it was the quality of daily human interaction that sustained both her and my resilience for the long haul. And so, it is in the classroom. In the end, systems, policies, programs, pedagogies and resources are significant but not sufficient. Like health professionals, educators are part of a service profession. I was reminded that, for me anyway, teaching is a vocation that requires a commitment to being of service to children and their families.  In an age of vapid teacher-tok reels and Instagram awash with egos and Edu-influencers, it can be easy to forget what we are fundamentally here to do. It is our relationship with the children that must sit at the heart of it all.

For almost three months I was completely disconnected from my life as an educator. But, with 40 years of teaching under my belt, it is impossible not to see even the most traumatic of experiences, at least in part, through the lens of my educator identity.  As Victor Frankl famously reminded us, we can’t choose what happens to us, but we can choose our responses. One of my responses has been to reflect on the lessons I learned - perhaps in an effort to salvage some meaning and growth from the trauma of it all.

 Our learning, as teachers, does not and should not exist within the vacuum of the classroom, school or ‘workshop’ room.  Indeed, I wonder whether experiences that take us outside of our education bubble can teach us more than those within it? At the very least, being removed from that context can give us new perspectives and remind us of old truths. For my daughter and our family, the journey continues – and with it, no doubt, the learning.

What can life (both the challenges and the joys) outside of schools teach us about our work?

Just wondering

'Yet ...' bringing together the science AND art of inquiry

I am on my way home from a wonderful week working with the staff of the International School of Uganda. It is such a privilege to be invited to spend a full week on campus, planning, hosting rich conversations about pedagogy, facilitating workshops and of course, lots of classroom teaching. Classroom ‘labsites’ or ‘learning labs’ as they are often called have been a consistent element of my practice as a consultant for 20 years. I know of no better way to collectively examine, critique and investigate what it means to bring an inquiry stance to teaching and learning than to get in a classroom, teach, and invite colleagues to observe and listen. We ALL learn – the teachers, the kids, and me.  And as a trained and experienced early years and primary classroom teacher, working with and learning from children always feels like coming home. This is where my heart lies.

 This is where the hearts of most teachers lie.  The core of our work - the reason most of us do this, is about our day-to-day interaction with children as they learn. It’s about what we say, think and do when we walk into a learning space … and teach.  As we wound up the week yesterday, the primary principal, Dan, reflected on the ‘artistry’ of teaching and the power of seeing ourselves as artists – mindfully choreographing our next move, standing back to ponder and appraise our work, thriving in the creativity of a responsive approach and intentionally dipping into a palette of practices as we observe, listen to and respond to learners. It is thoughtful, complex, creative and stimulating work.  I was reminded of a quote from a blog I read a few years ago:

 “Thinking of teaching as an art elevates our work from the pedantic to the profound. When we think of ourselves as artists, we set both a very high standard for the evocative nature of our work and a deeper compassion for the difficult challenges we will face in pursuing that standard.  Thinking of our teaching this way challenges us to prioritize the interactions between teacher and student rather than the ‘grade’. In both art and teaching, attending to the work itself rather than the outcome of that work raises the authenticity of the outcome.” Catherine McTamaney, Ed.D.

 To acknowledge and approach the work of teaching through an artistic metaphor was a beautiful balance to the very different kinds of conversations I had been having at home prior to my trip, where the word ‘science’ seemed to be increasingly attached to our work, often bringing with it a kind of didactic rigidity that seemed at times to suck the life out of the beautiful work we do … all head and no heart.  We have much to learn from the work of cognitive scientists - but let us not ignore the artistry of teaching.

Perhaps the most potent teaching is in the centre of a venn diagram connecting teaching (and learning) as a science AND art.  This seems to be a recurring theme for me (I have written extensively about this,for example, here and here)  as I continue to resist unnecessary duality and acknowledge complexity, and to avoid dogmatism and orthodoxy and acknowledge nuance.  While the word ‘nuance’ can prompt the occasional eyeroll, it remains central to my efforts to find ways to meet in the field beyond.  Journalist Annabelle Crabb, in a recent article about a high profile court case here in Australia writes:

“Inability to see nuance in an issue about which one feels deeply is- when extrapolated to a group – the number one most frightening thing about tribalism. … people who are motivated by good and reasonable sentiments get so busy fighting the holders of other sentiments that they let go, sometimes without noticing, of the principles that got them into it in the first place. Why do we do this? Because we like to gather in groups of people with which we agree. It’s safe. It’s calming. It gives us a sense of purpose and connection. But it can also blind us to nuance …”

 I read Crabb’s article not long after reading another wonderful post by another insightful and articulate educator, Tracey Ezard. Her writings about the ‘Paradox of Yet’ resonated with me strongly.  Ezard writes about this in relation to leadership, but I could not help but think about the same idea when pondering the persistent problem of inquiry and explicit instruction being pitted against each other.  When I returned to the article to write this post, I realised that she too had drawn on the metaphor of artistry:

“If we’re driven by a strong set of principles that centre us, we can bring this duality together. Like an artist mixing two seeming opposing colours together, we end up with a third choice. It becomes a richer choice that incorporates strengths from both sides.”

I nodded furiously as I read:

 “Without the blending of the seemingly opposing strengths, we become a victim of extremities.”

Ezzard’s clever pairing of seemingly opposing approaches to leadership invited me to do the same for inquiry:

Flexible yet structured

Student-led yet teacher-guided

Student-led yet teacher-guided

Emergent yet planned

Responsive yet intentional

Collaborative yet personalised

Inductive yet explicit

Playful yet rigorous

Conceptual yet knowledge-rich

Integrated yet discipline-specific

Exploratory yet focussed

Messy yet organised

Open ended yet scaffolded

Action-oriented yet reflective

This proved to be an interesting provocation for the staff at ISU who helpfully added:

Hands on/authentic yet abstract

 Teachers who bring an inquiry stance to their work acknowledge the ‘yetness’ of their approach.  I have deliberately ‘bolded’ the elements that characterize inquiry. These are without question, the features I probably lean into more often.  BUT the seemingly ‘opposing’ elements are not only present in my practice, they enhance it!  I can make the most of the emergent nature of inquiry because I have a plan – a big picture view. I can engage kids in real experiences and hands on learning but this is made more powerful by the higher order, abstract thinking we do to build conceptual  understanding.  The word ‘yet’ gives permission to be nuanced and to dip into the vast palette of possibilities we have as educators. But it doesn’t mean ‘anything goes’, in the framing I offer here, the ‘yet’ is not necessarily about balance - it is about acknowledging the nuances so often overlooked in simplistic representations of inquiry. 

As the teachers at ISU gathered to debrief their observations of lessons this week, an appreciation of nuance was alive and well.  When we are slaves to ‘absolutism’ or programs that allow no room for artistry and adaptation, we lose the power of ‘yet’. And we lose the gift of learning from and with others who see it differently.  

I found this such a helpful way of thinking about the pedagogy of inquiry. How about you? What would you add?

Just wondering …