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Inquiry Essay

This quote perfectly summarizes the intention of this essay: “Taking an inquiry stance on

leadership means that teachers challenge the purposes and underlying assumptions of

educational change efforts rather than simply helping to specify or carry out the most

effective methods for predetermined ends” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 295). My

experience at Graduate School of Education (GSE) has constantly enabled me to look at and

dig into individuals’ lives and thoughts – my peers, teachers – their confusions and mine

interwoven, lead me to an inquiry into literacy environment in the US. In addition to some

effective pedagogies, I have learned more regarding the assumptions of education in this

context. These thoughts started from a question mark, and probably will end with another.

Nonetheless, I hope these thoughts reflected in the framework of Inquiry as Stance will be a

new window towards what is strange and worth questioning, looking from an outsider’s

perspective.

To begin with, this essay will focus on the basic understanding of Inquiry as Stance. This

stance improves the literacy environment by stimulating teacher initiative through community

communication.

Inquiry as Stance

Inquiry as Stance centers the role of community communication. Cochran-Smith and

Lytle (1999) conceptualize that there are three types of relationships between knowledge and

practice in education (i.e., knowledge-for-practice, knowledge-in-practice, and

knowledge-of-practice). Knowledge-for-practice emphasizes on the theoretical aspect of

knowledge (e.g., the knowledge coming from the GSE reading assignment),
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knowledge-in-practice emphasizes on the practical aspect of knowledge (e.g., the knowledge

coming from the GSE fieldwork teaching assignment), and knowledge-of-practice

emphasizes on the interactive aspect of knowledge between knowledge and practice (e.g., the

knowledge coming from interviews with reading specialists in our course, where we

discussed the problems we had in assisting students together), which is considered critical in

the context of a community. The goal of Inquiry as Stance, thus, is to seek the

knowledge-of-practice. Two main characteristics set it apart from other stances: one is

marked by a collaborative relationship rather than a traditional expert-novice relationship

(Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 292), and the other is marked by its end, where it requires teachers

to challenge existing ideas and make changes in the community. The connotation of “Inquiry”

is reflected in this ongoing process of asking questions about the current state of the

community, without the necessity of reaching a conclusion, because one question usually

leads to another (Simon, 2015, p. 52). Inquiry as Stance highlights the initiative of teachers to

lead educational change, or even social change.

The Importance of Inquiry

Simon’s case study (2015) illustrates the importance of Inquiry as Stance to students with

the experience of how a teacher, Laura, communicates with one of her students. Laura was

teaching at a school where “75 percent of students were African American” (p. 53), and Will,

a student in her class (who had been labeled “disengaged” by other teachers) suddenly

talked with Laura angrily, saying that he could not believe that the school did not teach them

Emmett Till’ s murder in history classes. Laura reflected this experience and summarized

the importance of inquiry powerfully: “It is impossible to have faith in an institution if you
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believe it is not teaching what you think is important.” Without this interaction as an

opportunity to inquiry and critical literacy, or if all teachers kept teaching solely according

to the existing syllabus, teachers may never have learned that students like Will were

actually engaged, and the problem truly lied in the school’s overlook of black history. This

example shows how cold the environment of literacy (in this case, history classes) can be if

it is lack of inquiry, as its highness is making it gradually lose students’ trust.

In addition, Inquiry as Stance can not be separated from the discussion of literacy.

“Literacy was not something you kept for yourself; it was to be passed on to others, to the

community. Literacy was something to share” (Perry, 2003, p. 14). In other words, literacy

practice must take place in a community, which is the environment for literacy. Inquiry can

also enhance critical literacy and learning across teachers’ professional life spans (Campano,

Ghiso, & Sanchez, 2013; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Freedman & Appleman, 2009;

Hamre & Oyler, 2004; Nieto, 2003; Schulz & Mandzuk, 2005; Schultz & Ravitch, 2013;

Simon, 2013a, 2013b; Whitney et al., 2008). Simon (2015) provides examples of the Bread

Loaf Teacher Network, the National Writing Project, and the Philadelphia Teachers Learning

Cooperative to show how inquiry communities can influence the development of more

critical and culturally relevant curriculums and pedagogies (p. 44). These networks have all

established for over 30 years and have been contributed to local literacy issues, such as

providing more equitable approaches to responding to students’ writing (Simon, 2013b).

Reflection: my inquiry at GSE

The first moment making me begin the inquiry into the literacy environment in the

context of the US was when I asked a classmate, Elsa (pseudonym) if she had been assessed.
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She was talking about her case study of helping another Hispanic boy with disabilities in

perfect English until I asked this question. She suddenly paused and answered slowly: “Yes, I

have been assessed, since I am in a Spanish-speaking family. I could hardly remember any

specific process though...all I remember is just that I was struggling a lot.” Elsa’s impressive

vulnerability directly showed the impact of her identity as a Hispanic to me, instead of the

identity of being a normal American citizen. Her aptitude has already demonstrated that she

did not need to struggle intellectually, but the label of her identity seems too crucial,

determining whether a student should be specifically assessed. This event made me question:

though many tests are designed to help students, are they truly empower students or promote

discrimination, when racial identity (rather than performance) is always associated with a

negative label such as “likely to struggle”?

The second moment was when I heard Powell’s podcast mentioning the South tireless

efforts against black people’s rights, which led to this question: besides the historical factor,

what makes the South against black people till now? I turned to the professor at that class,

read several papers, and was introduced to the concept of “implicit bias”, which was not

spoken, but hidden in people’s subconsciousness. Implicit bias is shaped by a literacy

environment where history and medium continue to reinforce the negative impression of a

particular identity. People in the south, for example, are implicitly bias against black people;

Hispanic pupils requiring special assessments can be another type of implicit bias; the subtle

strangeness for being Asian people in the US probably has to do with it as well (my Asian

classmates echoing). The next question is, how can we make change?

In a recent interview with an American classmate, Lindsay (pseudonym), mentioned that

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ironically, even in a multicultural class, she could not ask questions that she was extremely

curious about to our classmates from other backgrounds, because she was fear of offending

others in the current tense racial climate. To make change is hard. Though I do not find the

answer to this final question, it was only after I learned Inquiry as Stance that I realized if I

did not start and keep asking questions in chitchats, interviews, and office hours, I would

never have learned that these confusions were worth discussing to the classmates and

teachers at GSE community as well. My inquiry has also become the initiative of writing

these essays now – to further explore how emotion such as fear may impact literacy.
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References

Campano, G., Ghiso, M. P., & Sanchez, L. (2013). “Nobody knows the ... amount of a

person”: Elementary students critiquing dehumanization through organic critical

literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(1), 97-124.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of Knowledge and Practice: Teacher

Learning in Communities. Review of Research in Education, 24(1), 249–305.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research in the

next generation. New York: Teachers College.

Freedman, S. W., & Appleman, D. (2009). “In it for the long haul”: How teacher education

can contribute to teacher retention in high-poverty, urban schools. Journal of Teacher

Education, 60(3), 323-337.

Hamre, B., & Oyler, C. (2004). Preparing teachers for inclusive classrooms: Learning from a

collaborative inquiry group. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(2), 154-163.

Nieto, S. (2003). Challenging current notions of “highly qualified teachers” through work in a

teachers’ inquiry group. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(5), 386-398.

Perry, T. (2003). Freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom: The African-American

philosophy of education, in T. Perry, C. Steele, and A. Hilliard, Young, Gifted, and

Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students, Boston, MA:

Beacon.

Schultz, K., & Ravitch, S. M. (2015). Narratives of learning to teach: Taking on professional

identities. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(1), 35-46.

Schulz, R., & Mandzuk, D. (2005). Learning to teach, learning to inquire: A 3-year study of
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teacher candidates' experiences. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(5), 315-331.

Simon, R. (2013a). Literacy teacher education as critical inquiry. In C. Kosnik, J. Rowsell, P.

Williamson, R. Simon, & C. Beck (Eds.), Literacy teacher educators: Preparing

teachers for a changing world (pp. 121-134). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Simon, R. (2013b). “Starting with what is”: Exploring response and responsibility to student

writing through collaborative inquiry. English Education, 45(2), 115-146.

Simon, R. (2015). “I’m Fighting My Fight, and I’m Not Alone Anymore”: The Influence of

Communities of Inquiry. English Education, 48(1), 41-71.

Whitney, A., Blau, S., Bright, A., Cabe, R., Dewar, T., Levin, J., Macias, R., & Rogers, P.

(2008). Beyond strategies: Teacher practice, writing process, and the influence of

inquiry. English Education, 40(3), 201-230.