Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

What does it mean to teach for human dignity? How does one do so? This practical book shows how the leaders at four urban public schools used a process called Descriptive Inquiry to create democratic schools that promote and protect human dignity. The authors argue that teachers must attend to who a child is and find a way to create classrooms that allow everyone to feel safe and express ideas. Responding to the perennial question of how to cultivate teachers, they offer an approach that attends to both ethical development and instructional methods. They also provide a way forward for school leaders seeking to listen to, and provide guidance for, their staff. At its core, Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice champions a commitment to schools as places in which children, teachers, and leaders can learn how to live and work well together.

Book Features:

  • Illustrates how to take an inquiry stance toward the difficult issues that educators face every day.
  • Examines how themes regularly addressed in foundations can be used to improve schools.
  • Includes engaging portraits of progressive urban schools that showcase the qualities of the leaders that guide them.
  • Demonstrates the power of a progressive and humanistic education for children of color and for those from lower-income backgrounds.
1137624879
Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

What does it mean to teach for human dignity? How does one do so? This practical book shows how the leaders at four urban public schools used a process called Descriptive Inquiry to create democratic schools that promote and protect human dignity. The authors argue that teachers must attend to who a child is and find a way to create classrooms that allow everyone to feel safe and express ideas. Responding to the perennial question of how to cultivate teachers, they offer an approach that attends to both ethical development and instructional methods. They also provide a way forward for school leaders seeking to listen to, and provide guidance for, their staff. At its core, Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice champions a commitment to schools as places in which children, teachers, and leaders can learn how to live and work well together.

Book Features:

  • Illustrates how to take an inquiry stance toward the difficult issues that educators face every day.
  • Examines how themes regularly addressed in foundations can be used to improve schools.
  • Includes engaging portraits of progressive urban schools that showcase the qualities of the leaders that guide them.
  • Demonstrates the power of a progressive and humanistic education for children of color and for those from lower-income backgrounds.
26.49 In Stock
Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice: Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

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Overview

What does it mean to teach for human dignity? How does one do so? This practical book shows how the leaders at four urban public schools used a process called Descriptive Inquiry to create democratic schools that promote and protect human dignity. The authors argue that teachers must attend to who a child is and find a way to create classrooms that allow everyone to feel safe and express ideas. Responding to the perennial question of how to cultivate teachers, they offer an approach that attends to both ethical development and instructional methods. They also provide a way forward for school leaders seeking to listen to, and provide guidance for, their staff. At its core, Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice champions a commitment to schools as places in which children, teachers, and leaders can learn how to live and work well together.

Book Features:

  • Illustrates how to take an inquiry stance toward the difficult issues that educators face every day.
  • Examines how themes regularly addressed in foundations can be used to improve schools.
  • Includes engaging portraits of progressive urban schools that showcase the qualities of the leaders that guide them.
  • Demonstrates the power of a progressive and humanistic education for children of color and for those from lower-income backgrounds.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807779323
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Publication date: 01/08/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 659 KB

About the Author

Cara E. Furman is an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Maine, Farmington. Cecelia E. Traugh is the dean of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction Cara E. Furman Cecelia E. Traugh 1

What Is Human Dignity? 4

What Is Teaching? 4

Democracy and Teacher Development 6

Sources and Methods 7

Overview of the Text 9

Adding to the Conversation 11

Part I Philosophical Framings

1 The Need for Practical Wisdom: What It Is and How It's Developed Cara E. Furman 15

Practical Wisdom in a Complex Teaching Situation: My Recollection 16

Practical Wisdom: Naming and Describing Teacher Knowing 17

Teaching: To Be Effective and Ethical 18

Origins and Key Criteria of Practical Wisdom 20

2 The Cultivating of a Practically Wise Teacher Self Cara E. Furman 24

The Cultivation of Practical Wisdom 24

Closing Thoughts 30

3 Cultivating Practical Wisdom Through Descriptive Inquiry: A Case of Caring of the Self Cecelia E. Trough 32

Putting Values Into Action 33

Values Shaping Descriptive Inquiry 39

Closing Comments: Descriptive Inquiry as an Ethical Endeavor 53

Part II How Descriptive Inquiry Lived in the Schools: Promoting Human Dignity with Children and Teachers

4 City-as-School: Building a Collaborative Culture Through Descriptive Inquiry Rachel Seher 57

Collaborative Cultures 58

City-as-School 59

Before Descriptive Inquiry 60

Starting Descriptive Inquiry 63

Lessons for School Leadership 68

Addendum 69

5 Curricular Values: Exploring the Place of Children, Teachers, and the Culture of School in Building Curriculum Cara E. Furman Cecelia E. Trough 71

Inquiries Into Writing Curriculum-Cara's Story 73

My Experience of the Year and the Review 75

Descriptive Inquiry and Curriculum: The Principals' Perspectives 78

Coming to Know a School's Curricular Culture 83

To Be Known Through One's Work: The Power of Sharing Curriculum and Grappling With Words and Deeds 85

6 Using Descriptive Process to Rebuild and Sustain a Democratic School Community Jane Andrias 87

The School 88

Revisiting What Was There 88

Descriptive Process: A Palette of Possibilities 89

Conclusion 112

Postscript 112

Part III Seeing and Acting with Others: How Descriptive Inquiry Supports Practical Wisdom

7 Changing a Perspective: No Easy Task Cara E. Furman 119

A Most Noble Deed 120

The Power of Perspective 122

Attending 122

Context 123

Juxtaposition 124

Care 125

Changing Perspective 126

8 Supporting and Being Supported Cara E. Furman Alison Hazut 127

Adjusting Our Vision of Children: Alison's Narrative 128

Being Seen as a Teacher and a Learner: Cara's Narrative 137

Implications 143

9 Listening So as to Attend: Descriptions of Cecelia's Role in Schools Cara E. Furman Cecelia E. Traugh Laurie Engle 145

Setting 146

Listening to Cecelia 146

Integrated Restatement 154

Postscript 158

Part IV What Does it Mean to Lead Schools For Human Dignity?

10 The Authority of Values Within Collaborative School Communities Cecelia E. Trough Rachel Seher Abbe Futterman 163

Listening for Meaning 163

Building School Culture 165

Negotiating Competing Values 178

Working on Difficult Issues 182

Integrative Restatement 185

11 A Reflection on the Idea of the Practically Wise School Cecelia E. Trough Cara E. Furman 187

References 190

Index 195

About the Authors 203

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Beginning with the question of what it means to teach with human dignity, this wonderful and highly engaging book blends philosophy, narrative, and tools for educators to build community and lead with care. Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice contains lovely illustrations of how schools have enacted a range of descriptive processes, with invitations for readers to engage in their own reflections on key words as a lens for reading the book. New and highly experienced teachers, teacher educators, and administrators who seek to understand how to move their schools forward in these precarious and challenging times will find inspiration, a deeper understanding of themselves and their communities, and concrete ideas in this fine book.”
Katherine Schultz, dean, School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder


“This wonderful collection of essays reminds me once again how much we owe Pat Carini for framing the ideas and practice of Descriptive Inquiry. It is not a recipe or a protocol, but a way of being in and with the world. It calls upon our human capacities to develop habits of mind and spirit that foster knowledge, respect, empathy, and democracy.”
Deborah Meier, teacher, principal, and advocate

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