It's a chapter in Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools by Jane Mohr Lone and Michael D. Burroughs, a text I wish I had for the last 6 semesters I've taught Philosophy in Education in the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. I've been searching for a long time, switching up my go-to texts every time I teach the course keeping Kristina Rizga's Mission High, Dewey's Experience and Education, and Freire's Teaches As Cultural Workers: Letters To Those Who Dare Teach as successful texts - they help me to get to where I need to be with the students. It hasn't been until finding Philosophy of Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools that I finally put a bow on the 15-week curriculum. I am especially fond of chapter 3 and its treatment of building a community of philosophical inquiry.
Participants in a community of inquiry work to examine a problematic concept or situation, following the inquiry where it leads, consistent with logic and critical reasoning. (p. 53)Undergraduates spent this morning working through the chapter as we opened a seminar to think about: I am my test scores and my grades. They define me as a human being. The conversation was rich, engaging, frustrating and definitely thought-provoking.
I'm very early in my thinking about the power of this chapter (their research and work), but I want to state today that in the chapter they name what I learned as a National Writing Project teacher-leader - that is, belonging to a community in promotion of inquiry, sharing, dialogue and problem-solving is the best way to provide professional development, especially in terms of writing instruction. Yet, reading the chapter after eight years of engaging with Ubuntu as a philosophy - I am, because of who we are together - I am starting to see the way to NAME the importance of community for helping every individual to reach their written outcome.
It is democracy, inquiry, expiration, and a shared community of love, support, safety and a desire for as much truth as one can create. I'm kicking of my Thursday, exhausted form Monday-Wednesday (okay, birth to age 47) with pep in my step because of this book. I'm not done with this work, or this chapter, and I've already pitched collaboration for an interdisciplinary course with a colleague in Philosophy who I'd love to collaborate with.
Great writing. Wonderful thinking. And finally, words to name exactly what it is I've been trying to say as an English educator.
A Community of Philosophical Inquiry. That's what NWP really is!
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