Common Core Standards and Third Order Change: The Role of Dewey's Theory of Inquiry in a New Era of...

1

Common Core Standards and Third Order Change: The Role of Dewey’s Theory of Inquiry in a New Era of Reform Donna Adair Breault, Professor and Dept. Head, Missouri State University

Paper Presented at the Annual American Educational Research Association Conference,

April 30, 2013.

Do not copy or cite without permission.

The Common Core Standards represent a significant shift in the nature of

learning in U.S. classrooms from the highly prescribed content coverage of most

high stakes reform models implemented in recent years. Throughout the literature

regarding the Common Core Standards, it is clear that inquiry is critical for what

students are expected to know and be able to do (Glastris, 2012; Rothman, 2012).

Both foci on inquiry and deep understanding of less content are moves in the right

direction, but they also introduce substantial challenges for preparing teachers.

How can school districts and universities help to shift the mindset and practices of

teachers to teach very differently than they have taught in recent years? How can

these changes occur in the midst of the culture of accountability where superficial

coverage of content has been the focus of most work in schools? More importantly,

how do you promote these substantial shifts among a diverse body of teachers who

have varied years of experience and varied backgrounds in terms of training? In

2

other words, how do you ensure that all teachers consistently support the key aims

of the Common Core Standards?

Third Order Curriculum Change

Professional development for teaching the Common Core Standards will

require third order change where we must develop capacities to change the very

way teachers and administrators see curriculum and teaching (Bartunek & Moch,

1987). While first order change involves making technical changes and second

order change involves more ideological changes, third order change involves

changing the capacities of stakeholders and the very culture in which they work

based upon a clear and significant ideological shift. These changes represent what

Seo and Creed (2002) identify as institutional contradictions. According to NCLB,

teachers and administrators have been monitored for covering as much content as

possible in order for students to respond well on standardized tests, but the new

standards require something altogether different: deep understanding of texts and

complex problem solving. Ideally, these contradictions should, in and of themselves,

create the conditions in which schools will change.

The institutional ruptures created by the Common Core Standards include

the nature of work for both teachers and students. First, teachers shift from

focusing so heavily on instruction to focusing instead on curriculum and seeing

curriculum as meaningful experiences that lead to deeper understanding instead of

merely content coverage for the purpose of a test. Second, students’ work shifts

3

from accumulation of a large body of content covered on a test to analysis and

problem solving for deeper understanding.

Inquiry in Schools

Noted scholars have argued for a focus on inquiry within schools for decades.

From Zeichner’s (1987) seminal work on reflective teaching practices to Cochran-‐

Smith and Lytle’s (2009) work regarding practitioner inquiry, we know that inquiry

should be at the heart of teaching and teacher preparation. Yet, educational policies

have overshadowed much of its potential in recent years. Granted, in some schools

with forward-‐thinking administration and/or dynamic partnerships with

universities, teachers and administrators have engaged in inquiry. Many have been

involved in professional learning communities and/or action research where they

have thought deeply about their practice (Cochran-‐Smith & Lytle, 1999; Crocco,

2003; Nelson, Deuel, Slavit, & Kennedy, 2010; Nelson, Slavit, Perkins, & Hathorn,

2008). By necessity, much of the inquiry that has taken place in schools in recent

years has involved inquiry into practice (Cochran-‐Smith & Lytle, 2001). The

pervasive narratives associated with inquiry in the past decade have largely focused

on instruction and assessment (Darling-‐Hammond & Snyder, 2000; Serafini, 2000).

Whether through action research or through professional learning communities,

teachers have, for the most part, been asked to examine the impact on their

instruction, and this impact has largely been determined through the assessment of

student learning (Carr & Harris, 2001).

4

While the narratives regarding inquiry into practice have been a valuable

coping mechanism in the midst of a very prescriptive period in American education,

many educators have interpreted the rich work on inquiry in very limited and

superficial ways that reflect what Shulman (1986) described as process-‐product

inquiry. Teachers and administrators have largely measured the outcomes of how

they have implemented the technical processes prescribed by supervisors or

publishing companies who were interpreting national policy (Garrison & Macmillan,

1994). While much of this work was couched in kinder and more professional-‐

sounding language – “best practices,” “measured student improvement,” etc., the

work was nevertheless more technical and limited to examining what teachers do.

In contrast, the Common Core Standards require both a different form and new foci

of inquiry for teachers and administrators. In order to adequately incorporate the

Common Core Curriculum into the life of schools, stakeholders must shift their

inquiry to reflect the kind of thinking they expect of the students – inferential

analysis and collaborative problem solving for deeper understanding. Further,

teachers and administrators must enlarge the focus of their inquiry to address

curricular questions in addition to considering the impact of their instruction.

The field has a rich body of support regarding inquiry (Donnell & Harper,

2005). How can we influence a clearer interpretation of this work? How can we

help educators – teachers, administrators, and teacher educators – overcome

Schulman’s lament: the widespread regression to process-‐product thinking? To

move beyond notions of reflection as a collection of processes and products, we

5

need to consider inquiry in relation to the curriculum, and we need to see

curriculum as the primary focus of professional conversations about schooling.

Curriculum as Experience

How we define curriculum has shifted and expanded over time. As Jackson

(1992) noted, most of the definitions of curriculum embellish notions of a course of

study. However, since the time of Dewey and Bobbitt, curriculum’s referential core

has centered on experiences. Throughout time and across ideological boundaries

within the curriculum field, references to curriculum as experience have remained

consistent – at least among curriculum scholars (Author, 2010). Yet, the influx of

standards in the nineties and the language of accountability shifted the focus in the

work of teachers and administrators away from experiences and, as a result, away

from curriculum itself. Curriculum scholars are largely culpable for leaving a void in

the literature regarding curriculum work in schools during this period. As less and

less was written about curriculum, particularly within such journals as Educational

Leadership, the language of accountability and instructional leadership replaced the

language of curriculum within the larger professional conversation (Author, 2007).

Over the past two to three decades and particularly since the implementation

of No Child Left Behind policies, teachers and administrators have focused on the

amount of content they need to cover and how they should cover it instead of

focusing on the kinds of experiences students should have. Curriculum, for the most

part, has become a given – offered in the form of standards and, in some cases, in the

form of packaged models and programs. Principals identify themselves as

6

instructional leaders, professional development focuses largely on instruction, and

teacher education programs shift their emphasis to implementing and documenting

standards instead of creating experiences for students. This shifting focus also

impacts how teacher inquiry is imagined both in schools and in teacher preparation

programs as pre-‐service and in-‐service teachers inquire about best practices

(Author, 2007).

In and of itself, the new focus on instruction and the empirical basis for best

practices have been positive advances within the field. However, these advances do

not have to come at the expense of curriculum work. The retreat from practice

among many curriculum scholars and the shifting mindset brought on by standards

and accountability have both served serious blows to curriculum work in schools.

Nevertheless, the Common Core Standards provide an opportunity to reclaim

curriculum as part of that vibrant professional conversation and thus improve the

kinds of experiences students have in schools.

The Common Core Standards can help educators rethink their work in

critical ways. First, they offer tangible and meaningful aims beyond the vacuous

calls for achievement found within the accountability narratives. When the aim of

education is achievement, it is much easier for policy makers and influential others

to exchange the critical goal of meaningful learning for the shortsighted goal of

increased test scores. Instead, the Common Core Standards call for career and

college readiness. While policy makers can similarly translate this aim into narrow

notions of test scores, the aim itself empowers educators to point to critical

7

capacities needed in order to be ready, particularly the primary capacity identified

within the Common Core Standards: inquiry.

Thus, students who are learning under the Common Core Standards will not

merely learn a static body of knowledge for the purpose of taking a test. They will

develop logical arguments and engage in both long-‐term and short-‐term research

within their English and language arts curriculum. Further, they will apply

mathematical concepts to real-‐world problems and use statistics to better

understand empirical data. These shifts to clear and commonly accepted aims,

however problematic some may find the terms “career and college ready,” are

actually a step toward reclaiming education from policy makers.

In contrast, the degree that we merely acknowledge “achievement” as an aim

and achievement has no actual value outside of a referent (e.g. achievement for

some larger purpose), we are forced to comply with what others have identified as

indicators of achievement and must do so based upon what others have deemed

worthy measures. However, by clearly stating that the aim of education is to

prepare students to be career and college ready, we can argue against any policies

that, by acts of omission or commission, deter us from those aims. As Dewey (1929)

contends,

Until educators get the independence and courage to insist that educational

aims are to be formed as well as executed within the educative process, they

will not come to consciousness of their own function. Others then will have

8

no great respect for educators because educators do not respect their own

social place and work. (p. 74)

Second, the Common Core Standards shift the work of teachers from

managing the decontextualized list of testable items students must know to

integrating a body of knowledge that ensures students’ understanding and growth.

For example, the English and language arts Common Core Standards require that

teachers use “challenging informational text in a range of topics.” In addition, the

standards mandate the use of certain reading content including historical

documents. Thus, students are analyzing and using language within significant

social and historical contexts. To this end they are able to see, as Dewey (1956)

notes, the natural connections between disciplines and how those connections may

prepare students to be career and college ready:

We do not have a series of stratified earths, one of which is mathematical,

another physical, another historical, and so on. We should not be able to live

very long in any one taken by itself. We live in a world where all sides are

bound together. All studies grow out of relations in one great common world.

When the child lives in varied but concrete and active relationship to this

common world, his studies are naturally unified. (p. 15)

Finally, the Common Core Standards shift the passive notions of curriculum

as a long and shallow list of content to be covered and tested to guidelines based

upon clear aims. Prior to the Common Core Standards, images of using the

curriculum to prepare children for the future were shaped largely by the historically

9

pervasive force of behaviorism with, for the most part, a context-‐free and ever

growing body of material to be covered. As a result, the curriculum of the

accountability movement and the high-‐stakes testing that drives it discourages the

kind of analytical thinking that the Common Core Standards call for and that is

critical for students today. While it was nearly a century ago, Dewey’s (1933)

lament still applies to the conditions under which educators have been forced to

teach:

So far as the stimulation and guidance of reflective thought are concerned,

school conditions leave much to be desired. They are much better adapted to

the acquisition of a body of fixed information than to investigating operations

of inference, discovery, and proving. (p. 456)

Worse yet, when the remnants of behaviorism were met with the pressures

of accountability, this ever-‐growing body of content became untenable. As the list of

content grew, the discretionary space teachers had to enlarge the context of the

content or to emphasize processes needed to give meaning to the content

diminished. Instead, teachers have been forced into prescribed ways of teaching in

order to cover the large amount of material. Further, many teachers have been

forced to teach in prescribed ways in order to ensure that they have implemented

the scientifically-‐based models with fidelity. As a result, many teachers have reacted

by feeling that they have less control with what happens in their classrooms and

thus feel less responsible for the results (Craig, 2009).

10

In contrast, the Common Core Standards shift curriculum work from

prescriptions to be followed to guidelines to begin thinking about the kinds of

experiences teachers can create for their students. The standards do not force

teachers into the kinds of prescribed lessons that they experience within reform

models such as Success for All or Direct Instruction. Instead, they offer key

principles and expectations from which teachers may create experiences for their

students. Given high teacher turnover and thus how many teachers overall are in

their first three to five-‐years of teaching, this shift has significant implications for

professional development in schools. Many of the teachers who are in classrooms

today have not had the opportunity to think deeply about their work. Instead, they

have largely known curriculum to be a matter of implementation, not creation.

Further, the most recent leadership standards that serve as the basis of leadership

preparation focus on implementing and monitoring curriculum – not creating

curriculum. As a result, most administrative preparation programs do not teach

future administrators how to support curriculum development within their schools.

In order to shift both the mindsets of teachers and administrators as well as the

cultures of school – in other words, in order to achieve third-‐order change –

professional development must become a pervasive part of the operation of schools

and teachers, administrators, and teacher educators need shared frameworks

through which they can recognize the complex nature of curriculum work.

A Third-‐Order Framework for Inquiry

11

Teacher inquiry has influenced teacher education, PDS partnerships, and, on

a limited scale, professional development, and it has achieved second-‐order change

because it has altered how some pre-‐service and in-‐service teachers see themselves

and their work (Cuban, 1988; Cuban, 1993; Valli, Cooper, & Framkes, 1997; Losito,

Pozzo, & Somekh, 1998; Southerland, Smith, Sowell, & Kittleson, 2007). However,

ideological impact – particularly when the scale of that impact is limited – will not

provide sufficient momentum to ensure successful, large-‐scale implementation of

the Common Core Standards. In order to shift our curriculum framework and to

replace the prescriptive ways of teaching with teaching that promotes inquiry,

schools must significantly change both the way they see their work as well as the

very culture in which they engage in that work together. This involves third order

change. Said differently, we must see inquiry within multiple dimensions of

schooling, and we must recognize the conditions needed to support and sustain

inquiry within those dimensions.

Inquiry does not exist within a vacuum. As Dewey (1916) notes, we are all

connected to one another, and the degree to which we can create and operationalize

a new framework for inquiry under which we can promote career and college

readiness is inevitably connected to the degree to which other stakeholders around

us are likewise engaged in inquiry as a natural and ongoing part of their work.

Further, inquiry requires an environment that will support it. Dewey (1991/1938)

argues, “To engage in inquiry is like entering a contract. It commits the inquirer to

observance of certain conditions” (p. 24). To this end, we must ask ourselves, “What

are the necessary conditions for inquiry?”

12

Dewey’s Notions of Inquiry

According to Dewey (1938; 1925) inquiry is a deliberate, collective,

contextual search for solutions through meaningful and engaging experiences.

Inquiry begins with a feeling of precariousness, and continues until we find some

level of satisfaction at a particular point in time. We inquire when we have a

genuine need to find a solution. This search for solutions requires inference or

“anticipation, supposition, conjecture,. . . imagination . . . foresight, prediction,

planning, theorizing, and speculation.” (Dewey, 1933, p. 104). We have all seen how

vastly different a lesson goes when the students feel a strong desire to solve a

problem. When this occurs, there is no need for threats or prizes – they remain

engaged and animated in their pursuits.

Experience is the foundation of inquiry, and the nature of those experiences

is critical. Genuine inquiry is possible only through what Dewey characterized as

educative experiences. Otherwise, students are merely receiving that which is

transmitted to them by someone in authority or they are constructing their own

meaning without sufficient guidance to ensure that their understanding is

consistent with the larger body of collective understanding regarding the topic at

hand. In both cases, the outcome of the process ends with some notion of truth that

is, at best, limited, if not unwarranted (Dewey, 1910).

Not only is inquiry important in the classroom, it is critical for the school as a

professional community as well. Dewey (1929) addressed why inquiry is a critical

part of the work of teachers. First, it liberates them. It helps them to see new

13

problems and devise new procedures. When teachers inquire, they exercise greater

degrees of professional discretion specifically related to their unique contexts. To

this end, for example, differentiation can involve genuine negotiations regarding the

needs of their students and not merely implementing a variety of “best practices”

according to some prescribed training they received. Second, when teachers inquire,

they change their attitudes. They have a deeper understanding of the complex

nature of their work, and they can consider a number of these complex factors

simultaneously because a genuine problem or a felt need guides them. Third,

Dewey (1929) notes that teachers who inquire not only see the complex nature of

their work more clearly, they can also identify more ways to address the problems

they see:

Because the range of understanding is deepened and widened, (the teacher)

can take into account more remote consequences which were originally

hidden from view and hence were ignored in his actions. . . Seeing more

relations he sees more possibilities, more opportunities. He is emancipated

from the need of following tradition and special precedents. His ability to

judge being enriched, he has a wider range of alternatives to select from in

dealing with individual situations. (p. 21)

Dewey’s theory of inquiry is a valuable starting point for thinking about the

third order change needed to implement Common Core Standards because it

addresses the multiple dimensions of the inquiry process. His work informs the

individual engaging in reflection or research as well as the teacher creating and

14

sustaining classroom experiences where students are actively engaged in analysis

and problem solving. Dewey’s theory of inquiry also addresses knowing as a

collective achievement that leads to social progress, and this informs communities

of inquiry whether they are organized according to a school, community, city, or

nation. Like the Common Core Standards themselves, Dewey’s theory addresses the

work of individual stakeholders as well as entire communities and helps them to

stay focused on clear and meaningful aims for schools.

Condition I: Inquiry is Collective

Collectivity is the first condition that must be met in order for schools to

develop a culture that is conducive to inquiry. The culture of the school both shapes

and is shaped by the school community itself. With this in mind, we need to assess

the degree to which the school community supports transformative communication,

meaningful interaction, and professional reciprocity. Without these critical building

blocks, we cannot prepare stakeholders to successfully implement the Common

Core Standards.

The nature of inquiry is collective because learning is a shared process. What

we understand about the world around is us inextricably linked to language, and

language itself – both how it is constructed and how it is shared – is based upon our

connections with others. As Dewey (1916) notes, “Society not only continues to

exist by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in

communication. . . Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have

in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in

15

common” (p. 4). To this end, knowledge itself is a collective achievement. Thus, the

first critical element of the collective nature of inquiry involves communication.

Communication makes a tremendous difference in how stakeholders interact with

one another.

If you visit a school, you are likely to see many forms of communication.

Typically the principal or a designee will begin each day with announcements over

the P.A. system. Many teachers have web sites through which they communicate

about homework, upcoming events, etc. Many schools use Facebook and Twitter to

communicate with parents. After school you can often find teachers sitting together

to review test data and plan together for lessons. Each of these examples provides

important opportunities for stakeholders in schools to communicate. In addition to

these forms of communication -‐ informing stakeholders about the events of the

school and working together to achieve common goals – schools need to engage in

transformative communication. To truly support the conditions needed for the kind

of inquiry required of the Common Core Standards, teachers and students alike need

opportunities to move beyond finding ways to reach predetermined ends. For

example, when students begin to analyze the mandated text of Martin Luther King

Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, we hope they move beyond a singular answer or

predictable conclusion. Instead, we hope they are open to the possibilities that they

will reach deeper levels of understanding about King’s experiences as well as a

greater awareness of the context of segregation and what it means to them living in

a diverse society. Likewise, we hope that teachers and other stakeholders reach

16

deeper levels of understanding about the kinds of experiences they are creating for

their students through the Common Core

Collective inquiry also requires sustained and positive interaction. This

includes both the quantity and the quality of time spent together. On the surface,

this element of collectively seems to be a foregone conclusion. Of course teachers

and students interact within their classrooms. And while it is admittedly on a

smaller scale, teachers and administrators interact with one another as well.

However, we need to consider the nature of that interaction and, more importantly,

ask ourselves what mediating factors influence, and possibly impede, the educative

potential of that interaction. For example, if the interactions between teachers and

students are based upon scripted lessons or highly prescribed texts or if those

interactions are influenced by a sense of urgency to prepare for a test, then the

interactions are not educative, and they will not support inquiry. Further, if the

interaction between teachers and administrators is largely based upon compliance,

then the school community itself does not support inquiry among teachers. As

Dewey (1916) contends, “Association does not create impulses of affection and

dislike, but it furnishes the objects to which they attach themselves” (p. 17). Thus,

the interaction among stakeholders, in and of itself, does not create inquiry. It does,

however, support or impede the conditions needed in order to inquire. If the

conditions in classrooms and schools are such that distrust, compliance and passive

resistance have become the prominent modes of interaction, then leaders need to

first repair the culture itself before any professional development can make a

17

difference in terms of how teachers promote the inquiry required in the Common

Core Standards.

Communication and interaction among stakeholders can bring about change,

but the degree to which the association of the stakeholders becomes a community

depends upon the degree to which their efforts are deliberate and the degree to

which they work together to achieve a mutually desired end. Dewey (1954) makes

this point very clear:

. . . no amount of aggregated collective action of itself constitutes a

community. . . Human associations may be ever so organic in origin and firm

in operation, but they develop into societies in a human sense only as their

consequences being known, are esteemed and sought for.” (p. 151-‐152)

Thus, schools support the collective nature needed for inquiry only insofar as they

demonstrate deliberate reciprocity – where stakeholders understand the nature of

their work and support its aims. Otherwise, the collective work may actually be

simply working together to comply with those in power (Dewey, 1954).

Condition II: Inquiry is based upon educative experiences

We have experiences whenever we interact with our environment, and in

order for our experiences to be educative, we must first encounter them with our

inquiring minds. When we inquire, we enlarge our understanding of that which we

experience. We make connections between our experiences and thus build upon

what we know. Dewey (1925) argues that our experiences create pathways to

18

knowledge and reveal what would otherwise remain hidden much like miners

reveal “earth’s treasures from below” (p.2).

In Dewey’s lab school, both teachers and students learned by experiencing life

and reflecting upon those experiences with others. For example, when students in

the laboratory school studied primitive cultures, they were given a variety of

materials from which they had to judge whether they would make appropriate

weapons and the implications of different regions having access to those different

materials and the degree to which that may grant them military advantage (Dewey,

1992; Mayhew & Edwards, 1966). Teachers also studied their own experiences

within their classrooms. These lines of inquiry became the basis of their

professional development and centered on a number of essential questions where

they explored common themes in teaching itself and whether there are key

elements that are present in all learning situations. They even asked themselves

whether learning was a natural process and, if so, what role the teacher really

played (Mayhew & Edwards, 1966)

It is important to note that in the laboratory school both teachers and students

were deeply engaged in inquiry based upon their experiences. Dewey (1920)

argued that this was essential. You cannot expect teachers to promote a culture of

inquiry within their classrooms if they do not likewise operate within a culture of

inquiry in their interactions with one another and with their administrators. This is

an essential point to note in relation to the challenges that lie ahead in planning

professional development for the implementation of Common Core Standards. If

19

teachers are not engaged in analysis and critical thinking in terms of their own work,

then we cannot realistically expect them to promote that kind of thinking among

their students.

By reframing our images of curriculum to focus on experiences instead of just

content, we create clear ways to see how experiences and inquiry are necessarily

connected, and this is a critical first step in successfully implementing Common Core

Standards. However, we also need to recognize that not all experiences are

educative. Experiences can be mis-‐educative if they prevent growth. How do we

ensure that the experiences we plan within the Common Core are educative?

According to Dewey (HWT) experiences must have continuity with the previous

experiences of those involved. When lessons are too abstract or future-‐oriented,

then they are mis-‐educative. Similarly, when we tell students that they need to learn

something simply because it is on a test, we ensure that the experience the students

are having is mis-‐educative and can very well result in students losing ground

regarding what they truly know (Kohn, 2000).

Further, experiences are educative only to the degree that those having the

experience are actively engaged with one another in order to solve meaningful

problems. Throughout his writings, Dewey (1933; 1938; 1991) reinforces the

notion that inquiry begins with a problem or a question – a felt need. In order for

experiences to be educative, this felt need must be clearly evident and must propel

students to search for a solution. The truly educative experiences not only do this,

but they make that search continuous – with one reconciled problem leading them

20

to additional problems to solve, additional questions to ask. Thus teachers (and

those who teach teachers) must promote experiences that “have the promise and

potentiality of presenting new problems which by stimulating new ways of

observation and judgment will expand the area of further experience” (1938, p. 90).

As noted previously, how can we expect teachers to create the kinds of experiences

that lead their students to ask more questions if we do not provide the same kind of

professional development for them?

Finally, educative experiences must lead to growth. This means our

curriculum should do more than promote an accumulation of knowledge. Educative

experiences should increase our capacity to grow. As Shaker (2005) notes, this

point from Dewey has confused many who feel it involves circular reasoning. To

wrestle with its potential circularity, Shaker explores two elements of growth that

we can draw from Dewey: change and chance. First, Dewey emphasizes that

learning is far more focused on process than product. We need to consider how the

experiences that students are having today will impact who they become – not

because we have packed them full of testable facts but because we have impacted

their future capacity for change. Is this not the crux of the Common Core Standards’

aim that students should be “career and college ready”? Second, Shaker contends

that Dewey’s notion of growth prepares us for chance. Many scholars have

lamented that our transmission model in schools does not prepare students for the

future. Students cannot memorize their way to career and college readiness. In our

chaotic world, Dewey’s notion of growth, “gives us a means of responding to the

unforeseen. This guiding principle allows us to encounter the great reversals of life

21

and emerge with our psyches, if not our families and fortunes, intact” (Shaker, 2005,

p. 60).

Condition III: Inquiry Requires a Shared Purpose

Collective, educative experiences require community, and community requires

shared aims (Dewey, 1916). Assumptions, beliefs, and desires serve as instruments

for new inquiry. They shape the questions we ask and the manner in which we

proceed in our attempts to answer the questions. Given the collective nature of

inquiry, divided aims are just as problematic as having no clearly articulated aims

because both result in leaving classrooms and schools vulnerable to external

authority.

Dewey identified the conditions necessary for a common sense of purpose. First,

he indicated that aims must be determined by the participants rather than by

external influences, and these choices should be based upon unique opportunities

within the community. Second, the aims within a school or school community must

be considered tentative sketches – not hard and fast rules. Dewey argues that it is

only through the testing of an aim that its worth is fully realized. With this in mind,

teachers, schools, and communities should sustain conversations about purpose and

recognize that what they claim to be the aims of their work should guide action not

prescribe behaviors. Again, this is consistent with the design of the Common Core

Standards as a guide for teachers and schools. Further, aims should lead to

outcomes rather than replace the outcome. The aim itself is not the end to which a

school community ascribes. The end is that which is achieved according to the aim;

22

it is the act of hitting the target, not the target itself. When we forget this (as is the

case in all the calls for “achievement”), we run the risk of separating ends and means.

Dewey (1992) emphasizes this critical distinction: “Every means is a temporary end

until we have attained it. Every end becomes a means of carrying activity further as

soon as it is achieved” (P. 106).

Further, educational aims must have foremost as their priority the interests of

students involved. Goals should not be based upon the needs of individuals or

groups in power. They must be based upon the experiences and needs of the

students. Dewey (1992) argues, “In this case the child becomes the sun about which

the appliances of education revolves; he is the center about which they are

organized” (p. 34). Again, when we consider the aims of the Common Core

Standards, particularly when we look at “career and college readiness” in relation to

Shaker’s framework of change and chance, we see opportunities to create

curriculum to support the interests of the students. Finally, Dewey argues that

educational aims must lead to action. When we work toward an aim, we do so in

order to accomplish something. He (1925) contends, “ideas are worthless except as

they pass into actions which rearrange and reconstruct in some way, but it little or

large, the world in which we live” (p.111).

We cannot assume that as we proceed with implementing the Common Core

Standards we will do so with shared aims. We have to invest time discussing what

we mean by career and college readiness in order to achieve them. While all

activities have results, not all activities achieve ends guided by deliberate aims

(Dewey, 1916). When ends are intended, we take steps in a specific direction and

23

we make choices regarding what we will and will not do, where we focus our

resources, etc. based upon those aims. To this end aims provide direction for

activities and priorities within schools.

Condition IV: Inquiry is Active

Arguing that inquiry is active, at least on the surface, appears to be a

tautological endeavor, and yet this image of learning is probably one of the most

misunderstood principles from Dewey. Breault (2005) identifies four important

lessons from Dewey’s notions of active learning that are important to consider as we

implement the Common Core Standards. First, he points out that activities and

subject matter are not mutually exclusive. Dewey (1956) considered subject matter

itself to be active and ever changing. It is a means toward learning instead of an end

of learning. Second, active learning necessitates social engagement. In order for our

students to be career and college ready, we must prepare them to be active

members of society. This is why so much of Dewey’s work regarding curriculum

centered on occupations – experiences that reflected daily life (Breault, 2005). The

third point Breault makes is that active learning is not dictated by students’

immature impulses. For example, the activities that teachers in Dewey’s lab school

planned included such exercises as designing tools that would be appropriate to use

in the school garden, designing and building an operational smelter based upon

principles of combustion and then forging the tools they designed in the smelter and

using them in the garden (DePencier, 1967). These activities were obviously not

products of a teacher getting up in front of her class and asking, “Well, kids, what do

you want to do today?”

24

Fourth, Breault (2005) reminds us that active learning must consider the

developmental levels of the students so that learning is continuous from activity to

activity. In other words, not only is active learning not separated from subject

matter, but also it is not disconnected from students’ trajectories of growth. To

simply make an isolated drill of facts a game or to turn test preparation into a

competition does not count. Excitability, like the new teacher’s chaotic room, does

not qualify as active learning. For that matter, neither do hands-‐on activities that

primarily keep students busy or result in the same predictable outcome they would

have accomplished if the students had completed a simple worksheet. For Dewey,

the “action” in active learning is just as much mental as it is physical – engaging the

receptive minds of our students in relevant, meaningful, and satisfying work (Dewey,

1933; 1938; 1992). The premises behind the Common Core Standards seem to

honor this level of mental engagement.

It is Up to Us

So, how do we ensure that all teachers consistently support the key aims of

the Common Core Standards? We must first change the ideological mindset of

educators and policy makers, and we much change the culture of schools away from

a market mindset and towards a democratic one. This requires third order change.

To this end, teacher educators and educational leaders must drastically enlarge the

scope of their work. This challenge goes well beyond imagining the logistics for and

content of professional development. This work requires vision. It requires

cooperation among curriculum scholars who can support the renewed focus on

25

curriculum as experience, philosophers and researchers who can help facilitate

inquiry, teacher educators who can shift the ways in which we prepare new

teachers for these changes, and educational leaders and policy makers who can

ensure that the measures of accountability that accompany the Common Core

Standards do not limit the potential of those standards. Granted, this is a tall order,

but at what other time in our most recent history have we had an impetus such as

this to drastically shift the nature of our work in schools? Now more than ever we

need to work together to use the institutional contradictions introduced by the

Common Core Standards to rupture the challenges we have wrestled with over the

past two decades. To achieve this, we can listen to Dewey’s (1916) admonishments

as well as his words of hope:

The desired transformation is not difficult to define in a formal way. It

signifies a society in which every person shall be occupied in something

which makes the lives of others better worth living, and which accordingly

makes the ties which bind persons together more perceptible – which breaks

down the barriers of distance between them. (p. 316)

26

References

Ayers, W.. (2005). Education for a changing world. In D. A. Breault and R. Breault’s (Eds.) Experiencing Dewey: Insights for Today’s Classroom. Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi. 147-‐152. Bartunek, J. M. & Moch, M. K. (1987). First-‐order, second-‐order, and third-‐order change and organization development interventions: A cognitive approach. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 23(4), 483-‐500. Breault, R. (2005). Active learning: A growth experience. In D. A. Breault & R. Breault (Eds.), Experiencing Dewey: Insights for Today’s Classrooms. (pp. 9-‐11). Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi. Burns, J. & Nielsen, K. (2006). How do embedded agents engage in institutional change? Journal of Economic Issues, 40(2), 449-‐456. Carr, J. F. & Harris, D. E. (2001). Succeeding with standards: Linking curriculum, assessment, and action planning. Washington, D.C.: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. Cocharan-‐Smith, M. & Lytle, S. L. (1999). The teacher research movement: A decade later. Educational Researcher, 28(7), 15-‐25. Cochran-‐Smith, M. & Lytle, S. L. (2001). Beyond certainty: Taking an inquiry stance on practice. In Lieberman & Miller (Eds.), Teachers caught in action: Professional development that matters. New York: Teachers College Press. Crocco, M. S. (2003). Inquiring minds want to know: Action research at a New York City professional development school. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 19-‐30. Cuban, L. (1988). A fundamental puzzle of school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(5), 341-‐344. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms, 1890-‐1990 (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(5-‐6), 523-‐545. DePencier, Ida B. (1967). The History of the Laboratory Schools. The University of Chicago, 1896-‐ 1965. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Dewey, J. (1910). The influence of Darwin on philosophy and other essays. New York: Henry Holt & Company. Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan Company. Dewey, J. (1920). Reconstruction in philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press. Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and nature. Chicago: Open Court. Dewey, J. (1929). The sources of a science of education. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Dewey, J. (1954). The public and its problems. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. Dewey, J. (1956). The child and curriculum. The school and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dewey, J. (1991). Logic: The theory of inquiry. In Jo Ann Boydston (Ed.). John

27

Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-‐1953, Vol. 12: 1938. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press. Dewey, J. (1992). The child and the curriculum. The school and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Donnell, K. & Harper, K. (2005). Inquiry in teacher education: Competing agendas. Teacher Education Quarterly, 32(3).??? Garrison, J. W. & Macmillan, C J. B. (1994). Process-‐product research on teaching: Ten years later. Educational Theory, 44(4). 385-‐397. Jackson, P. (1992). Organization of the curriculum. In P. Jackson’s (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Curriculum. New York: Macmillan. 327-‐344. Losito, B., Ponzo, G., Somehk, B. (1998). Exploring the labyrynth of first and second order inquiry in action research. Educational Action Research, 6(2), 219-‐240. Mayhew, K. C. & Edwards, A. C. (1966). The Dewey school: The laboratory school of the University of Chicago 1896-‐1903. New York: Atherton Press. Serafini, F. (2000). Three paradigms of assessment: measurement, procedure, and inquiry. The Reading Teacher, 54(4), 384-‐393. Shaker, P. (2005). Growth: The consummate open-‐ended aspiration. In D. A. Breault and R. Breault’s (Eds.) Experiencing Dewey: Insights for Today’s Classroom. (pp. 59-‐61). Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi. Shulman, L. (1986). Paradigms and research programs in the study of teaching: A contemporary perspective. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching. New York: Macmillan. Southerland, S. A., Smith, L. K., Sowell, S. P., Kittleson, J. M. (2007). Resisting unlearning: Understanding science education’s response to the United States accountability movement. Review of Research in Education 31(1), 45-‐77. Valli, L., Cooper, D., & Framkes, L. (1997) Professional development schools and equity: A critical analysis of rhetoric and research, Review of Research in Education, 22(1), 251-‐304.

Common Core Standards and Third Order Change: The Role of Dewey's Theory of Inquiry in a New Era of...

Documents

Transcript of Common Core Standards and Third Order Change: The Role of Dewey's Theory of Inquiry in a New Era of...