Teaching as Inquiry : Rethinking Curriculum in Early Childhood Education

This text helps teach pre-service teachers the art of inquiry—instilling in students a sense of wonder, curiosity, asking questions, looking for answers, and making sense of the world in different ways. The authors see teaching as an art that supports the learner in multiple ways, using different tools that are responsive to their individual orientation or to their multiple intelligences. Teaching as Inquiry is based on best practice and centers around the philosophies of Reggio Emilia, as well as Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Gardner and others.

The book has a unique structure that focuses on helping future teachers understand the theory and apply it practically. Each chapter begins with a story from the classroom, followed by a list of questions to be considered throughout the chapter. “Think About It” boxes ask students to pause and reflect, and each chapter ends with suggestions for “Getting Started” as well as Web resources and suggested readings.

Refreshing in tone and visionary in intent, Teaching as Inquiry offers an alternative approach for young teachers to observe and assess child development.

The authors purposefully rethink previous assumptions, emphasizing a willingness to fail and to “come to the edge” as practice for teaching in a way that inspires lifelong questioning and discovery. Grounded throughout with abundant and diverse real-world examples and drawing on the author team's extensive experience, this new text demonstrates that its models can and do result in creative, engaged teachers and meaningful, effective curricula.

“The authors' voices are caring yet challenging; humble yet clear; questioning yet informed. With every page, they invite the reader to join them in a continuous cycle of self-reflection and inquiry. It is as much a text as it is a very personal journal that documents the development of a remarkable learning community.”
—Jeanne Goldhaber, University of Vermont

“This textbook will be a useful tool for guided self-reflection by future teachers, in whom we all invest high hopes.”
—Lella Gandini, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and U.S. Liaison for the Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach

“Teaching as Inquiry's most powerful method is the use of the voice of college student teachers during their preparation process. These passages from their own writing capture the process that the book wants us to engage in, and through them complex concepts come alive and become real.”
—Carol Brunson Day, President of the Council for Professional Recognition

“This book is the first comprehensive early childhood education text provoked and inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach....The authors are part of a movement toward a more public and professional view of teaching, and they portray a humanistic approach to documentation and teacher research that is intended to contradict the push for testing and measuring child outcomes dominant in much of education today.”
—Carolyn Pope Edwards, University of Nebraska-Lincoln