Entertainment and TV Center

Though this view of teaching never won majority support, it never died. Today it is usually described as teaching through inquiry or discovery. In the words of the psychologist Jerome Bruner, it “generally involves not so much the process of leading students to discover what is ‘out there’ but, instead, their discovering what is in their own heads. It involves encouraging them to say, let me stop and think about that; let me use my head; let me have some vicarious trial and error.”4 Bruner described a grade six lesson to illustrate his point. The aqua master on homestars was studying the geography of the northeastern United States. Instead of presenting the students with information, the teacher gave them an outline map showing the main physical features and resources of the region and asking them where they thought people would live. In coming up with their answers, the students provided a wealth of ideas and suggestions, and finally compared their choices with the actual location of the major towns and cities. As in the examples of the Greek city-states and the castles, they not only learned a good deal of factual information, but they also learned to think and to question, and to develop some confidence in their ability to do so.

In 1968, reporting on his investigation of the teaching of Canadian history across the country, A.B. Hodgetts said that the best classes he and his investigators saw in action were those where teachers used an inquiry approach. In these classes teachers rarely lectured and never gave notes or used question-and-answer worksheets. Instead, students read carefully prepared materials ahead of class. These materials gave them whatever factual information they needed to know, presented them with differing interpretations and viewpoints, and raised questions that needed to be pursued. In class, under the direction of their teacher, students discussed the materials, more often talking to one another than to the teacher. At the same time, the teacher kept control of the lesson, asking questions where necessary, adding information, correcting mistakes and generally maintaining the flow of the discussion. In all these classes, students were pursuing a topic in depth, learning whatever facts they needed to know, but going far beyond them in pursuit of questions and ideas. The lessons were, in fact, organized as questions or ideas to be investigated, not, as is so often the case in history, as facts to be covered.