Planning an Inquiry Begins with Intention

Recently, I was reading a blog by Kath Murdoch titled, “Cycles, Spirals and the Recursive Dance of Inquiry” and something she wrote made me stop and think about how important the “Why?” is in inquiry. She writes:

“While the concept of an inquiry cycle is helpful in considering the design of a learning journey, it does not and should not stand alone. Our planning doesn’t begin with designing learning experiences – it begins with intention. The context for any journey of inquiry is what gives it purpose.”

In fifth grade at Mid-Pacific Institute, students engage in a year-long inquiry framed by the question, “Who am I?” I’ve thought a lot about how the concept of identity might be enlarged beyond the notion of the individual self. At the very beginning of our journey I set an intention to explore facets of identity that are relational and connected to culture and place. I want students to appreciate how important it is to ask, “Who are you?” when considering identity, and to consider the diversity of perspectives that people from different places and cultures have about identity.

In November we embarked on an inquiry into Native American cultural regions. Most fifth graders spend some time in fifth grade studying American history, and Native American Studies is a rich topic for exploring how culture, identity and the environment are connected. Students had completed a Family History Project, and following that bend in our journey the fifth graders had intriguing questions about other people’s cultures, family heritage and traditions. One of the questions that students asked was, “Can animals shape people’s identity?” It was natural to then dive into research about Native Americans and their sense of identity, as I could think of many ways that the natural world is essential to indigenous people’s identity.

At the beginning of the unit I shared many video clips featuring the voices of both Native Americans and Native Hawaiians describing their identity in the context of familial relations, ancestors and their traditional homelands. As the unit progressed, students also accessed information about the geography of North America, the plants and animals that are prominent in Native American regions, the importance of water, climate and natural resources in shaping culture.

The information-gathering and research writing parts of this inquiry felt quite traditional, and many of the literacy skills were taught explicitly. I believe strongly that students must acquire factual knowledge as a prerequisite to conceptual understanding, and so the time we invested in gathering geographical and historical information was time well-spent.

However, I was concerned that we were losing sight of the original intention, which was to learn diverse views about identity. When students finally gave their presentations I was struck by how traditional the presentations came across. They felt predominantly like traditional research reports filled with secondary research about places and people far away in time and place. As the teacher I was disappointed I did not hear more about the people and their identity, as opposed to rote facts and information about cultural traditions, physical culture and the environment.

After a long winter break, we came back to school and I had many questions about how to proceed in our inquiry journey. I returned to my intention: get students to understand identity beyond the individual self, and to reach for understanding about identity as relational and connected to place.

I was still puzzled by the student presentations that were a culminating “assessment” for our Native American studies. I needed to know more about what the kids took away from those studies before going further, and so I decided to spend a morning gathering more information.

One of the things I did was ask students to respond to this question:

What have we learned about people’s relationship with their environment from studying Native American regions?

I am listing the students’ responses below, in no particular order. These are almost all of their responses–only a few students responded by rote recollection of facts.

• All Native Americans are connected to the water in a way. They care about water.
• They care about their environment. They depend on their environment for almost everything.
• Their relationship with their environment is very strong because they depend on it and to each other.
• They care about everything around them that they need to survive in different environments.
• Native Americans feel very thankful for all the resources nature provides for them.
• Native Americans feel responsible for taking care of their resources.
• Native Americans feel like they are a significant part of nature and keep Earth from dying.
• Native American cultures revolve around nature because without it they wouldn’t be able to survive.
• I learned that Native people were mistreated.
• Native Americans made the same things, but with different materials. They used the environment around them to survive.
• Native Americans are very spiritual about their environment in their region.
• Native Americans speak for their land, and are their land.
• They always have special meaning with their land.
• They feel their ancestors in them.
• Every ritual they do shows that the environment cares about them.
• Native people do not waste anything.
• Native people believe in many spirits, and strengthen their relationship to the land.
• Native people celebrate an animal’s life after it was hunted.
• Native people feel strong connections with their land, and can feel their ancestors all around them.
• Native people’s relationship with their environment is big because they depend on it to survive.
• Native people have big rituals for connecting to the environment.
• They have connections with plants and animals when they do songs, dances and rituals in the environment.
• They have a huge connection to the land.
• Native Americans love their land, the animals and their ancestors.
• Native Americans’ connection to the land can be super strong and deep. It really depends on what the plants or animals do for them. It depends on the life or importance of the thing.
• The reason Native Americans are dependent on their land is because they depend on it. Each place is unique, so one person can be very connected to a plant while another can feel connected to an animal. It really depends on where they are and what their environment and the specific plants do for them. That’s why people have different connections to different things.
• The Native American relationship to the land is very deep. It shows that they are so diverse. They want to keep their traditions, and it all goes back to their ancestors and how they are still there spiritually. They hope to keep their nations.
• Native Americans don’t just depend on the environment to survive, but it actually helped form their culture and traditions.
• All native people thrive in their environment and depend on it to survive. The environment shapes their culture: like Native Hawaiians and the ocean, Plains Indians and the grasslands, and the Northeastern Woodlands people and the trees.
• The Plains Indians hunt only for what they need, but never waste any bit of what they hunt so that their food sources stay populated.

To me these responses reveal something deeper than students’ research reports revealed. Almost the entire group of students went beyond recalling facts to describing an understanding of identity as relational, place-based and collective. Over and over again the kids described people as inseparable from the land, water, plants, animals, ancestors, and community. Their thinking reflects genuine conceptual understanding rather than rote knowledge.

My intention now is to continue to build our understanding of identity as relational, connected and grounded in place. For their capstone projects I hope students will be able to communicate an understanding of identity that encompasses the environment and community, that is relational and includes our interconnections. I also hope that students will walk away from their capstone journey understanding that identity is lived and experienced… it is not just described. That is my intention.