Teacher as Inquirer / Catalyst

This role creates new awareness, a new consciousness of the possibilities of education on the part of the student. The student is encouraged to take a pivotal involvement in the activities of learning and human growth. The teacher is prepared to move into a more intimate relationship with the student - one in which they engage each other face to face with equal energies.

Characteristics of the High Task, High Relationship Role

builds on and tests relationship of trust
affirms student's metaself
accepts moving from known to unknown
confronts student with new world of learning
disturbs student's complacency
creates cognitive conflict in student
creates a positive tension in the classroom
provokes student to question assumptions, attitudes, unquestioned values
catalyzes student to move into more relativistic state
asks, but doesn't answer questions; raises rather than solves problems
emphasizes that students ponder questions rather than seek easy answers
holds students in firm regard while sounding them out
acutely aware of questioning impact on student
introduces students to thinking beyond informational or basic knowledge level

General Aptitudes for this Teacher role

adroitly uses questioning process - proceeds by degrees
designs questions which challenge students to think and handle new concepts
designs questions which challenge students to question assumptions, values
provides patterning of questioning which students can internalize
senses when cognitive conflict can be too great
able to gauge emotional impact of questioning on individuals
assigns reading materials which move students into new territory
creates exercises and evaluative procedures that are provocative, challenging

begins to live with dissonance and conflict both cognitively and affectively
becomes familiar with questions which require thought and reflection
learns to question attitudes and values
expects questions which move one to broader levels of perception
learns to internalize questioning process
learns to hypothesize and raise new questions
begins to question others
learns to view questioning as essential to learning and knowing
is more at ease harboring questions that donât have immediate answers
is more activated to move from know to unknown; learns to connect old knowledge with new
learns to enjoy challenging reading materials
achieves a new awareness of learning process
eager to take more responsibility for learning
completes move toward intrinsic motivation in learning
increases respect for teacher from Reinsmith (1992) pp. 66-67

Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyph to those inquiries he would put.
He acts it as life before he apprehends it as truth.
-Emerson

I would like to beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday, far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. - - Rainer Marie Rilke

It's not how much you do, but how much love you put into the action - Mother Teresa

Work is love made visible -Kahlil Gibran

There is only one teacher
--- life itself
-Charlotte Joko Beck

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