Inquiry questions catapult kids out of their La-Z-Boys. Faced with a single substantive question that seems to have lots of answers, their brains kick in like the search engine on a computer. All of a sudden they think, "What do I know about this?" Signals go out in every direction. Synapses crackle. The hunt is on, and it looks different in every head. One student is searching for facts while another thinks in pictures. Some dredge up personal experiences, others work from logic, or extrapolate from parallel situations. The point is, they're all on task. One good question can produce 200 cranial hits. Inquiry questions cre- ate focus, put the brain in gear and keep it there.

The Owner's Manual

When it comes right down to it, a brain is a pretty good thing to have. It's helpful in school and invaluable in most real-life situations, except maybe on a blind date or talk-radio. But like any really handy appliance, you have to know how to use it. Inquiry takes kids through the owner's manual for their brains. It helps them identify and begin to consciously examine the elements of thought: concepts, evidence, assumptions, implications, consequences, interpretations, conclusions, and points of view. Once they've studied the owner's manual, kids begin to notice the structure of their own thoughts. With a little encouragement, they'll be critiquing the utterances of people around them — their peers, school administrators, coaches, movie stars, and news commentators. And yes, you're likely to take a few friendly barbs, but it's worth it to see your kids running through all their cognitive gears. I like to tape sound bites of politicians or their spinmeisters, and let my kids dissect their utterances for batting practice. With a lot of hard work on your part, you can raise a crop of students who consciously use their brains to find and evaluate information, solve problems, and create new ideas. Ultimately you want them to be firmly in the driver's seat of the learning machine you've built, so that when confronted with a dilemma or a meaty question, they confidently declare "Slide over. I can handle this."

The Thinking Person

So how does it actually work? How do your kids go from dependent muddle- heads to autonomous thinkers? Pause, if you must, to decide if your really want a room full of autonomous thinkers, but then think how much fun it would be to spend every day with several dozen smart people. You'd be the envy of most adults in the business world, universities, or government — need I say more?

When you approach teaching through inquiry, it's like you've put a well-trained mind on speakerphone. You ask a question. That's the inciting incident for the brain. Then your kids make lots of remarks and observations. Their initial responses represent the thoughts that are triggered in the mind in re- sponse to your initial question. But here's the skill development: When you ask questions back to probe your students' thinking, you play the role of the inner voice that really good critical thinkers hear when they're working their way through a problem. In other words, you make external and visible the inner process of critical thinking. Eventually your kids internalize the process. Hence, autonomous thinkers.

Training in the inquiry method conditions the brain to raise basic issues, probe beneath the surface of things, and pursue problematic areas of thought. It also helps students:

• Develop sensitivity to clarity, accuracy, and relevance in the thoughts, arguments, and writing of other people.
• Arrive at judgments through their own reasoning.
• Adopt a penetrating and rigorous approach to topics from literature to political science.