Creating a center of inquiry

Through continuous reflection processes and action research projects, dedicated educators can create a center of inquiry. At the heart of this burgeoning center of inquiry-a place where everyone makes a contribution to the education of others by questioning and solving problems-are moral commitments to studying practice, engaging in continuous dialogue, and vibrant, exciting teaching and learning.

A SITUATED CONTEXT

Creating a center of inquiry has contributed to our collective understanding of the relationship of teacher and student inquiry to professional development and school reform. Through purposeful collection of data spanning three years, we successfully merged the reform agendas of a university program in teacher education with a public school district and professionaldevelopment school site (Goodlad 1994; Holmes Group 1990; Sergiovanni 1996). We found that a learning context filled with ongoing action inquiry on teaching and learning has rich possibilities for the overall school milieu.

This story is about the International School of the Americas (ISA), a themed, magnet school of choice for grades 9-12 in San Antonio's Northeast Independent School District (NEISD). It is also about Trinity University and its five-year Master of Arts in Teaching program. As a participant in this process, I was able to guide intern teachers, their mentor teachers, and the school during the yearlong student teaching experience at the ISA. I also assisted the ISA in aspects of its school reform agenda and conducted research on collaborative processes of teacher education and school reform.

The ISA and Trinity are close partners with the NEISD, Lee High School (on whose larger campus the ISA resides and with whom the ISA shares several programs), Southwestern Bell, Valero Energy Corporation, and the Learning Initiative. The corporate partners in this case act on the school's behalf by supplying internships for ISA juniors and seniors and by urging its employees to become volunteers and advisors to the school. Community partners also participate in school programming. Parent groups advise the school at every turn. There are multiple voices heard in this context. The school is open, receptive to new ideas, and yet clear about its direction and purposes; these things do not have to be mutually exclusive in a restructuring school environment-or in any school environment, for that matter.

Trinity and the NEISD founded the ISA on the basis of a concept paper on "Living and Learning in Today's Global Market Place" (Sergiovanni 1993). Sergiovanni's (1993, 1) vision for the 21st-century high school became the school's model:

Demand a lot from students; love them at the same time; keep the scale down so that everyone knows each other; do only afew things but do them well; link graduation to students being able to demonstrate that they have mastered essential skills; and share the burdens of leadership with teachers and students. Place character development above all. Aim to graduate students who are competent, who know how to think, who care about others and who are eager to accept responsibility for active citizenship.

The school opened its doors to its first class of 110 freshmen and five teachers in the fall of 1994. The plan was to stay small for a high school, with less than 440 students in grades 9-12 and with about 20 teachers (Sergiovanni 1996). The student body of the ISA represents the general demographic makeup of the city, with students mirroring San Antonio's diversity in terms of race (about 55 percent Hispanic, 35 percent Anglo, and 10 percent African American) and class. Admission is open to any student applicant from the Lee High School attendance area (70 percent), the NEISD at large (20 percent), and the city at large (10 percent). Each student is selected by having his or her name drawn from a hat. The school's philosophy that any student can learn regardless of his or her past academic or social performances makes it the school's responsibility to meet each student's academic, intellectual, and social needs as best as it can.

Teachers compete for spots at the ISA and serve as mentor teachers in the teacher education program with Trinity. A student intern is generally placed at the ISA or at Lee for a yearlong teaching assignment in a mentor teacher's public school classroom. Selection of mentors is based on a number of factors-students' location preference, the availability of mentors in certain subject areas, and previous field experiences students have had with specific teachers. Students of teaching know that the demands of being an intern at the ISA are extremely high. The school tends to treat interns as faculty members, expecting them to participate in as many activities in the life of the school as possible, giving them team responsibilities and opportunities to teach, and listening to their ideas and opinions as a matter of course. The ISA expects much from its student interns and gives much in return, mainly by providing a protected, exciting, opportunity-filled place to learn to teach.