INTRODUCTION

It's not common for an author to introduce his new book with an apology, but perhaps one is in order on this occasion—for at least some readers. Given the title, Cultures of Thinking in Action, you may have picked up this book excited to learn how to “do” cultures of thinking. Perhaps you thought, “Finally, a practical how‐to guide that spells it all out step‐by‐step!” Or maybe you were thinking, “Great, a resource book I can hand teachers to work through how to implement cultures of thinking.” To be sure, this book is meant as a resource for all those eager to cultivate a culture of thinking in their schools and classrooms. You will also find that it offers many practical ideas, tools, and resources. However, first and foremost, it is about the “why?” of our teaching. Thus, it is a book meant to spark self‐examination and collective reflection with both oneself and with colleagues. My goal is not merely to offer up a new collection of ideas, but to stir reflection that will spark transformation. Who are you as a teacher? What do you believe about teaching and learning? How do those beliefs reflect your stance toward teaching and play out in your classroom? How do these beliefs inform and propel your actions?

It is in those moments when we look critically at our practices and challenge our assumptions that we make the leap from informational learning, focused on learning about something, to transformational learning, the learning that allows us to challenge the status quo and embrace the complexity of the enterprise of teaching and learning (Mezirow 2000). For decades, policy makers, innovators, and administrators have often located professional learning in a set of practices. These folks often assume that if one changes teaching practices, revamps the curriculum, trains teachers in new instructional methods, then schools have been transformed. However, decades of failed efforts and unsustainable reforms have shown that this isn't the case. True transformation resides not at the surface level, the “what?” of teaching or even at the implementation or the “how?” No. True transformation resides in plumbing the depths of the “why?” of our teaching. What are we teaching for? What do we believe and hold true about teaching and learning?

In his writings and popular TED Talk, “How great leaders inspire action,” Simon Sinek (2009) explains the relationship between the what, the how, and the why through a diagram he calls the Golden Circle (see Figure I.1). It is common, and perhaps even intuitive, for businesses, leaders, and even teachers to start with the outside of the circle, the practical, the “what” and then perhaps spend time thinking about the “how?” After all, the “what” is so tangible. It's clear to everyone what the group does, makes, or delivers. This can be put on a spreadsheet, shelf, or test. The “what” can easily be translated into a measurable “SMARTT” (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, targeted, and time‐framed) goal or “KPI” (key performance indicator). It also is easy for leaders to manage, track, and oversee.

However, Sinek explains that truly great companies and leaders operate from the inside out. They begin with the “why?' This grounds them in a vision that directs and guides both their current and future work. It provides a sense of mission, purpose, and inspiration. As Sinek explains, Apple as a company doesn't just make computers (the what); they believe in challenging the status quo, in thinking differently by making beautifully designed products that are simple to use (the why) (Sinek 2009, #947). It is not the “what” that drives their success, extreme customer loyalty, and long lines outside their stores when new products are introduced, but the “why.”

Figure I.1 The Golden Circle.

By focusing on the “why?” I am not just transporting a popular idea from the business world to schools. There has been a long line of research on the importance of teachers' beliefs, values, and sense of purpose (Calderhead 1996; Thompson 1992). Alan Schoenfeld, professor at UC Berkeley and past president of the American Educational Research Association, conducted a multiyear line of research focused on the beliefs of teachers as central to understanding what does and does not happen in the classroom. His research focused on developing cognitive models that explain and predict teacher behavior (Schoenfeld 2010, #938). When all is going as intended in the classroom, teachers rely on their plans or experience to deliver a lesson—but things rarely go to plan. Students ask questions, make unexpected observations, get confused, have misconceptions, and so on. In these instances, teachers must make decisions. They are no longer merely implementers. Teachers make decisions based on their beliefs and values combined with their repertoire of teaching practices and knowledge of the curriculum. Although the “why?” doesn't act in isolation, it is at the core of the decision‐making process. And, of course, conflicts arise. What happens when one's beliefs don't align with one's pedagogical knowledge and skill? These can either represent moments of conflict, angst, and regression or great opportunities for growth and self‐discovery.

As part of a study of effective pedagogy conducted by the South Australian government, researchers found that teachers' beliefs and the way they understood their role as teachers were a better predictor of their teaching actions and general pedagogical repertoire than were their age, gender, or years of experience (Atkin 2019, #2155). Furthermore, teachers' epistemic awareness—that is, their awareness of how they understand the enterprise of teaching and the assumptions they are making about their teaching practice and students' learning—was found to be an important factor in promoting teacher growth and change (Atkin 2019, #1866). Teachers who were more epistemically aware tended to reflect on both their practice and their assumptions. As a result, they tended to question and probe their beliefs and embrace the complexity of teaching: transformative learning. Such occasions provided them with the opportunity for growth and self‐discovery. In contrast, teachers who were less self‐aware tended to view teaching as being more about content coverage and control. Although these teachers did reflect upon their practice, they did not question their underlying assumptions about teaching and learning. Thus, they tended to view teaching practices as either working or not working and were more likely to abandon new practices that didn't fit well into their existing repertoire or weren't immediately effective for them.

Through her years of helping schools and teachers foster inquiry learning, my good friend and colleague Kath Murdoch has witnessed the importance of teacher beliefs firsthand. She points out, “Our beliefs shape our practice. How we perceive our role as teachers has a profound influence on the language we use with students, the way we organize for learning, the design of learning tasks and what we look and listen for as we assess” (Murdoch 2022, p.47). Kath argues that while it is possible to mimic the practices of any particular approach, in her case inquiry learning, such actions tend to be just going through the motions and lack the dynamism that inspires students' learning. She says this approach “simply wallpapers over existing beliefs that are at odds with inquiry, those underlying beliefs will find all sorts of ways to manifest and even unconsciously undermine or sabotage the practice itself” (p. 47).

Others have written about the core beliefs and values people hold as representing their stance, thus connoting a physical as well as intellectual orienting. Cochran‐Smith and Lytle use stance as a deliberate metaphor in order to “carry allusions to the physical placing of the body as well as to intellectual activities and perspectives over time. In this sense the metaphor is intended to capture the ways we stand, the ways we see, and the lenses we see through” (Cochran‐Smith 1999, pp. 288–289). Mehta and Fine (2019) use the term to capture the way the teachers they studied for their book, In Search of Deeper Learning, viewed constructs key to teaching: the nature of learning, the role of failure, and the ability of their students. For instance, those effective at teaching for deeper learning viewed students as capable creators, failure as critical for learning, and the process of learning as a rich and engaging enterprise. Mehta and Fine also noted that one's stance is contextual. A teacher may engage her advanced students in deeper learning precisely because she saw them as capable creators, but then revert to traditional teaching practices with her lower track students.

My colleague Mark Church has been exploring the importance of a leader's stance in nurturing their school's progress toward a culture of thinking. In our discussions, the two of us have come to see leadership stance as being rooted in one's deeply held beliefs and values about how things work, what matters most, and the nature of the enterprise of leadership itself. A leader's stance will determine how they frame problems, see opportunities, and direct their...