ABSTRACT
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s quote often cited in the teacher research literature-“Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions themselves.” (Rogers, 2003, p. 117)—is good advice to all teacher researchers to learn to love the questions that lead to doing the research. This chapter will focus not only on loving the questions but living them or becoming them as well (Hubbard & Power, 1999; van Manen, 1991). Questions and wonderings help lead us to solving problems, deeper understanding, and improving what we do. This chapter will provide guidelines for formulating and refining teacher research questions. Early childhood teachers have long known that young children are full of all kinds of questions that motivate their activities. A resource for answering some common questions that children have is the book, The Nobel Book of Answers (Stiekel, 2003), in which the author shares answers from famous Nobel Prize winners, such as Ghandi, to common wonderings that children have about the world and how it works. Teachers sometimes yearn for a similar book that would give them the experts’ answers to their most pressing questions. Although not in book form, teacher research is a tool that helps teachers get answers to the important questions in their lives.
