Restoring wonder: play, inquiry, and humanizing pedagogies in early childhood teacher education

At a writing retreat in the middle of the woods, we considered the trees. Inspired by our surroundings, we discussed possibilities for how we might demonstrate an inquiry cycle with our undergraduate teacher candidates. We considered our spaces: the buildings in which we teach our classes, the university campus, and the broader community. We reminded one another of our campus quad and its status as an arboretum, owing to the diverse variety of trees there, representing myriad species and varieties. We posed questions. “What do we have available within our reach? What do we have that students can literally touch? How can we help students be in a place they seemingly already know?” Christie asked. “The trees,” Xiaoying mused. “We see the trees, but we don’t really KNOW them.” And thus, our inquiry question was born: How can we help our teacher candidates to KNOW the trees?