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Thanks to Anne for highlighting so many key issues for teaching and learning.

• Do your metaphors/story's match your students? What's the effect?

• When and how do you use images vs words?

• ...is it relative to the age and development of the students?

• More images for younger students? More words for older?

• What does the image-word developmenal continuum suggest about how much scaffolding is needed in our lessons?

• Why? What does that say about understanding?

• Is undestanding primarily based on images derived from the senses?

• Are these "observations". Does this mean Montessori is on to something when they nuture sensory discrimination?

• Is, as Paul suggests, the difference between interpretation and observation "fuzzy"?

• If so, what is science? ...making interpretation, then using it as the vehicle to carry the tenor of a new interpretations.

• Does it follow that science is taking primary sensory "interpretations" and developing useful "metaphors" for public consumption?

• What does that mean for inquiry? ...inquiry education?

For me inquiry is a never ending loop between observation and interpretation that constructs understandings that takes into account more and more observations in a consistent narrative. If observation is just another level of interpretation, then it is even more important to learn about the "loopyness" of inquiry. I see observations as just the primary level of interpretation where our senses filter "reality" into nerve pulses for our brain to find patterns in. That means it is interpretation all the way down. And that means the more levels of interpretation we can peel away, the closer we get to primary sensation and the less susceptible our interpretions are to dispute. Or in other words, the "better" the interpretation is as evidence...evidence that we can use to build a consensus story.

So...gaining proficiency in the skill of inquiry, the better we become at finding useful evidence and building believable stories.