I hope everyone had a wonderful Family Day long weekend!
The teachers at St. Jude's Academy have been doing a great deal of work with inquiry of the last few weeks. As a school we have been researching it, discussing it, and have been putting it into the classrooms more and more each and every day.
In some of the research I have been doing I found a wonderful passage by Rachel Carson from her writing The Sense of Wonder (1998). She said....
“I should ask that a gift to each child in the world be
a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last
throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the
boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile
preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation
from the sources of our strengh' (Rachel Carson, 1998)
I think this is a great example of why inquiry is so important to St. Jude's and the IB. At some point in our lives we begin to stop questioning the world around us and just accept things. Imagine what life would be like if we continued on with an insatiable quest for knowledge and understanding of the world we live in!
This is what inquiry-based learning is all about. It is teaching children that not only is it acceptable to ask questions, but that it is encouraged. It is teaching information that is relevant to the children, because they are sharing in the creation of the learning process. It is about investigating, researching and reflecting on information we have learned. It is using and fostering the natural inquisitiveness of children and turning that into a life long skill that will assist them forever onwards.
Have a great week!
Mrs. Nelson
