Authentic Inquiry – Jeff Bloom

The sites listed below are valuable resources, but may suffer from some degree of “status quo-itis” or linearity…. at least for my tastes. However, compared to much of what is available out there, these are among the best.

Learning Emergence: Authentic Enquiry
Gallileo Educational Network — Why Inquiry?

Support for Inquiry

Of course, photos and videos are useful tools that are readily available. But, sketching and mapping with paper and pencil are always very useful and help to hone observation skills.

As ecosystems are stressed and careen towards collapse…
As the world population increases beyond the limits of capacity…
As communities split apart and are consumed by fear and hatred…
As nations come apart at the seams or barely hang on to some semblance of coherence and sanity…
As cultures lose their identities, but are feared and hated anyway…
As families disintegrate and disperse around the globe…
As religions mesmerize the masses and are lost in the quest for power and money…
As corporations plan their take-over, while abusing their workers…
As politicians seem to have lost all sense of what it means to govern…
As tyrannical despots take over positions of power…
As the use of nuclear weapons moves from past memories to distinct possibilities…
As people lose their senses of empathy, compassion, integrity, and generosity…

We approach a POINT…
A point around which we find ourselves spinning.
We may spin out of control towards total self-destruction.
Or… we may spin into new ways of thinking and relating.

So far, schools and their corporate over-lords have been complicit in the movement toward total collapse.
But, if there is to be any hope, schools must step up and take the lead.

Schools must prepare our children to create new ways to live together and within our ecosystems.
Schools must prepare our children to collaborate and think in more complex and creative ways.
Schools must help children learn to survive and thrive as ecosystems collapse or change.
Our children are the generation that will face the brunt of all that humanity has done wrong.