Balanced
Balanced
Inquirer
Definition:
To develop a natural curiosity. To acquire the skills necessary to conduct inquiry and research and show independence in learning. To actively enjoy learning and this love of learning will be sustained throughout their lives.
Personal Connection
For my history class we had to write an extensive research paper about a topic of our choosing. I choose to write/research about Pol Pot's Regime and the Killing Fields in Cambodia. This topic was something that I had never heard about before and when I saw it on a list of topics we could chose from, it piked my interest (not sure what that says about me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). To research this topic, naturally the first place I went was my school's library (I practically live there-I have always loved libraries!). So I did a quick search for any books in the collection about the topic, I found a few informational books, and one memoir (soon to be Netflix series) called First They Killed My Father, written my Loung Ung. I found this book to be so intriguing that I read almost all of it (unfortunately I ran out of time but I plan on finishing it sometime in the future), and I know I didn't have to. I just really wanted to learn more about the author and her experiences (I got sucked into the book as I so often do) and the topic as a whole. This book ended up becoming a major influence in my paper, because it was one of the many books that I used that had really helped me to understand my topic and the impact of the Khmer Rouge Regime on Cambodians.
High School Connection
In my high school it is essential to be an inquirer, because most of the research projects require for us to be curious about a topic and then motivated to learn more about it. For example, last year I had to do another history research project, for this one I choose to investigate the different ways that three different countries (USSR, Cuba, and US) had reacted to the assassination of JFK. Choosing this particular topic just stemmed from me being curious about it especially because I knew that the US and Cuba/USSR had mixed relations that weren't always the best (Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.) and I just wanted to know if they reacted with the same shock and grief that most Americans had (many of them did, surprisingly). Also I choose the topics of research projects in other classes like my Sports Exercise Health Science class because they sound interesting. For that class, I am currently researching the difference in finish times of skilled vs. novice athletes in a 1600 meter race. Finally, recently even for my Spanish class I choose the topic of same sex marriage rights in Mexico for my Written Assignment topic because I was curious if they were different from those of US (and also because I had just seen Moonlight which covers the topic of homosexuality.) Therefore, in my high school being an inquirer is very important because we have to have an interest in learning new things in all our classes so we can do projects and research papers on them.