Session 2b: Darryl Toerien & Hugh Rose (Heroic Inquiry)

[Jenny Toerien Keymaster]

Post here for questions and comments on:

10.55 – 11:45 | FOSIL Developments

Heroic Inquiry

• 00:00 Conceptualising Heroic Inquiry | Darryl Toerien, Head of Inquiry-Based Learning at Blanchelande College, and originator of FOSIL and the FOSIL Group
• 23:51 Reconceptualising Heroic Inquiry | Hugh Rose, Illustrator of Traditional Stories

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Links to PowerPoint presentation and YouTube recording (section timestamps above).

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[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Every inquiry, whether formal or informal, is a heroic journey.

Broadly, inquiry is a movement – intellectual,certainly, but also, and equally important, physical, emotional and social – from the comfort of the known into the discomfort of the unknown, there to wrestle knowledge from information and understanding from knowledge. There lurks real danger here, for being even somewhat misguided can lead far astray, and so discerning those who would help from those who would hinder, or even harm, is vital. From this now-enlightened place to return, enlivened and alive to possibilities heretofore unimagined. And so to set off again.

This heroic journey of inquiry is the story of those who have stretched the boundaries of human knowledge and understanding in one or more of the fields of study in which they laboured, and those who labour there still. It is this unfolding story that we are inviting our students to identify with and, in learning to stretch the boundaries of their own knowledge and understanding, add their voice to and so find their place in.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

The work with Hugh Rose on the Creative Commons (CC) reboot of Heroic Inquiry will require the most time to discuss, but I don’t want to delay making the link to proceedings live. Therefore, and for now, I will make the following observations:

• The ‘classical’ version of Heroic Inquiry (1.0) was produced in collaboration with Hugh Rose in 2021 while he was working at Blanchelande College under the previous Principal, whose influence on the images was strongly felt. This is appropriate, given the centuries-long educational tradition in Guernsey that Blanchelande is rooted in.
• Because this iconography is so closely associated with Blanchelande, opportunities to share our unfolding understanding of the embodiment of the inquiry stance and process in the Heroic Inquirer and through the Heroic Inquiry journey were constrained. Moreover, as the current Principal, Alexa Yeoman, noted in her address, being rooted in this rich tradition does not trap us in the past, given Blanchelande’s commitment to providing an outstanding contemporary liberal education, of which inquiry is a distinguishing feature. This forward-looking educational stance enables us to equip our students for their futures as engaged and empowered independent learners and active citizens, as our Director of Studies, Jane Grange, noted in her address.
• Growing interest in Heroic Inquiry, combined with a growing need to reconceptualise Heroic Inquiry in contemporary terms that spoke more directly to the reality our students need to deal with, created the conditions for the CC reboot of Heroic Inquiry in 2024-5.
• This posed a number of challenges, not least of which were that Hugh no longer worked at Blanchelande, I had a limited budget for FOSIL-related development and we had a very tight deadline if we were to share the CC reboot during the FOSIL Symposium. I am indebted to our then-Acting Principal, Mike Elward, who immediately saw the importance and value of this work, as well as freely sharing it under a CC licence, and to our Bursar, Mark Lewis, for approving an out-of-budget expense. My meetings with Hugh were limited to evenings and weekends, and many emails.
• This led to technical difficulties that will become apparent. In order to make the reboot as inclusive and diverse as possible within the constraints above, and without resorting to forced stereotypes, we decided to approach the Heroic Inquiry stages in the style of a video game (although there are also cinematic references), in which character creation and identification is natural. While we did not have time to investigate deeply, a cursory investigation confirmed that this combination of video game style with cinematic references appealed equally to boys and girls. The settings of the stages gave us further opportunities for inclusion and diversity. The pixelated style created exciting possibilities, but also imposed technical limitations that I do not fully understand – especially considering that we deliberately chose not to use colour (except for the stage names, which will print fine without) – but can appreciate.
• Additionally, we used the following for racial/ethnic reference, although this aspect was even more difficult to respectfully address: National Center for Education and Statistics, Definitions for New Race and Ethnicity Categories (2025).
• While we did not hold any formal consultations during the design process, we did not work in isolation, and sought and acted on feedback from a relatively diverse audience, which included both boys and girls of school-going age, and from different nationalities. Hugh shared the following thoughts with me following his presentation: “I encourage educators to look at this poster as a storytelling tool. It is up to them to tell the story and bring it alive for their students. The images have been carefully designed to allow the use of various pronouns and indeed cultural references. I hope everyone has fun creating their own epic stories with the framework we have created!“
• An unexpected budgetary difficulty that we ran into was that I had not accounted for the central Heroic Inquirer, so Jenny and are the proud ‘owners’ of this image!

We are proud to share the final design under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, and encourage colleagues to adopt or adapt as needed, and to share their experiences. I will reflect on the stages and images from my perspective in due course.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

I share the following for completeness of the proceedings, but please note that I am waiting for a minor adjustment to the stage colours, after which we will make the posters, stages and images available in Resources.

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A reminder of of what is going on in Investigate and Construct.

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