Making Sense of and Constructing Meaning From Information

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

During the inaugural FOSIL Symposium on Saturday 8 February – which will be free, online and recorded – Hugh Rose and I will share the Creative Commons reboot of the Heroic Inquiry Journey.

The Heroic Inquiry Journey is the stages in the FOSIL-based inquiry process aligned with the iconic stages in the Hero’s / Heroine’s Journey as developed by Hugh at Blanchelande College, which adds instructional depth to both. The purpose of the reboot is to reconceptualise the ‘classical’ iconic stages of the Heroic Inquiry Journey in terms more familiar to a contemporary audience, and so more accessible, which we are eagerly looking forward to sharing.

This is how I described the Heroic Inquiry Journey when working on it with Hugh in 2021:

Genuine inquiry is always a heroic journey – 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.

While all of the stages are important, in terms of learning from information – acquiring knowledge and understanding of ourselves and each other in the world as the basis for responsible participation in society – especially in an increasingly digital environment, Investigate and Construct take on added significance, and I share the ‘classical’ iconic stages here ahead of my talk during the Symposium.

Given that our concern with Heroic Inquiry is actually the emergence of an engaged and empowered Heroic Inquirer, the following observation by Jacques Maritain (The Range of Reason, 1952, p. 3) is worth reflecting on, especially in what appears to be the dawning of a dark age:

Nothing is more important than the events which occur within that invisible universe which is the mind of [a person]. And the light of that universe is knowledge. If we are concerned with the future of civilization we must be concerned primarily with a genuine understanding of what knowledge is, its value, its degrees, and how it can foster the inner unity of the human being.

The Heroic Inquirer stands, feet firmly planted in the scroll that is the unfolding record of human knowledge, upholding and upheld by the light, which illuminates the way ahead.

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