Katie Baker's Blog of Inquiry

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Wondering 1 - Finding Purpose

Finding Purpose:
I really found that guiding questions really helped me through this step. I looked at Lamb's guiding questions in 8Ws: Why are you working on this project? Is it for pleasure? Do you have a particular problem to solve or question to answer? It occured to me after thinking about these questions that I am doing a school project (much like kids are), however, becuase I have decided on my own topic that is important to me, I am thinking less "becuase I have to," and more "I am wondering about it." Furthermore, I do have a particular self-directed problem to solve: I am gaining weight just after losing 20 lbs on the Atkins diet. However, instead of this being my focus, I have related this problem to good nutrition so I can learn how to eat correctly while maintaining my weight. So really, I am investigating an idea at this point.

During this stage I felt a bit uneasy. I felt like I should have been doing more than figuring out the purpose, but I suppose it is becuase I am so used to jumping right into research, which has already happened, that it is hard for me to just sit and think about my project. After I had determined the answers to the questions, my project seemed really large, which was scary becuase it is something that I really want to do, but I am under a time constraint. Do I ditch my interesting project idea for the simple reason of time? Well, this question motivated me a bit because, yes, I certainly wanted to do my interesting topic, but I needed to get moving. But, I found myself procrastinating again becuase I knew I didn't have enough uniterrupted time to get all my thoughts down.

I can see how long periods of time for children is very beneficial in inquiry projects. Once you get moving and making progress, you really don't want to stop. I see students 30 minutes at a time, and gosh, it is even hard for me to work when I know I only have 30 minutes. I will have to think about this more!