I was oscillating back and forth over what kind of project I was interested in exploring for our Free Inquiry assignment for quite some time. I wanted to be able to do something that I had been thinking of taking up anyways as this gives me a reason to stop procrastinating. There were two things I had been meaning to take up semi-regularly and learn a bit more about; birding and mushrooms. For the purposes of this assignment and blogging journey I have opted to go with the mushrooms, though maybe I’ll treat my obviously very wide audience to the occasional blurry bird photo.
Perusing through the information we have on ‘free inquiry’ was, to be perfectly honest, less than exciting. I agree that it is a relatively novel way for organizing educational projects for the majority of public schools in Canada, but it’s by no means a novel thing in and of itself. Essentially, this is research and personal exploration of a topic dressed up in corporate buzzwords like ‘inquiry’ and ‘innovation.’ This doesn’t take away from the power of inquiry based learning at all, but I worry about the discursive means by which it can be co-opted as the tool of private interests (ya’ll have already seen my take on that one in my look at the recent documentary we watched, so no need to go into it here). I do value research and exploration as a method of education. I come from a background in outdoor education and backcountry guiding where this method is key. We operate within the framework we have available to us (whatever means of movement for our camping trip we’re using – kayak, hike, etc..) but form our lessons based on the interests of our participants. I have lead countless trips in the Gulf Islands for example where our participants interests lead us to inquire about intertidal life, or geology, weather, or the history of the area. In each case our participants left our trip with new learning, new interests, and a feeling that they have what it takes to explore what they want.
Anyways, on to the main story. I’ve elected to start growing my own mushrooms and learning to harvest wild ones! There’s not much to say about this so far.
I’ve ordered a beginner mushroom growing kit from a farm up in Sayward on the north end of the Island, so that will take some time to get here. In the mean time I’m finally diving into a few books I have and calling on friends with experience to talk about wild mushrooms. My only hope is that I can live up to the style of David Arora, author of All That The Rain Promises and More. What a legend.