Information Literacy

I really enjoyed this weeks Flint reading (Ch. 11). It was shocking to read about the lack of nonfiction texts children are exposed to. It seems a bit odd to me that students would not have equal access to this particular genre.
I think my favorite part of this reading was when Flint gave the scenario of the student opening a textbook, Social Studies I believe it was, and immediately became disengaged. I have seen this same scenario in school settings, especially where the textbook is the only source of information for a unit. It was definitely that way for me as a young student. Heck, even at my age, I too become disengaged with textbook style learning. I NEED to get my hands dirty, have someone provoke my thinking wheel.

This leads me to the topic of inquiry based learning. I am really excited inquiry is being looked at more seriously as the better way to engage children and to provoke them to higher level thinking. I also think this is an area that I will need LOTS of practice in order to have success in my classroom. I feel that I would need to have a true solid understanding/knowledge of the concept I wanted my students to get, in order to help facilitate their discussions to get where I want them to be. Not only that, but I have little experience with learning in this way. Naturally, it would take a long time for me to develop the skills to promote this type of learning. Let me be clear though in saying that I will learn whatever skills I need to promote "best practice" learning.