Oh how my perspective has changed

Remember the Celebration of Inquiry? The last real one happened my freshman year at Coastal, and I thought it was the greatest idea ever. Until it happened. Open discussions, free exchange of ideas, without grades or any other pressure to perform…an opportunity to learn about anything…what could possibly go wrong? I’ll tell you what. The sciences were not included. If ever there was a person who should celebrate inquiry more than any other, I’m willing to bet he was a scientist. But for some reason, the theme that was chosen seemed to really limit the participation by the College of Science. And they didn’t seem too motivated to try either. The sessions I attended were interesting, in a “if I wasn’t getting extra credit, I’d want my time back” kind of way. In the end, I was not at all disappointed that the celebration was abbreviated or canceled all together in later years because of lack of participation.

Next week we are going to celebrate the work of one of the founders of this lab by holding a similar event. Of course it’s smaller. We’ve invited one speaker to give a series of lectures and lead several discussions. We are all scientists here, so I don’t think I’ll have to worry about the discussion being dominated by poetry. But still, I hope I’m not disappointed. The topic is global climate change. It’s hard to keep a positive outlook when you know the facts on that topic. I’m keeping my expectations low.