The PYP empowers students to take control of their own learning. This begins with the youngest learners as they engage in stimulating inquiries, discussions, and reflections that intensify throughout the entire continuum of the PYP program. Students examine how to learn, develop an awareness of how he or she learns best, and gain insight on how to leverage his or her personal learning style and strengths. Inquiry at JBE looks like:

• Exploring, wondering, questioning

• Experimenting and possibilities

• Making connections between previous learning and current learning

• Making predictions

• Collecting data and reporting findings

• Testing a theory

• Researching

• Defending a position

• Solving problems in different ways

• Collaborative group work

• Hands on activities

• Class discussions

Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today's world. Facts change, and information is readily available -- what's needed is an understanding of how to get and make sense of the mass of data.

Educators must understand that schools need to go beyond data and information accumulation and move toward the generation of useful and applicable knowledge . . . a process supported by inquiry learning. In the past, our country's success depended on our supply of natural resources. Today, it depends upon a workforce that "works smarter."

Through the process of inquiry, individuals construct much of their understanding of the natural and human-designed worlds. Inquiry implies a "need or want to know" premise. Inquiry is not so much seeking the right answer -- because often there is none -- but rather seeking appropriate resolutions to questions and issues. For educators, inquiry implies emphasis on the development of inquiry skills and the nurturing of inquiring attitudes or habits of mind that will enable individuals to continue the quest for knowledge throughout life.