Just don't call it a "method"!

The Significant Item:
"Inquiry is much more than a teaching method--it is a way of being in the classroom, as well as in the world." (Clifford & Marinucci, 2008, p. 676)

Please forgive me for saying so, but I find this rhetoric just a touch on the hyperbolic side. When we start talking about something--anything--in such epistemologically absolutist terms, I start to get just a little nervous. Such language begins to take on slightly cultish/creepy overtones for me.

Please don't get me wrong. I find it very difficult to disagree in any substantive fashion with what I've been reading and learning so far (although it's still early days!), but--to be perfectly frank/blunt--I also find that a lot of what I've been reading and learning so far seems to be from the realm of truths we hold to be self-evident.

I know it may be heresy, but it still seems to me that there really isn't that much that is truly new, different, or radical about "inquiry". Clifford and Marinucci go on to argue that "true" or "genuine" inquiry demands that "teachers develop the attitudes of a scholar", that such authentic inquiry evokes "questions that lead to further questions", requires a "spirit of wonder", and that it is "a knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding".

This is all well and good, but as far as my poor little mind can discern, it is essentially an articulation of (the philosophy of) "science" as a pedagogical paradigm, within which "inquiry" would be the good old "scientific method" which meets all of the stated criteria (it functions within an epistemological paradigm--a way of being in the world, it requires the attitudes of a scholar, it is entirely driven by questions which lead to further questions, it is most definitely undertaken in a spirit of curiosity and wonder, and "science" is exactly a "knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding"). So what's wrong with calling "inquiry" a "method"? Within such a construct, I see nothing wrong with the word at all!

By the by, I deliberately chose to include links to Wikipedia pages, because the notion of a knowledge building space devoted to ideas with individuals producing a collective, evolving understanding is also exactly the concept of "collective intelligence" which drives Wikipedia itself. 

And this is where my questions for further investigation reside. I'm fascinated by "collective intelligence", "shared knowledge", and so on within the realms of digital media and digital citizenship. Yes, learning needs to be authentic, meaningful, and relevant in "real" communities beyond the classroom and the school. But those "real communities" are increasingly "virtual" and digital. With a few clicks and/or keystrokes, students today can almost instantly bring together constantly-shifting communities of astonishing breadth and depth. How do we design and implement a truly relevant model of education in such a world?

References:
Clifford, P. & Marinucci, S. (2008). Testing the waters: Three elements of classroom inquiry. Harvard Educational Review, 78(4), 675-688. Retrieved from http://library1.ucalgary.ca/u.php?id=3209
Philosophy of Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science.
Science. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science.
Paradigm. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm.
Scientific Method. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method.
Collective Intelligence. (2014-07-06). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 2014-07-06 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence.