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After hearing many introductions this morning (especially about the possible hardships in school districts), I thought, in honor of Apollo 11's epic voyage 40 years ago, this quote was especially applicable to our institute:

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." -John F. Kennedy

On a further note, I think that inquiry means several things.  When I first think inquiry, the first words that come to mind are 'research,' 'exploring through hands-on activities,' and 'questioning knowledge.'  I think that it's very hard to have an inquiry-based curriculum because inquiry doesn't seem concrete to most school officials and therefore it's hard to get a 'lesson plan' or 'schedule' that one will follow religiously (which is usually encouraged by administration).  Emily feels like it is easier to do inquiry-based learning with science than for other subjects, mostly because science relies on experimentation that is more hands-on and can exhibit research.  I personally think that this is true in many cases, but also that subjects like english and history encourage discussion, which is a big basis of inquiry-based learning: it is necessary for many viewpoints to converge and 'hybridize' thoughts (not compromise!) and this occurs in many settings in education.