Where Life and AIW Meet Through Disciplined Inquiry

Over the last year, I have come to truly enjoy doing triathlons. I’m not especially good, but the Sprint distance (800M swim, 20k bike, and 10k run) calls for just the right amount of training to fit into my schedule. The races keep me desperate to train when I’m on the road and at home, but when I’m done for the season in early September, the training has become a chance to be more reflective in general, especially about my goals.

This past Labor Day, I was on a miserable run, berating myself for reading in the cool dawn and running in the scorching, mid-morning instead of vice versa. So I was out there dying in the heat, and I began to think about my hydration, nutrition, race weight, BMI index, VO threshold, and how all of these were impacting my per-mile pace. This was mostly because my final triathlon of the season (an Olympic length that doubled all my usual distances) had fallen apart during the run. I finished, of course, but it wasn’t pretty.

Just when I was feeling down about my slow pace, I realized something far more energizing: I was “being authentic!” By reflecting back on what I could have done differently, I was creating a new workout schedule and fitness program (Construction of Knowledge) using the ideas, methods, processes, and vocabulary within the field of fitness and wellness (Disciplined Inquiry) to improve my performance for next year season (Value Beyond School). Like any teacher with performance events (like band concerts or art shows), each race represents the performance assessment of that “unit.” If I focused on swimming, I could expect improvement there. If I spent all my time biking, I would improve my time there, unless I “over-biked.” This, as I found out the hard way, results in having nothing left for the run, especially if I don’t manage my nutrition. In other words, practicing drills in each sport does not yield nearly the same results as understanding the science behind them and how they impact each other and me! It is this kind of understanding that is at the heart of Disciplined Inquiry in AIW.

This wasn’t the first time I thought about AIW in a real life context (geek that I am), but perhaps because I was running, I went deeper than usual. I began to understand that when I took health in school and even when I competed in sports, I was never asked to how I might make meaning of what was being taught.  In fact, I don’t ever remember being asked how what I was a learning might apply to me. Like most students in the 80s, I memorized a lot and promptly forgot anything I didn’t think would be useful, which at 17 was most everything.

Ironically, one conversation I do remember vividly stayed with me.  In 10th grade, I walked into the locker room just as the track coach was talking with our top runner. My teammate had been ill and had lost five pounds, putting her much closer to an ideal race weight. Consequently, she had just run a personal best and the coach was taking the time to explain to her why her time had improved and how all runners have an ideal weight to perform at their best. The coach wanted her to understand that less weight wouldn’t always mean faster if she didn’t have enough muscle mass and fat to use when racing, but that even a few pounds of unnecessary weight (which those five had been) would impact her time.

So what’s this have to do with all the students and teachers heading back into school this fall? In short, everyone deserves a chance to deeply understand their performance: the elite as well as the third-string athletes; our gifted, average and remedial students; the first chair musicians and the ones who can barely read music. We all deserve to understand the “Whys” of learning. Not only does the extra thinking help us better understand what we are learning in the moment, lessons that have been vetted through AIW are the ones that have the best shot at “equipping students to address the complex intellectual challenges of work, civic participation,and managing personal affairs”—such as creating a workout schedule to improve next year’s triathlon performance without getting injured!