Flourishing Life

especially in this day and age, isn’t just the inquiry part, it’s the community part. My thesis is this: In today’s American educational climate, with its laser-sharp focus on “accountability ” and “raising the bar, ” the community aspect of “community of inquiry ” is more important than ever. It is so important because it purposefully cultivates what many of today’s schools are unwisely leaving too far on the fringe: the loving, caring, fun-filled human relationships which are at the core of human flourishing. In order to support this thesis I will endeavor to establish four points. First, I will argue that loving human relationships are at the heart of a well-lived life. Second, I will contend that schools properly ought to concern themselves with the cultivation of such relationships. Third, I will propose the controversial claim that schools aren’t doing a good enough job of addressing this concern. And finally, I will assert that P4C’s “community of inquiry”approach is an effective means for cultivating such relationships. BELIEF #1: Loving human relationships are essential to a flourishing life. Oftentimes I begin my college ethics course with a single quote: “It is remarkable how many people sacrifice the really good stuff for that which is not as important.”2 Do you think, I ask the students, that this is true? Most of them believe that it is. Then I raise another question: But what do you mean by “the really good stuff”? What is at the heart of a well-lived, flourishing human life? I have, over the course of the past years, heard numerous answers to this question. Many of them are very wise responses, for nearly all of my college students are military folks who not only have overcome substantial hardships in life but have also gained the nearly unimaginable insight that comes from facing death in war. There is, of course, considerable variety in the answers that I hear from so many voices. But there is a common thread; a single, pivota