Welcome to my final blog post concerning my Inquiry question; ‘How does the country a child is raised in affect their childhood development and their values and beliefs into adulthood?’. In this post I will be reflecting on my Inquiry and answering some questions about my experience.
Throughout this inquiry process, I overcame quite a few challenges. First of all, pertaining to research articles. Since my Inquiry question is very technical and statistic based, I found a lot of my information from peer-reviewed reasearch articles. They were a good source of information, because they were reputable sources and had a plethora of data for me to use; however, they were also very long, and had a lot of confusing vocabulary. I found myself having to skim through pages of writing, potentially missing key points. I overcame this challenge by using the section titles of research articles to find the exact information and studies I wanted, so I didn’t have to read through sections of information that I didn’t need. A dictionary also became my best friend when reading these articles, helping me understand the unpopular vocabulary they sometimes used in reasearch.
One other challenge I had to overcome during this inquiry project was acctually deciding on my question itself. At the start of the process, I had a hard time choosing what inquiry path I wanted to go down, and what specifically I wanted to research. I knew I wanted to reasearch something connecting to early childhood development, but it took a while to land on my current question. I finally ended up coming up with my inquiry question, because of my personal lifelong wonder; regarding how my life would be different if I grew up in my parents home country of Kenya.
This Inquiry changed the way I think by making myself become more aware of my situation, and more thankful. Learning about these other children in different countries, and how their lives are so different compared to mine, made me way more aware of my life here in Canada, and all I have to be grateful for, like, my family, my education and my upbringing. Some children don’t know whether they will eat tomorrow, others if their family will be able to afford school fees for the following year. I now notice all the oppertunities I have been given in life, and all the tools I have available to help me succeed. I understand more the huge impact that the country you are raised in has on your situation and your upbringing.
This project also changed my thinking by helping me understand child development better. I never knew how big an impact your childhood has on you as you grow up before I did this inquiry. I learned a lot about how malnutrition or serious diseases contracted at an early age can have life-long effects for a child, and how different parenting techniques can shape a child’s thinking for life. I think these findings have made me appreciate my upbringing much more, and be more aware of how I treat children, because their experciences stay with them for life.
This investigation will impact my future decisions by making me consider others upbringings more. Especially if I’m talking with someone from a different country, when conversing with people going forward, I will take into account the country they were born in and how that might affect their mannersims and the way they think. I believe I will now be more observant about how people from different places differ in their speech, actions, and habits in my daily life. My investigation will make me notice just how different everyone in the world is, and what causes them to be that way.
I also think this inquiry will impact my future descisions by making me become more conscious of myself while I’m around children. Learning about how important early experiences are to children as they grow up, I think will make me more determined to make a positive impact in childrens lives, even if it’s a small one. When interacting with children in the future, I will try to be as friendly and welcoming as possible, setting them up for a positive childhood that will hopefully carry on throughout their life.
Locally, I hope this investigation will teach people just how big our world is, and how different other peoples lives are. I want to help people learn about the diversity on this planet and how unique we all are. I think it’s so facinating that there’s another girl my age living a completely different life on the other side of the world, an I would like others to realize that too. I find that we tend to enclose ourselves in a bubble, and only consider ourselves and problems that directly concern us, so I think it would be really beneficial for my peers to learn about the different ways of life others have around the globe. It would help them be more aware and acknoledgeable of their situation, and others challenges and blessings in life.
Globally, I honesly don’t think my investigation will get that far, but in the improbable chance it does, I hope this project helps people realize just how big of an impact the country they were raised in shaped them and changed their life. That one variable probably changed the course of their whole life, and that their situation would be very different if they were born in another place. I believe that realisation would probably make people more aware and curious, as it did to me; potentially moving people do do their own research based on the subject.
Thank you so much for continuing to follow me along my Inquiry project. This project was extremely rewarding for me to do; I learned so much about different countries, and the similairities and differences that children have who are born in different countries. This inquiry has taught me so much, and I’m so excited to continue on to my next project.
