If you have read this far, then we know you have grasped many meanings not formerly your own. If you comprehend a major thesis of this book, then you know that a grasped meaning is what you learn. This principle of grasping a meaning in order to learn the meaning is therefore a guide to inquiry itself, whether purely scientific inquiry, or practical problem solving in everyday life. You probably understand how important the idea of meaning is to our getting smart; and that getting smart, to a depth of wonderful human understanding, is a major event in our lives.

Inquiry and learning have sometimes been thought to refer to the same events. People who engage in inquiry do learn, and learners do use inquiries in their learning. However, inquiry and learning are significantly different when inquiry refers to constructing knowledge and learning refers to an individual's reorganizing his or her own meanings. Learning occurs after an individual has grasped a meaning; meaning is what the learner learns.

The significant fact is that science itself can gain power from the focus on meaning. The connection between scientists and educators is “What do they have in common?” V-diagram analysis will show they have much in common – events, records of events, and concepts naming regularities in events. It is not a matter of “translating” from one isolated domain (science) into another domain (education). It is profoundly a matter of identifying shared events.