Compassion Framework

Developing a compassionate systems framework for the IB: a prototype

This is a collaboration bringing together key participants from the International Baccalaureate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Penn State University.

The approach

In nurturing compassionate integrity* we build the capacity for international mindedness. This begins with developing the Learner Profile attributes within conditions designed to deliberately integrate both the cognitive and affective aspects; systemic with empathetic. The tools and practices used with this framework relate directly to the IB approaches to learning skills, and the approaches to teaching required to successfully deliver this framework are exactly those approaches to teaching we embody as IB teachers.

*Compassionate Integrity (see image bellow)

In this pilot “compassionate integrity” is defined as an emergent outcome of the framework. The incorporation of integrity is deliberate and important. Integrity in its common use is for a person to have alignment between how she or he thinks, feels and acts. What we wish for in our students is the ability not only to think compassionately but also to feel and live compassionately by virtue of an ever-unfolding awareness of our connectedness and interdependence. This can extend naturally from a feeling of connection to oneself and others, to feeling connected to the consequences of ones actions more broadly. This feeling of connectedness underpins a perpetual inquiry to understand those consequences; which we believe is the root of all ethical behaviour. This inquiry encompasses our choices as a citizen and a consumer, from the energy we use to the food we eat, to the products we buy (e.g., the water- and carbon footprints of the energy and food, the well-being of animals and workers, even on the other side of the world). Since we can never see all of the systems within which our actions unfold, this spirit of genuine curiosity and openness is the real hallmark of a systems thinker, and the cultivated “experience of connectedness and interdependence” is the hallmark of a compassionate systems thinker.

Compassionate Systems Framework