Fostering Agents of Change - Enriching hearts

June, 2018

I have been teaching Grade 5 in International Baccalaureate® (IB) schools for more than 6 years now. I love working in IB schools, basically because of our Mission Statement.

You can see the highlighted sections that resonate strongly with me. Inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who want to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. Our purpose is to foster active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. Our mission is simply to change our world.

Along with this mind-blowing aspiration, IB has a strong focus on values. The IB learner profile describes the attributes and outcomes of education for international-mindedness, intercultural understanding and respect. We want students to be active agents for change with 21st Century skills to make our world a better place.

It’s an awesomely, strong vision, and with this, there has been a massive growth in IB schools. In May 2018, there were more than 6000 programmes being offered worldwide, in nearly 5000 schools (IB, 2017)

IB research by Dickson (2017) found that most IB schools in Australia are located in wealthy communities in large cities, are privately-funded, charge moderate to high fees, and enrol mostly students from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds. So our first contradiction, is that our quality IB education is not accessible to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, students from Indigenous backgrounds and rural areas.

But we are failing on two fronts. Exclusive education means that our IB students are often segregated in an elite school setting, that has so many systemic barriers, that it is extremely difficult to equip our young people with the compassion, intercultural understanding and respect of complex issues, when they are lacking exposure to diversity, difference and inequalities in their classroom or local community.

We are faced with a paradox, as UNESCO (2005) argued...

As educators, we know that we are agents of change. We believe in common humanity and a shared guardianship of our planet. We know our purpose as educators is to enrich a child’s heart, and create agents of change. Our mission is to change our world. So this is our reality. We must promote equitable access and break down the systematic barriers that prevent children from accessing quality education. More IB schools are providing scholarships, and opening their doors to develop more intercultural, local partnerships.

One clear answer in transforming our world, is to enrich our child’s heart. To create a new way of looking at our world. Working together as a collective and not focusing on our own individual success. Connecting our students to our local and global issues.

In IB, this is what we call either action and/or service learning.

But this is also challenging. Our students are not only protected from the outside world, but providing our elite students with service learning opportunities that give them access to local communities and their complex issues, is difficult. There are many potential risks and liability issues that make these real life opportunities very difficult to provide, but so worthwhile.

For the majority of inner city students, there is also a huge disconnect between the land, and yet for indigenous people, the spirit and life of land and water is part of their identity and this knowledge can be taught to incorporate sustainable living. With this in mind, each year for our Grade 5, five day trip to Chiang Mai, we intertwine nature and culture in a mutually beneficial exchange, and visit a remote, local Thai school.

We were able to see first hand the challenges rural and indigenous children face in obtaining a quality education, such as extreme levels of poverty, lack of teachers and resources (50 students, 11 with special needs with only 1 qualified teacher) and extensive travel time (some lived as far as 50 kms away). Most of their education is provided by a television program, a royal funded scheme. Service learning trips such as this, provide opportunities for students to critically examine inequalities, and foster appreciation for diverse cultures, people and language.

Students must be given the opportunity to listen and connect to individuals who are different from themselves. To hear their stories, engage with their experiences and knowledge. This is crucial in developing their hearts. Collectively, by integrating diversity, and indigenous knowledge and experiences within communities, we will not only transform our classrooms, but the way that we view and understand our world.

This video is one example of only one day. In the future, we hope to foster long term relationships with local schools and communities, so that students can genuinely develop friendships with others, and build intercultural partnerships, which will help them understand the inequality and complex power issues, and develop ways that will transform our world.

Citation:

Dickson, A., Perry, L. and Ledger, S. (2017). How accessible is IB schooling? Evidence from Australia. [online] SAGE Journals. Available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1475240917696037 [Accessed 14 Jun. 2018]

IB. (2007.). Mission Statement. Retrieved from https://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/mission/

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2004–2005; UNESCO: Paris, France, 2005.