Humanising Pedagogy Institution-wide Commitments

The 7 Humanising Pedagogy Institution-wide Commitments guide schools to examine their organisational structures and systems. They raise awareness on how best to renew learning and teaching by embedding humanising pedagogical leadership into all aspects of schooling. 

“It is by actively engaging in the dialogue and practice to build a new social contract for education that we can renew education to make just, equitable and sustainable futures possible.”

UNESCO, 2021.

Each commitment is an important cornerstone that supports organisational transformation and when prioritised as a set of institution-wide practices, they have the power to sustain ongoing professional learning and dialogue to continuously enhance a school’s service to students.

To support school leadership and governance with actualising these Institution-wide Commitments, the Humanising Pedagogy Committee has created guidance materials that bring these commitments to life. Each commitment has been articulated with actions you can take, questions you can inquire into and considerations to pay attention to and address so that change processes can be accelerated. An example of a learning story illustrates how each commitment is  important through a common scenario of ‘what happens’, the ‘so what’ implications that show the significance of each institution-wide commitment and how taking action on the commitment can support ‘now what’ thinking to bring an institution forward.

These commitments are not meant to be followed in a linear fashion but are part of a recursive, reflective process. Schools are encouraged to revisit these commitments continually to refine their approaches, adapt to changing contexts, and deepen their understanding of humanising pedagogical practices.

You may find the following steps helpful in your process of using the Institution-wide Commitments and supporting resources:

Self-Assessment

Consider each commitment and their descriptors and your hunches about how your institution practises these principles. Identify your own power and positionality to influence change and the actions you can take to initiate and make progress in these areas across your community.

Collaborative Assessment

Reflect together on each commitment and their descriptors to empower educator collaboration in your school. For each commitment, think about the reflexive processes (and data gathering) needed for your institution to self-critique the cultural norms that are being upheld in your institution.

Identifying Growth Areas

Use the Institution-Wide guidance to support planning and collaborative dialogues so that specific areas of growth and development can be pinpointed. Be sure to include and value diverse perspectives to inform decision-making that will serve all members of one’s learning community.

Accessing Research

Explore the range of academic references and resources listed under each commitment. Use these as a starting point to deepen your understanding of each area of possible growth to inform decision-making that establishes sustainable systems.

Collaborative Growth

Recognise that all educators are also learners in a school and that every person has leadership capabilities. Subsequently, shared leadership approaches that make transparent reasons for decisions and that bring clarity to the actions educators can take contributes to how agentic we feel towards achieving our communal goal of humanising pedagogy.

Humanising Pedagogy Institution-wide 

Self-Reflection tool

Click on the live CANVA and PDF versions of the tool to access the embedded links.