Features
Going beyond the academic How do we know teachers and schools are making an impact? asks John Wells
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better place. It seems that the IB is working to establish clearer conceptual justification for the terms used in its programmes. In addition, the IB appears to recognise that schools can also work with other attributes that are relevant to the context in which they work.
“Teachers and schools need to know if they are having an impact on the development of students and, if they aren’t, they should consider what action is needed to ensure that they do.”
A second issue that I propose requires attention is the extent to which schools and educational organisations track or measure their degree of success in promoting the attributes, values, dispositions or characteristics among students; just as we evaluate students to see if they have acquired the necessary academic skills and knowledge, so I would argue we should measure the extent to which experience at school has an impact on the attributes, dispositions or characteristics that we believe students should develop. If we do not do this, then why are we trying to promote those attributes, dispositions, values or characteristics? Teachers and schools need to know if they are having an impact on the development of students and, if they aren’t, they should consider what action is needed to ensure that they do. Spring |
Autumn
I come from another age. When I was school-age in the 1970s the overriding, if not only, reason for going to school seemed to be to achieve decent qualifications which would enable us either to leave school straight away and get a reasonably well-paid job, or to go on to a university or polytechnic, complete a degree, and then find a very wellpaid job. Yes, there were assemblies and time spent with form tutors when good behaviour, positive attitudes and good habits were espoused, but these always seemed to be something peripheral, of secondary importance to studying for qualifications. I am not suggesting that teachers and schools did not aim to make students better people. A great many did. But from what I remember of the schools I attended, my attention was not explicitly drawn to a specific set of values, attributes or dispositions that I was supposed to imbibe. Times have changed. Whether a student now follows a national curriculum or an international programme, the chances are high that teachers and schools will be expected to complement academic knowledge and skills with a specific set of attributes, values or dispositions that are deemed to be an integral part of being a 21st century learner; someone who might be described as internationally minded, or a global citizen. [See the dispositions that the American Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2015) claims are necessary for the 21st century learner; the attributes of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Learner Profile (IB, 2013); the type of skills that learners following Cambridge International Examinations (CIE, 2015) programmes are expected to have, among others]. This is all well and good. Aiming to make students better people by asking schools to develop a specific set of attributes, values or dispositions must be laudable. However, there are two issues that I suggest need to be developed or clarified. One is the theoretical justification for the attributes, values or dispositions that are included in a programme. More specifically, what is the justification for describing what is to be ‘taught’ to students as ‘attributes’ or ‘dispositions’ or ‘values’ or ‘characteristics’? Which term should be used and why? Why choose 10 items (the number of attributes of the IB Learner Profile) as opposed to 5 items (the number of adjectives used to describe CIE learners)? Why are some attributes, values, dispositions or characteristics chosen in preference to others? Here, I think it is a positive move that the IB has commissioned a number of studies to explore what is meant by international mindedness, which involves educating learners to be better people who will make the world a
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