I think to ask and not assume is probably the most important part of my job description. One skill that I believe needs constant effort for improvement. So, during this past year, as I moved to a new country and a new school, I was very aware of the need to understand the complexities of …
I think it’s time for new “standards” in education. I believe that education, as a whole, is undergoing a transformation as we speak. Now we are at a precipice, questioning if this industrial model of education is still serving our future needs. We KNOW it isn’t but what should be our next purpose in education? …
They say that life begins at the end of your comfort zone. This couldn’t be truer when we consider the full impact of bringing the Primary Years Programme (PYP) enhancements on board. Making AGENCY front and center of what we do is a major paradigm shift, and if you don’t think so, then your school …
Whenever you move to a new school, you inherit a space that once was someone else’s classroom or office. And as you begin to inhabit this space, you have to rummage through all the “old stuff” that once belonged to another. Some of the remanents of my predecessor were binders full of old Programmes of …
Professional Development is the life-blood of what I do. Being held accountable for improving the standard of learning is a weighty task, one that I take very seriously. It consumes a lot of energy in my role as a PYP Coordinator. Every Wednesday morning has been carved out for me to facilitate training and engage …
How do you see your parents? What words would you use to describe the families in your learning community? Are they a nuisance? Are they demanding? Or are they helpful? Supportive? Take a moment and think about the words you have used recently to talk about a family in your learning community. Were you complaining …
Every vertebrate on this planet has a blind spot. There is a break in our visual field when the optic nerves converge and exit the eye to connect into the brain. In that tiny area, there are no light-sensitive cells and thus our ability to perceive something is diminished. Would you like to test this? …
We are hard-wired to be curious. Have you ever been around a little baby before? When a newborn begins to realize that they have a body and becomes fascinated with their hands, they study them intensely. They put them in their mouths, they linger on different textures, wanting to squeeze them to feel them oozing through their fingers. …
When you read words, you are actually reading different versions of the world. Most of us never pause to consider that. We see written words as fixed truths, and depending on the perceived credibility of this source, we take for granted that every author has a unique experience of the world and applies their imagination …
Recently an educator asked me what is the difference between the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and a “normal school”. I really stumbled in describing the value of an IB education. Yes, we do “transdisciplinary learning” with the use of our framework to develop conceptual understandings, but there’s plenty of international schools that attempt to mimic …
