Latest / IB Unplugged / Hidden Curriculum 2.0 and (Inter)national Identities w/ Dženana Ćeman

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Hidden Curriculum 2.0 and (Inter)national Identities w/ Dženana Ćeman · IB Unplugged

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Welcome to IB Unplugged, a Kognity podcast for IBDP educators
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that tackles your submitted questions and challenges by connecting you with
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experts and peers who share their ideas and stories from real classrooms.
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Hi everybody.
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Welcome to this week's episode of IB Unplugged, where I'm joining John in
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Saint Galligan and we are recording this the day after an IB day in Vienna,
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where we got to have a live episode with Dženana
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and we talk about this hidden curriculum 2.0,
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and we loved the conversation
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so much that we said, we need to do this for everybody.
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And so we got to do it twice.
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And this has been such a great episode, something that originally
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when we reached out to Dženana, we were thinking we were going
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to talk about English with her because she's an English teacher
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and she's an examiner.
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We were going to talk about that, and then we started learning about her
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PhD work and we're like, oh, that's a lot more fun.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And so we pivoted.
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We started talking about these ideas of, the national identity and how it there's
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a tension between that and international mindedness and international schools.
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And we were able to create this episode around these topics.
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So these are all things we're going to dive into.
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And yeah, I'm really excited about this one.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, Dženana is a brilliant individual who, you know, she's an English teacher,
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TOK teacher at Vienna International School.
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And you're going to see elements of that kind of pull through.
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I mean, anybody who has this sort of international mindedness approach in your
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in your classes, you're going to notice things that are kind of common to TOK
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and what we can do
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and at the same time, what I'm really excited about for
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this is kind of diving into that tension
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that exists when you have an international school
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that's filled up with people who have different national identities,
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or maybe don't have a national identity,
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and kind of this understanding of like, where do I belong here?
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And how can we as educators in these schools help to facilitate that belonging?
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So this episode, I think is going to have a whole lot of exciting things for us
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that we can really learn a lot from
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and start questioning our own practice and say,
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how can we make this a truly international community
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that doesn't just ignore national identities, but recognizes them
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in many cases, can celebrate them and help people understand their own identity
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in this space.
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So really exciting episode.
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We're super glad you're here and we really hope you enjoy this show.
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Hi, Dženana, welcome to IB Unplugged.
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We're so glad that you're here. Hi.
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Yeah, we are excited because obviously we we did a live show.
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We were able to do a live show at, the conference in Vienna.
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But unfortunately, some of the tech didn't work out too well for us.
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So we're really, really thankful that you're taking some time here
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to come back and visit these things that we spoke about there in the live show.
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So really, really appreciate your time and visiting with us again.
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Thank you so much. Absolutely.
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So we're going to get into this idea of the hidden curriculum,
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international identities, National identity is how this all like
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this, this tension that exists in international schools.
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And with this kind of comes this idea of where people are from in their home
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and their background.
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And so just to kind of warm up and help our listeners get to know you
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a little bit, I wonder if you could tell us what's home to you?
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It's always an interesting question.
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I think, for me, definitely home is, a place where I have very fond memories.
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So it was, for example, Bosnia before the war.
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So childhood memories, but also a country that welcomed me
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with open arms and embraced me
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and, and gave me so many opportunities, which is the United States.
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So I associate home, with, a place of belonging
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or a place that that, allows me to thrive and a place of memories.
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I have a such a great role then identifying
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or looking at what we really perceive as home.
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In your research, you talk about, the national being the,
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the ugly duckling, especially when we're compared
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to globalization and international school context.
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Could you lean into that and explain what you mean by that?
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Sure.
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As I was, as I began working on my PhD work
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and I was reading more about the National and, having this experience
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in international schools, I never really touched upon
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well, the national and international, and I was reading work by,
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a scholar, Daniel Traylor, and he was talking about
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how after a Cold War, you had so much for researchers in education
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focus so much on the international or on the globalization, especially,
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that global became this dazzling white swan.
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And any research on the national became the ugly duckling.
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And I thought it was such
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an interesting way to look at it, which I was never exposed to.
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Nice.
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Well, I think, you know, we we've gotten to know a little bit here
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and we want to dive straight into understanding this,
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because I think when we get into this idea of the hidden curriculum,
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there are plenty of educators out there
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who maybe don't exactly know what we're talking about.
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And I know that we've kind of coined this as Hidden curriculum 2.0, so maybe,
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give us kind of a basis here.
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What are we talking about when we say hidden curriculum?
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And I guess what's the difference between 1.0 and 2.0?
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Sure.
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So I can then I'll start with the hidden curriculum itself.
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So the, the term was coined by Philip Jackson.
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And in this book he wrote, about life in classrooms.
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It was 1968 and the book was published, and it was his,
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observation of primary school classrooms in the United States.
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Now, this was long time ago, right.
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But the still the book is still such a classic,
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because he, talks about,
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how through the nexus of crowds, praise and power,
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students,
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you can decode the hidden curriculum.
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So for example, through the crowds, through interactions with each other,
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students learn much about,
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what is allowed and what what is not allowed to do,
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whether it's like raising your hand to go to the bathroom, you.
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Yeah, sure.
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You can say you're teaching, respect, but you also might be teaching obedience.
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You know, they learn how to be patient when they line up for the lunch.
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And, and, to grab their, lunch in the cafeteria.
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They learn to be patient.
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They sometimes they're not called upon when they raise their hands.
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That's another way you teach them, you know, patience.
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But they also learn how to evaluate each other
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because they see how teachers evaluate them.
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To one another aspect.
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So that was the praise and crowds.
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And then there's the aspect of power.
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They learn that the teacher is the authority figure.
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And they learned that obviously
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through interactions with the teacher, but also the sense of obedience and so on.
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So basically, the concept I think it kneels down to,
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which is still so relevant and so, so, yeah, so important today.
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It doesn't matter if you're in international schools or not.
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Because when he did this research, it was an international school.
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It was in the public schools in the US, in primary schools.
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And, what our students asked to be rather than do in in your school.
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And I think that that is something that we can we can still focus on, like,
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what are we actually teaching students to be but through the means
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of the hidden curriculum, not, the taught necessarily.
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And and I, I thought it was so valuable, but I realized that the research
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so far lacked the focus on what are we asking students
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to be in context of national identities or what are we, you know,
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what kind of national identities extrapolated
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as a result of, as a result of the hidden curriculum?
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People have done studies on the socio economic aspects of it.
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Yes. Yeah.
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And, and much of, of, other things, but
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they have not done, work on the National
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and the extrapolation of the national through the hidden curriculum.
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And I really wanted to, touch upon that.
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So what I combined it with is Michael Bilic's work,
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called Banal nationalism, where he says that,
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national is always flagged directly or indirectly.
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That doesn't have to be through flags and symbols.
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And, it can be very much through the way we talk about the nation through by being,
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linguistically microscopic and really,
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looking at, how nations are,
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perhaps coercively constructed, but also there's an every day
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he says that there are routines and things we do every day that flag the nation.
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And I wanted to combine these two theories together.
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And, with the help of my supervisor,
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we came up with, or he labeled it.
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And we work together on the hidden curriculum 2.0.
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So it's okay. Like, I think I get it then.
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So teachers have a specific curriculum that obviously we're teaching to.
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Maybe that's more subject specific, but the hidden curriculum is like the,
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the values, the sort of cultural behavioral expectations
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that are implicitly or more, I guess, implied in terms of what people
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need to be doing to be accepted in this culture
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and that culture being defined by the school itself.
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Is that right?
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That's absolutely correct.
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So that's exactly what it is.
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And and the challenge with this is that, everything is hidden and banal.
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And how do you decode something that is, or almost invisible?
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So unless you strap a camera on yourself,
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it's it's it's a it's not, it's not ideal.
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But that's why it was really helpful for me
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when I went into three different
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international schools to do this research was to not just observe,
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but also, elicit interviews from students and staff.
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So some of the questions I had in my back,
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in my, in my mind were or in the background were, you know,
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whose cultural thesis is,
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at the forefront, how our nations flagged in directly.
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And yeah, so that was kind of the essence of the research.
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Yeah.
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When you were going into these IB classrooms, I'm sure some of it
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you had a preconceived idea of what you were expecting to find.
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What did you what kind of messages did you uncover
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or recognize that were surprising to you and not what you expected?
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Yeah, that's that's another really great question.
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I think for me, working in international schools,
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I expected every child to be like, a third culture kid.
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I am into the notion of national and going to these schools
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because they were ideologically driven schools and demographically, diverse.
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And I was I was really,
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worried about because the national, we don't really emphasize much.
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We want to say, you know, we are we are global citizens sphere.
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So when I did observe these classrooms, it was interesting,
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when students there's one lesson, for example, where
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students talked about languages in language prestige.
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And you will hear, French students for example, say, well,
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I speak, you know, the most proper French because my country's a bigger and and,
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you know, we, we know our French and,
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compared to other countries that were, French is, a home language.
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So it was really interesting.
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Or you will have even, students, Italian students say, well,
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my part of Italy speaks the best Italian.
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So it was, you know,
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it really mattered to them and I didn't I didn't see that coming.
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Because language is one of the markers of of national identity, if you will.
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And, another part was the,
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when they did discuss some of these global conflicts and so on,
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there was this kind of avoidance the moment it got a little bit,
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a little bit perhaps, I don't want to say heated, but a little bit, yeah.
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Heated or, opposing views were throwing at each other.
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There was a bit of an avoidance of articulating this
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or exploring this further.
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So those are two things that really came up.
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It's funny
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as you're saying, that I'm kind of chuckling to myself
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because I'm an American
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at an international school with a bunch of British teachers as well.
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And often I would say at least once a week we have conversations over the dinner
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table or over the lunch table of like, whose English is right?
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Oh, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Who, who kind of speaks to, you know, the easiest and how,
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you know, the students understand that better and that sort of thing.
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So it's funny because I guess it doesn't just exist with students.
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I think that pulls up to teachers as well.
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Oh yes. Absolutely. And that question also came up.
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And this is also the beauty of the International Baccalaureate,
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because they can have this forum to to discuss all these global issues. So,
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it was
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interesting because when that came up, kids were
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many kids were very much united on the fact that it's Queen's English.
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That's the proper English.
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So yeah. Yeah.
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I remember there was a story of we had a student here who, was
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their English teacher was from Australia, and he had like a big issue with it.
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He's like, no, you can't teach me English.
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I had to go with somebody from, you know, Britain to teach me English.
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You know, and that was interesting because they were responding this.
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But the teacher was from,
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United States.
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So it was it was like, oh, no, no, what are these kids saying?
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And I was, but,
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you know, this is this is what they think and this is how they perceive it.
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Yeah.
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I want to come back to this thing you mentioned from.
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I think you said it was Jackson's work and the idea of, like, crowds,
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praise and power and how these can
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kind of help us recognize banal nationalism.
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You mentioned that the international.
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It was kind of a hard thing to pull out.
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There are certain indicators of it.
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What do you mean when you say things like crowds, praise and power?
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Help us to understand that better.
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Can you unpack that for me, please?
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So, well, through crowds, they get to learn about each other's,
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in this case, culture.
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So what language is, you know, prioritized, what,
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religious celebrations are prioritized because those are also
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some components of the national, historically.
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So whose memories are validated?
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So, for example, when I interviewed some of the kids, they said, when it comes
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to religious holidays, they said, you know, I learned a lot about Diwali.
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I learned a lot about, Ramadan because I interacted with a friend
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and, my friend actually exposed me to the idea that,
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when we do celebrate his holidays, they're holidays.
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So Ramadan, Deval and so on are are just, one slide,
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during our advisory meeting and I noticed the,
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the exposure or the mass exposure of one holiday versus
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another had had it not been for the student who is my friend
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from another culture and who was actually mentioned this, this,
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exposure to, your lack of exposure to me.
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So a representation.
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So I think, that is something that like the crowds component.
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Right.
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When it comes to the praise and power, well, they
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I think they do notice how certain things are framed in the classroom.
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And this is where discourse and language plays a role in how,
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a certain memories are validated.
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So I think I,
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and as I mentioned this during our conference,
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I think it was, Viet Thanh Nguyen who said, battles are first
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fought on the field or worse, our first fight on the field and then in memories.
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So for students who have different perceptions about certain events, right,
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or that have been historically or from their parents
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thought that this is how certain global conflicts occurred or certain,
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you know, events occurred historically.
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It is interesting how the teacher brings it in and how the teacher frames it,
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because then they can recognize which memories are validated more.
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And that's why I mentioned the role of memories, because,
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much of their knowledge comes from the also the parents.
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So when they come to the classroom, they really are able to distinguish,
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how this
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coercively teachers, formulate a nation or a nation's history or,
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and they're able to detect it, except
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sometimes they do resist and they will question things,
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but other times they do not.
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So they go home and and obviously they express that,
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the satisfaction to, to their friend or the parents and so on.
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So that makes a lot of sense.
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And I remember one of the things
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that you kind of kept coming back to is that students are never passive.
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And there's so much of the IB education is about making sure that students
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are always reflecting, looking at the context,
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making sure that they're not just taking something in at face value.
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And so obviously, the hidden curriculum is not hidden for them.
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Yeah.
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And we don't want it to be no, no, we want them to reflect on that
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and to think critically about it. Right, exactly.
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And, one of our other guests that we've had in the past,
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one of the things that he always has
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is there's no such thing as a neutral education.
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And I think that in a lot of places, the IB education wants to be neutral
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in some ways, but then also really active in like
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teaching students how to be international minded students and things like that.
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And it's it's like interesting and really hard to decide
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where you try to be, neutral and where you try to be more active.
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And I, I think that one of the big things about the hidden curriculum is
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taking that step back and saying, being really
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intentional on these things of like, this is actually where we stand.
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It didn't just accidentally happen this way.
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Yeah, I mean, that is so important.
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And we cannot have this a la carte menu.
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This is where we're going to be neutral.
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And it’s true. I have noticed this
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in my research as well because
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and I think one of the questions that I was reading also recently,
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I was reading work by Daniel Thriller and, and he was saying the,
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you know, what allows, our schools or academic institutions to really,
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they need to reflect and reevaluate at any academic institution, IB or not.
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We need to reevaluate, rethink, the extent to which we believe
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that we are unbiased, rational and value neutral.
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Yeah. Show me the practices of your school.
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And I think this is a question for administrators,
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for teachers, for students.
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I think they'll give you a real glimpse.
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What can you show me, kids?
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Can you show me the practices that make
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you think that your school is all these three things?
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And I think he says rational, value neutral and unbiased.
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You know what?
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What are those things?
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I mean, it'll be interesting to see what students say, what teachers say,
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and what the, taught curriculum, what is actually how the curriculum is executed.
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And what does that mean?
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It was interesting that when I interviewed students, there was a
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certainly sometimes a gap between what teachers think they're doing
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and what students think that
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the teachers are doing, you know, and that's that was really, fascinating.
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I mean, as you're talking here, I'm thinking in my own particular context,
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and especially we have a fair amount of Ukrainian and Russian students here.
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And when the war kicked off, there was a certain expectation
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that we needed to kind of remain sort of neutral.
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But at the same time, I felt like
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we weren't acknowledging the realities of, of some of our students.
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We weren't acknowledging, like, you are going through this thing.
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And, and, you know, we had some of our students
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who were roommates together, you know, Ukrainian and the Russian student
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who are now roommates, and suddenly they're grappling with this.
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And when they go and talk to their educators about it,
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and we're kind of like, we need to maintain a neutrality
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in an international mindedness, sort of focus on this.
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I mean, it almost feels like a kind of muting their identity.
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You know, you're saying like, no, no, no,
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I don't want you to bring that up right here.
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And so, you know, I'm kind of wondering, like, how do we
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how do we address that tension in international schools
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where we don't necessarily want to close down some of these identity,
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but at the same time encourage an international mind like this?
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To me, this is a really fascinating tension.
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And I'm interested in your in your research, in your sort of thoughts here.
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How do we address that as international educators?
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I think that's the most challenging question.
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It is
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I think the, the, The question, especially for the last couple of years
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that every, director, everybody I've been talking to that
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mentioned significant challenges.
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The thing with globalization also global
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with globalization came a lot of a lot of conflicts.
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Right.
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So you had a lot of, religious, national.
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I mean, yeah, we have quite a few conflicts and conflicts going on,
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but, people do care about conflicts and, and,
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communities, as a result of conflicts, communities become politicized.
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So they do care about what goes on.
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And once you once you do not allow
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that discussion to be in the classroom,
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then you are muting,
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an aspect of their identity or their national identity,
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because they all have a mindset on what they think should happen
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or should be what the world should be like.
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They have a, a kind of a community that they have imagined for themselves.
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And, when you don't address it, then they're going to the kids will.
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And this we've seen this especially in the last couple of years.
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The, the kids will rely on other outside sources to, find the truth.
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And, what I think
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we need to expose them to inconvenient, facts.
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Right.
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And, how we go about it and how we,
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a frame it, I think, and I,
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I don't have a solution for this, but I, I've thought about this a lot
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because I think if any school would need a framework is this
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how do you actually,
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IB focuses on, on perspectives, but how do you actually
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navigate this discussion with Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine?
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How do we navigate this discussion?
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And I think that goes with the intended curriculum.
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Like before we sit, you know, beginning of the year, we want to bring
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up, let's say, one of these conflicts into the classroom.
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How are you going to frame it
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and what are the resources and really evaluate the resources that we have?
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And before we
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launch into into a unit, and how are you going to frame it?
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Because language can be,
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can be triggering for some in how we war things can be very
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you have to be very careful how we build these things,
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but I would one thing I would not do is avoid it.
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That's one thing I would not do and pretend that, you know, this is a
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little bubble, but because when they go on and go to their college campuses,
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they're going to be subjected to these things.
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And how they navigate these things is going to be crucial.
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So I would not avoid it at any cost.
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But the framework, I think this is one that we focus so much on AI,
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and these are all relevant topics,
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but the one topic that is really, happening and that
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our students are so aware of is these these current conflicts
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that are going on, and they do affect them,
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the politics, not just the conflicts, the politics outside of school.
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They love to talk about it.
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Any platform, they they want to address it.
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But we keep, you know, avoiding it.
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And unless you have a global politics class, for those, you know, few students
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who signed up,
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you know,
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chances are that to be safe, teachers will avoid these things.
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And let's not do that. Yeah.
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No. There are there's so many things that I.
23:06
I want to unpack on that, but it's like one.
23:09
I completely agree that avoiding it doesn't work because also
23:13
not talking about something is also a stand.
23:16
Yeah.
23:16
Like especially if you do talk about something else.
23:19
There's like the idea of like comfortable if we're talking about
23:24
initiatives to support as a school, it's like homelessness.
23:29
It's not many people who are like for homelessness like
23:32
or people who don't have homes like we can
23:37
we can do a drive for working and,
23:40
for working, for giving supplies to people who don't have homes.
23:44
No one's really going to get upset about that.
23:46
But if you start,
23:48
maybe talking about certain conflicts
23:50
but then avoiding others, then that becomes a stand too.
23:55
Yeah. And so I think that's one really big part.
23:57
I think another part was you were talking about
23:58
like the global politics teacher, like it can't all fall on that poor soul.
24:03
In if you're sitting here being like, I'm a biology teacher, that's not my problem.
24:07
That's exactly what I'm doing.
24:08
I'm sitting here.
24:09
I'm just kidding.
24:10
It means that you. It can't just be the TOK teacher
24:14
who's responsible for this.
24:16
Or the global politics teacher.
24:17
But it also doesn't mean that you can't expect teachers
24:21
to just know how to handle these conversations either.
24:25
Like, it's not easy, it's not natural, and it's not it currently
24:29
part of a lot of teachers training, but I think that it's something
24:33
that, like you said, if it's avoided, if it's only put into like one corner
24:38
of the educational experience, then that also limits it.
24:42
And it makes it pretend like it's not an issue.
24:46
Yeah. That we want to address.
24:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:49
I think because as you're talking about, you know, that I was really thinking like,
24:52
this sounds like we need to have some training on like conflict,
24:57
how to how to kind of work through conflict,
24:58
how to kind of coach conversations through that.
25:00
And, you know, we do have global politics at our school and not like, oh,
25:03
we just lend it all to, you know, our global politics teacher to do it.
25:06
But, you know, been in the lesson a few times and really come away
25:09
just with such a deeper respect for our global politics teacher,
25:12
because the way that she can navigate
25:14
that sort of thing and intentionally makes people kind of take positions and,
25:18
and then have a respectful discourse on it, and I guess
25:22
kind of what you're talking about here, it sounds like we need we need some like
25:27
training, I guess, or just an awareness, like,
25:29
don't be afraid to get into these discussions,
25:31
but also like know how to navigate it in proper ways so that you are allowing
25:35
people to express their identities without necessarily,
25:40
letting things completely blow up into a full blown fight in the classroom.
25:44
Is that is that kind of the direction you see it going?
25:46
Absolutely.
25:46
And I think, one of the things
25:48
I want to mention is, it's not just global conflict is the nature of conflict.
25:52
So yesterday when we had that session,
25:55
I recommended, Michael Apples curriculum and ideology.
25:58
He actually has a whole section on this.
26:00
And science comes up, and he talks about how in the scientific community,
26:05
we have this idea that there is, a consensus, on, on things.
26:10
But scientists before it, before they, actually, produce anything.
26:14
There's so much conflict that that it's not as objective as we teach it to be.
26:19
It's actually that there needs to be.
26:21
There's so much conflict before, anything is produced.
26:24
And we have to realize that, anything that the nature of conflict has to be,
26:30
we have to be trained and well equipped to actually, address it
26:34
in a, in a, in a way where it's where we don't see, see it as an enemy.
26:39
But actually, this is something that I need to need to be able to do
26:42
in the future in order to be a productive member
26:45
of my society.
26:48
So that's absolutely it.
26:49
And, yeah, I mean, it's it's also by not teaching it,
26:53
you're ultimately, saying, that there is no accountability.
26:57
Right?
26:58
And the beauty of the international students is that a lot of them are mobile.
27:01
They speak multiple languages.
27:03
But if you avoid this, then you also teach them that, well, I'm going to be fine.
27:07
I'm going to go to this, you know, great university.
27:09
But when issues of conflict come up, I might I just want to avoid that
27:13
because I want to make sure that I am I am well off,
27:17
after I graduate about anything that has to do
27:20
with uncomfortable discussions, let's let's avoid it.
27:23
But then that does not align with the cosmopolitan.
27:26
We can argue it's a cosmopolitan mission statement, that the IB has.
27:31
Well, it's it's a citizenship avoidance, right.
27:34
Like it's I'm going to silence my voice here in this space.
27:36
Yeah, yeah.
27:38
You were talking quite a bit about cosmopolitan,
27:41
that kind of concepts yesterday.
27:43
And then I never got got around to talking about it.
27:45
But for people who don't
27:46
necessarily know what you mean by that, could you explain kind of the difference
27:49
between that and international mindedness, or maybe how they play with each other?
27:53
Well, the, the cosmopolitan assumes the citizens of the world,
27:57
and we see that in the, in the mission statement.
28:00
The international can and international mindedness is kind of part of that, right.
28:03
Being internationally minded with the with the multiple perspectives.
28:07
But there is a gap in, the research, I mean, not a gap,
28:11
but there is a difference between between the two.
28:13
I guess you could what you can ask yourself is,
28:16
an international student.
28:18
There's an international student truly, live and,
28:22
abide by the notion that they are all citizens of of the world.
28:26
And this is where I, I find that there are some,
28:29
gaps, especially on the nature of conflict, on,
28:33
how we validate other people's memories and so on.
28:36
We all want to I think we all strive to be cosmopolitans.
28:38
And and you have recent studies now, that are on,
28:43
cosmopolitan nationalism.
28:44
So as a lens, so I, I don't know that
28:48
I'm convinced yet, but, on this topic, but nonetheless, it's, it's,
28:54
some recent studies, perhaps asked of us as educators
28:58
to when we actually plan the curriculum and we plan our teaching
29:03
that we look at both lenses as a kind of a new approach.
29:06
And I think it has some it's gained some interests.
29:10
So, yeah, I mean, I think when you go back,
29:13
going back to your question, I think it all goes back to
29:17
you really utilizing those mandatory courses like TOK,
29:21
advisories where we can ask students, well, what is,
29:24
you know, this is the definition of the cosmopolitan.
29:26
Well, how are you living by this, right?
29:28
Also TOK,
29:31
would be a great opportunity that we can
29:33
because these are mandatory courses and then you
29:34
get to expose all the students to this.
29:37
But most importantly, I think before we teach,
29:40
we should have an idea on how we want to, frame
29:42
and how we want to what we want to bring in, into the classroom.
29:46
Yeah.
29:47
I'm constantly hearing the part of the IB mission of like other people
29:50
with their differences
29:51
can also can also be right, you know, and that's really what's kind of ringing
29:55
true for me here.
29:55
And even just kind of touching back on what you mentioned
29:57
before with like conflicts that exist in science.
29:59
As we come up with our different ideas,
30:00
there's a, a quote that I would miss trivia
30:03
because I can't remember the specific name, but it was along
30:05
the lines of all models are wrong, but some are useful.
30:09
And I think this like approach is is a really great way to kind of show like
30:14
there aren't necessarily absolutes that we can have,
30:16
but we can learn from the differences that exist,
30:20
across our different perspectives and our different ways of understanding things.
30:23
And of course, now I'm talking a lot of TOK
30:25
and how is my position as a knower influence what I think is real
30:29
and isn't real?
30:30
And so, yeah, I like that you've highlighted this idea
30:32
of like that mandatory course in TOK
30:34
I think really does create a position where we can do this and just as you
30:38
highlighted, Courtney, it's not all on the TOK
30:40
teacher to do that.
30:41
I mean, I subscribe to the idea
30:42
that all IB educators are also TOK educators and need to be.
30:46
And so yeah, I just see there's a really good place
30:51
for us to to put a focus on this. Yeah.
30:56
Are you an IB educator wanting
30:57
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31:01
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31:05
Or ask a question to an educational theorist about a specific IB aspect?
31:09
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31:11
Simply visit kognity.com/ibunplugged to submit your question
31:16
to us, and have your question explored in more detail in an upcoming episode.
31:20
And now, back to the show.
31:24
I want to get into this idea because you mentioned earlier,
31:27
like language and some of the the power that can come with language as well.
31:31
And, you know, I mean, IB has kind of the three
31:34
official languages with English, Spanish and French,
31:37
and especially throughout Europe, at least in my experience,
31:41
is there's kind of a dominance of English that that operates as like,
31:45
as, I don't know, it just is there in a lot of IB schools.
31:48
And I'm wondering to what extent does that kind of show power
31:51
in, in those schools, and how does it kind of,
31:55
I guess, repress?
31:56
It's the only word that's coming to mind right now.
31:57
How does it kind of repress
31:58
identities of of the other students that come to our schools?
32:02
Yeah, absolutely.
32:03
I mean, and I think that's, such a good question.
32:07
When we talk about, whether it's conflict
32:10
or hidden curriculum, it all depends on your context, right?
32:14
On your context of, where you are, you need to meet your audience.
32:18
And depends, you know, where you are.
32:20
You're going to have different types of outcomes for hidden curriculum.
32:23
So in one school, it was very apparent,
32:27
it was somewhat apparent that it was all embraced,
32:30
but it was the students perceived that you're kind of in your own clique,
32:35
like if you just hung out with people from your own country
32:38
and you didn't really speak English well, you're kind of like, oh, well, this
32:42
set of students,
32:44
they're kind of
32:45
to themselves, you know, because they don't speak English.
32:48
And, obviously English is is important in, in and for students,
32:53
they see it as a kind of, pathway to universities
32:57
and, and in future, but,
33:01
it was it was apparent and especially with that observed lesson
33:04
that you asked me earlier that, who speaks the right French,
33:08
who speaks the right that there's also those nuances.
33:11
Right?
33:11
Even if as a national, I'm a I'm a I speak my language is very important.
33:16
And, but I was a bit,
33:18
taken aback with, with how certain groups who just spoke to each other, be,
33:24
just German or just French, were perceived by other students, which I didn't see.
33:29
Yeah.
33:30
This was reminding me of.
33:31
I was, visiting a school in Dubai.
33:33
That was a really fantastic international group,
33:36
really a lot of diversity of different nationalities.
33:38
And we were talking about Third Culture kids earlier.
33:40
And I, we do a lot of interviews with students and things like that.
33:43
And I was talking to this group and there was one girl who was a third culture
33:48
kid, one of the parents was Chinese, and she made it a point to say like,
33:54
yeah, I mean, I guess I'm Chinese, but I'm not Chinese enough to hang
33:57
out with the Chinese kids.
34:00
She's like, I'd rather speak English.
34:02
I'm more comfortable with that.
34:03
So I just stick with the other English speaking kids.
34:07
Like, it was like that clear of, of a difference.
34:11
And, I mean, I know we talked about how language is
34:14
one of the kind of biggest pieces of identity, but
34:17
it does make you realize when it becomes to that degree of like choosing
34:21
how Chinese and not she determined that she was was really based on language
34:27
at that point. We were talking about nationalism,
34:30
where people might be coming from and this is my identity,
34:32
but the genuine sort of third culture kid who has a hard time
34:35
answering that question of like, where is my home? What does that mean?
34:38
I guess when they're in these sort of areas,
34:41
they get into this international setting is that did you notice where
34:44
like kind of now all the third culture kids are kind of all together.
34:46
It's like, here's our German
34:48
speaking, Russian speaking, Ukrainian speaking, etc..
34:50
And then it's like, here are the ones who are like, well, I'm technically
34:54
not a native English speaker, but that's kind of my these are my people.
34:57
This is where I belong now.
34:59
Did you see that as well in your research?
35:00
Is that something that kind of pulls out?
35:02
Absolutely.
35:02
Like, with third Culture kids,
35:04
they're very proud to say that I'm a third culture kid.
35:07
And, and in some, in some way that they became,
35:12
a third culture kid as a result of attending
35:14
international schools and talking to people from various cultures.
35:18
And they were, they feel like that they're more open to,
35:22
addressing things, with students from various other nationalities,
35:26
or from various other, cultures.
35:29
And, but it was interesting also with the third culture kids,
35:32
how sometimes not not by no means is it like,
35:36
every child, the way they perceived kids who,
35:40
did not perceive themselves as this third culture kids.
35:44
You know, these people stick together and they only speak this language or.
35:47
And I think that's something that they need to be
35:50
where we you mentioned earlier to we don't want to, make
35:53
we want to make sure that yes, it's great your third culture kid, but it doesn't
35:57
mean that somebody else emphasis on their, national identity should be perhaps,
36:03
othered in, in one way or another.
36:05
And your example as well, Courtney, with, that one student,
36:08
I had that come up many times.
36:10
I don't speak, Spanish well enough,
36:13
so I, I wish I've learned it when I was younger.
36:16
Otherwise I would have assimilated earlier.
36:19
But when these all these kids speak Spanish, I just can't join that group.
36:23
And that was very common, actually.
36:24
And that's such a great example. Yeah.
36:26
So it sounds like there's, there's like a real possibility
36:29
where international schools could end up just creating like many,
36:33
many groups that don't really interact.
36:36
Right. It kind of like this is my belonging group.
36:38
This is my belonging group. Here's where my identity is.
36:40
And there's not really a chance to integrate.
36:42
And I think in international schools,
36:45
almost all of us could think about like an international day.
36:47
And we we kind of like, hey, let's get together.
36:49
And everybody kind of celebrate where they're from.
36:51
Bring some food and your music and that sort of thing.
36:53
And I like that.
36:56
And at the same time, it sometimes feels a bit
36:58
like a tokenism kind of thing, like, oh, let's just highlight this for today.
37:02
And then everybody kind of go back to your clicks.
37:03
I guess I'm wondering in your, in your opinion,
37:08
what are the ways in which schools can kind of move to a more authentic
37:11
cultural representation, allow people to kind of show their identities
37:14
while they're still in a in a positive discourse that embraces the conflicts
37:20
that might exist, both whether they're, you know, political or otherwise.
37:24
How can we kind of more authentically move into that?
37:26
So it's not just a tokenism, once a week, mother tongue language day
37:29
kind of thing or something like this.
37:32
So, one thing I wanted to
37:33
mention, like with the intercultural aspect,
37:36
so majority students really appreciated
37:39
being in an international schools because they get the exposure.
37:43
So they're not split up in those groups.
37:44
But if it did happen and they did point it out, but they definitely saw
37:50
the beauty of this, you know, mingling with people from various cultures.
37:54
So and that was beautiful to see.
37:56
Like, you know, they would they would definitely emphasize this a lot.
38:00
But yes, international evenings.
38:03
And they value those like, they, they say I'm, I learned this and that.
38:06
But I think when you have, this massive national presentation
38:10
on one culture, that's where you have or, certain holidays
38:13
and so on, that's when you have, perhaps, some, some concerns.
38:18
I think the representation has to be in the curriculum.
38:21
And I think we've heard this before, especially for the last couple of years.
38:24
But also the,
38:27
the way we present
38:29
for example, literature in English class, how we, you know, frame things.
38:32
And I mentioned this earlier.
38:33
So having exposure to
38:36
in, in, in, in the curriculum, having more exposure
38:39
to the variety of texts from various cultures,
38:42
understanding the history of those texts and how we frame those texts.
38:47
I think I, I've talked about Persepolis.
38:50
Persepolis is a book that was taught in all three,
38:53
all three schools, and one teacher did a phenomenal job
38:56
because she was so immersed with the Iranian culture.
38:58
And and she, you know, she was living, or has been exposed to that culture.
39:04
And, her presentation of that book
39:07
played a significant role to me was it was it was beautifully done.
39:12
Because she had that experience.
39:14
And yes, you have that question.
39:15
You know, how we can't get old teachers
39:17
to, you know, to to be there because we all have our own different
39:20
teacher identities. Right.
39:23
So, that that's also another study,
39:26
on its own, you know, what role do teacher identities play?
39:29
But I think we do have to make our teachers aware that,
39:34
before they go
39:35
into any units, just how are you going to frame it?
39:38
How are you going to expose really kids to also this perspective?
39:41
They need to see it in the curriculum
39:43
and not just, like you said, international evenings or the,
39:47
walls of the school where you have, you know, diversity pictures and,
39:50
and you know, you
39:51
because every website, every school website,
39:53
if you go to any international school website,
39:55
they'll pride themselves on how many nationalities they have
39:58
and grades like this.
40:00
What what are you doing that this, is this represented in,
40:05
in the curriculum.
40:06
Right.
40:07
And are you
40:08
bringing all these different perspectives and how well do you know our students?
40:12
So I mentioned also yesterday I wished
40:14
I start we we did a beautiful unit,
40:17
and it was about global issues and our students,
40:20
I did not know how important some of these issues were to them.
40:25
And they told me a lot about how they perceive their identities.
40:29
And I wish I started with that unit first.
40:32
So that's, you know, to answer your question, I would love for teachers
40:35
with English history across biology.
40:39
Just start with something like not just this superficial notion.
40:43
Let's let's build relationships with. Right? Yes.
40:45
But how and I think, having them focus on,
40:51
a cultural issue or something that is really dear to them
40:54
and having and presenting this and I know it sounds simple, but,
40:58
they were able to bring some really critical perspectives.
41:02
So one student did this whole thing and I didn't know anything about this
41:06
until they did this project. Just know.
41:08
And I said, I wish I started this project.
41:10
At the beginning of the year.
41:11
He was talking about the lack of access,
41:13
to, classical music, that only certain people
41:18
have access to play piano, to explore classical music concerts and so on.
41:22
That then, you know, he went to see a performance
41:25
and he noticed that, you know, you can tell the difference of,
41:28
you know, who comes to this place and who does not.
41:30
And I thought this kid was just like, you know, in class.
41:33
I didn't, you know, I didn't think this was ever, like,
41:35
come across, you know, that this is I'm gonna be,
41:37
you know, just looking at this paper.
41:39
And it was such an amazing reflection.
41:42
And another wrote about, the struggles
41:46
of, of women and children when they immigrate from,
41:52
Latin America to the United States.
41:54
And I was like, I didn't even know this, this side of you.
41:57
And I think you can do this across any subjects, you know,
42:00
tell me about what is really important to you.
42:04
And, and especially when it comes to culture,
42:07
especially when it comes to these global issues, what matters to you?
42:10
And then you realize,
42:11
well, had I known this, I would have perhaps done more things about,
42:16
you know, accessibility, socioeconomic stuff came up a lot.
42:20
And that's why I want to mention the hidden curriculum
42:23
really plays a role, different role in different schools.
42:26
So in one school, it was very much,
42:29
apparent that if anybody wanted to do
42:31
a study on the socio economic aspect,
42:34
of the hidden curriculum in perhaps the gaps,
42:37
socioeconomic gaps, even within an international school,
42:41
that would have been a great school because students would say things, well,
42:45
you know, it's sometimes tough
42:47
because when I go on my Instagram, I see my friend having a yacht.
42:50
And here I am, I can't go anywhere this, this vacation.
42:54
So that that, that that's that's a powerful statement.
42:57
Right.
42:58
And getting to know them really, at the beginning of the year can alter
43:01
the way in which perspectives you bring and how you go about bringing them
43:05
what they're sensitive to, and, and it helps you as a teacher to,
43:10
a kind of alleviates a lot of the potential,
43:13
you know, challenges you're going to have throughout the year.
43:15
I love that.
43:16
And as as you're talking,
43:17
my mind is kind of going of like, okay, here's how I can incorporate that.
43:20
You know, I teach biology, as you know, and and I'm
43:22
also thinking about other sort of teachers that maybe it's not so obvious.
43:25
You know, we're not talking about language discourse or cultural sort of settings,
43:29
but there's so many things that you're kind of mentioning here.
43:32
I'm like, I could easily kind of pull that in,
43:35
you know,
43:36
do a brief overview of like, what are all the things
43:38
we're going to be covering in the biology curriculum,
43:39
things from like ecology to genetics and sort of stuff and okay, well,
43:42
you know, through that lens, kind of what's happened in your experience
43:46
and your background that's kind of related to,
43:48
I don't know, nutrition or food availability or,
43:51
you know, the ecosystems that exist in your space and,
43:53
and some of the decisions that are being made,
43:55
either in a political realm or in something like this
43:57
that might be affecting these things in your area.
44:00
So, I really appreciate you bringing this up, because I think
44:04
sometimes, as we kind of mentioned, like a science teacher
44:07
or a math teacher might be like, that's not me, right?
44:09
I don't I don't have to get into this.
44:12
But what you're talking about here sounds like a really easy entry point
44:15
to just say, well, get to know your students, right?
44:20
But that's it, isn't it?
44:21
It's good to know your students get to know
44:22
who's in the room and not know your audience kind of thing.
44:24
And then you can bring out so much more from from the students,
44:29
so you can really have a better opportunity for them to flourish as well.
44:31
Right. And you learn just so much.
44:33
And I really with this unit, I didn't
44:35
I know the global issues just kind of like a thing for the IB.
44:38
And you can focus on where is a line of increase. But
44:43
it was really eye opening and I wish I started at the beginning of the year
44:47
because then I would have paid more attention to certain things
44:51
and what matters to them.
44:54
One of the other tensions that I was thinking about
44:57
when we were kind of talking about all of this, is this
45:01
I think it has to be a deliberate decision,
45:03
but it's a hard one to make for a school is like how
45:07
how much of a national identity you want for your school to like,
45:10
do you want your school to be the equivalent of,
45:16
McDonald's where, like, it could be anywhere,
45:18
except if you look really closely, there might be one menu difference.
45:21
Like, do you want your school to feel like both of you are in schools in Austria,
45:27
do you want to feel like you are also
45:29
a school in Austria, or are you..
45:33
Exactly.
45:33
Or are you trying to be like, you could pick me up
45:36
and drop me off anywhere and you would never know where you are.
45:41
And I think different schools really, it's
45:42
really a spectrum that we see in international school.
45:46
There's no one right answer, but I think maybe what is the right thing to do
45:50
is to make sure that it's an intentional decision of deciding
45:54
where you fall on that spectrum and what that does mean
45:57
for the students that are in that school, because it's going to have consequences.
46:01
Yeah,
46:02
I don't know, maybe the first thing we have to do
46:04
is just sort of understand what is the hidden curriculum
46:05
that exists in our schools, right?
46:07
I guess in, in your research as well,
46:09
Dženana.
46:11
Well, yeah.
46:11
Maybe this is just the next thing we need to do.
46:13
Like, what's a way in which an administrator
46:15
or a teacher or somebody at the school can kind of uncover their school's
46:19
hidden curriculum, understand where we're at first,
46:22
and then maybe we get to that point of answering that question, like, okay,
46:25
are we comfortable with the hidden curriculum that is present in our school
46:29
because it honors our host nation or that sort of thing?
46:32
Or do we want to see ourselves being more of, yeah, truly international,
46:36
not dependent on the host school sort of area or host nation area.
46:40
What's kind of the first step in your, in your opinion, Dženana?
46:42
Know how do we kind of go about identifying
46:44
what hidden curriculum exists in our, our own contexts?
46:47
I think, for schools to be doing this,
46:50
it would be and I think one of one that, like I said earlier, like it would be,
46:55
really getting to know the students and what they think it is.
46:58
But, one thing I want to mention is, again, great question
47:03
because, teachers are most likely not aware of it.
47:07
You know, they're not aware of of that.
47:08
It unfolds.
47:09
They're not aware.
47:10
Nobody's going with an intention.
47:12
And hidden curriculum also have positive things.
47:15
Majority of things that that students said.
47:17
Well, we love the intercultural, you know, aspect.
47:20
We love the meeting other those are the positive.
47:23
I mean, this kid that I gave as an example,
47:25
who learned about other kids religion,
47:28
that's the beauty of the hidden curriculum too, because they get to talk
47:32
to people from other cultures and, and they get to learn at the same time.
47:37
So that's just one thing to keep in mind, that it doesn't have to be negative
47:41
in any way.
47:42
But I think what, we can do is, again,
47:47
this aspect of getting to know the students, but also,
47:50
just keep in mind that my, my study, in my study,
47:54
it became apparent that in order for the international
47:58
to thrive, have,
48:01
we need the national or it needs to be considered
48:04
right and embraced even if they don't see themselves,
48:07
even if they say, I don't want any association with it,
48:10
there are students who who do, wish to be associated.
48:14
And, just keeping that in mind that in order
48:17
for the international to thrive, we do need the national.
48:21
And, before we plan our units, before
48:23
we go into any or all of our, units to really look at,
48:28
are we considerate of of these cultures?
48:31
Are we considerate of the history of these cultures?
48:33
Right.
48:34
And if I am going to approach this, sensitive topic,
48:38
let me, let me know that these cultures exist in my, in my realm.
48:42
And I need to be very considerate of this. One thing
48:46
I'm wondering,
48:48
in a lot of the different conversations that we have with the
48:51
how to help you, how to help support your students,
48:53
one of the kind of advice pieces that we usually do is like show
48:58
by doing with like if you want your students to be better at reflecting,
49:02
you should also be reflecting and reflecting out loud with them.
49:05
Yeah, this is maybe a harder place to do that in the sense of like,
49:11
how much as a teacher do you show your national identity?
49:15
Like at what point do you show your opinion and like,
49:19
how do you make students willing to be vulnerable and share their opinions?
49:23
But like also not
49:26
taking a side, especially if there is a global conflict.
49:29
Like I feel like that's a really hard one to, decide
49:33
how much you are setting an example in this space.
49:38
That's a great question because majority of teachers would say, I don't.
49:41
I don't really, want to be associated with any national identity.
49:45
You'll have teachers say it, so you'll have scholars say it because,
49:49
a lot of our director said, listen,
49:52
you know, that question like, where are you really from?
49:54
Like, it's it's, it's,
49:58
not a pleasant question.
49:59
And, and that's something that we need to consider.
50:04
So when you actually ask teachers, they'll tell you like,
50:07
not all, but, they'll tell you that,
50:10
the they don't want to be really associate with any national
50:13
because they have been mobile. They've been living in one country here.
50:16
And, and I don't want to argue that, you know,
50:18
you have to focus on the National by no means.
50:20
But you you should definitely embrace and consider
50:23
that there will be students whose, language matters to them.
50:27
Memories of how a history.
50:30
And even though they have not maybe spent a day in, in their nation,
50:34
they'll have an image of that nation that was,
50:36
Benedict Anderson's work, even if they have never stepped foot.
50:40
I had one student who said, you know, I never lived in my
50:43
in my country, in my parents country, but this is where I'm going to be.
50:46
This is where I want to want to end up.
50:48
And, and and I love my country.
50:49
Or I'll have another student say, well, when I'm in the international school,
50:54
I feel one way a bit stifled.
50:57
But when I'm when I'm back home, I feel free and I don't.
51:02
I can be loud and I can be, you know, obnoxious and I can be.
51:06
And I think it's kind of, you know, and this is you have such a relevant question
51:10
because I by no means the want to say yes, yes, get into national, no.
51:15
But what I am saying is that one thing that they both have in common,
51:18
this is fascinating from research and in practice is the is the sentence,
51:26
I am international because I don't have to explain myself.
51:29
I am this nationality because I don't have to explain myself.
51:34
And you know what? What does that mean?
51:37
So you are American because you don't have to explain yourself
51:40
or I'm international because I don't have to
51:43
then explain myself to anyone else.
51:44
I mean, they both have that statement in common.
51:46
And I was like, how do I unpack it?
51:49
And what do I do with this now?
51:51
Yeah, yeah, that seems pretty challenging.
51:53
So it's, it's I think the my emphasis is mostly,
51:58
for the international to thrive.
51:59
Consider, consider the, the everything that comes with the national.
52:03
Yeah.
52:03
And I think when and just know that they're both entangled.
52:07
And I think it will be easier then to approach conflicts, to
52:11
approach these sensitive topics,
52:12
keeping this in mind.
52:14
One of the thoughts that came to mind is you're asking that criteria kind of
52:17
thinking that through as I just thought of, you know, stories,
52:20
you know, I think in any educator, when you're
52:21
when you're in the classroom, you start to tell a story as opposed
52:24
to just like going on about the curriculum or a specific thing.
52:26
Then you automatically notice that students are going to they engage
52:29
more, right? We love a story.
52:31
And so I think there are ways in which I can share more of my identity
52:35
I guess in the classroom when I kind of tell personal stories.
52:38
My first time
52:39
kind of encountering this concept or this idea or.
52:43
Yeah, I mean, even just kind of before the lesson
52:45
starts, actually, lessons, you know, come to a close
52:47
are moments where you can kind of connect with students through stories and,
52:50
and that kind of invites them to share their thoughts, too. And,
52:55
yeah.
52:55
Then the number of times that then students
52:57
kind of okay, well, what's what's your opinion on that?
52:59
Tell me more about it.
53:00
Because I think that story is kind of a way to invite.
53:04
Yeah, a better understanding of one another.
53:05
So would you say is that is that kind of a safe place to, to enter into it?
53:09
I mean, I'm not necessarily being like, hey, come to the US
53:12
because you get all these things, but rather I'm just saying, yeah,
53:15
I mean, when I was growing up, I was I had a different context.
53:18
I was on teams,
53:20
for example, we had to compete to be able to be in that particular sport setting.
53:24
And it's different than what you guys have here.
53:25
And I learned this thing when I did that and
53:28
I don't know, to me, that kind of seems like a softer place
53:31
to kind of get into it without immediately just saying, like, let's take a side
53:34
on the political choices of the US right now or something like that.
53:39
Is that kind of does that sound like an okay place to be going as a, as a teacher?
53:43
Absolutely. I think that's a beautiful way.
53:45
And I've seen the best teaching with the storytelling.
53:47
And I saw that, a few, weeks ago, you guys had, a podcast
53:52
on humanizing pedagogy, which I was working also on.
53:56
And, and that that is so important,
53:59
the, the telling of personal stories or, storytelling
54:03
because you get to engage them and they love that stuff.
54:05
The only time that doesn't work for me is when I have these references like,
54:09
I don't know, from, like,
54:11
you know, a band or like, oh 2Pac and like, who is that?
54:14
I don't know, like, I like,
54:16
and then you realize you're like, you're not like,
54:19
you've been in this business for too long because this is, like, let's guys, let's,
54:25
because we're reading this text and we're going to, look at,
54:28
with the lens of a true taxi driver to move into, like, Scorsese.
54:32
I'm like, oh, yeah.
54:33
Like, you know, I have that happen all the time
54:37
in my lessons where I'm like, oh, I'm actually a lot older.
54:40
But then I realize, you know, that was a teaching moment.
54:43
I'm like, I need to get into, like, I need to meet them where they are.
54:47
I do need to know in order to tell a story.
54:49
I need to also meet to see what you know, what they like or what they listen to
54:54
and what they because I that that's that's they love the stories.
54:59
And as long as you don't make a reference to something that like,
55:01
I don't know what this lady is talking about. I don't do that.
55:05
I say you come to my experiences, I'm not coming to you.
55:08
You come to my experiences.
55:10
Yeah, yeah, it's it's about me, not you.
55:13
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right.
55:16
Well, I mean, I think we've covered some really important things here and
55:19
we've gone into ways, I guess one, that we can be more aware as educators just.
55:23
And I think that's one of the biggest things is be aware
55:25
that there is a hidden curriculum here.
55:27
And and there's things that we can do to kind of bridge that gap a little bit more.
55:30
And I'm wondering, you know, we've touched on some good examples here,
55:34
but is there anything else when you think about ways
55:36
that schools can kind of bridge the gap between their globally minded,
55:40
international minded mission statements and the actual experiences of students,
55:45
are there other things that we haven't mentioned so far
55:47
that you kind of feel like this is an easy, actionable thing
55:50
that teachers, administrators, school people can be doing?
55:53
I think at the beginning of the year or just having
55:56
a session, it's really helpful.
55:58
And I did this at my school on
56:01
hidden curriculum.
56:01
What it is, it's not soft skills.
56:03
It's easily misinterpreted.
56:06
It goes back to that question, you know, have a
56:10
PD session on what teachers
56:14
think, students should be. You know.
56:18
And you'll see the gap of what students
56:22
are learning to be in their school
56:24
and what teachers think they're being in their school.
56:27
And I think that's a great session, you know, or that question
56:30
about, you know, what allows my institution to think
56:34
that we are unbiased, rational, value neutral and then elicit
56:39
all these examples where this might be
56:42
the case or where we might do some work.
56:45
Right?
56:46
And then the final question would be
56:49
what is or whose cultural thesis is really most emphasized in the school.
56:54
And please keep in mind that students maybe they might not be vocal,
56:58
but they do know who occupy certain roles.
57:01
They're very much aware of some of these existing things.
57:05
They just might not say.
57:06
They will say to their friend.
57:08
And this is where Philip Jackson really was right.
57:12
The crowds component is significant.
57:14
They definitely will talk amongst
57:16
each other what they see and what they perceive.
57:18
And one last thing I want to say is we definitely want to nurture this part
57:21
of the International Baccalaureate where they should question things.
57:25
And they should especially question academic institutions that perhaps don't
57:31
allow them to dissent or undermine the concept of dissent.
57:37
They need those questions.
57:38
And I think that's actually what's going to make them
57:41
inquiry based citizens.
57:43
I like that that's that's super actionable.
57:45
You know, I can see where we could be doing that in our school, too.
57:48
Thank you so much, Dženana.
57:49
This has really been a great conversation.
57:50
I think there's a lot of questions for teachers to leave asking themselves
57:55
a lot for administrators as clear next steps I think there's,
58:01
a really nice message of it's not like this is what you're doing wrong.
58:06
It's like, these are the questions that you need to ask.
58:08
And also
58:08
these are the things that you need to be vulnerable with your students about.
58:11
And be willing to ask students what's going on
58:14
and just really remembering that they're not passive.
58:18
They're taking in every bit of this, and that's important.
58:22
That's what you want them to be doing.
58:23
But then what are you going to then
58:25
do about the information that you're taking in from those students?
58:29
Absolutely.
58:30
And, if you ever need like a framework as I'm putting together as part of my
58:33
research, also framework questions that each school should reflect on.
58:38
I have, put a framework of especially this, you know, the,
58:41
the international, you know, the national and international, what questions
58:44
you might prompt for your PD sessions or to your students,
58:48
to get some really great ideas, that really reflect the mission statement.
58:52
Oh yes, please. Yeah.
58:53
I'm sure many schools be on board for that.
58:55
Yeah, yeah.
58:55
Dženana, you're brilliant.
58:57
It is so fun getting to chat with you.
58:58
I feel like I've just gotten smarter just by kind of being around you.
59:03
And, you know, I recognize we we kind of had a chat live, and,
59:07
and now we get to kind of rerecord this, and I feel like so many other things
59:10
have kind of sunk in better for me this time.
59:12
So again, thank you so much for taking the time.
59:14
Thanks for chatting with us.
59:16
Yeah, I hope we get to I hope we get to interact again in the future.
59:19
You're pretty awesome I appreciate that. Thank you guys.
59:21
Thank you very much.
59:23
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59:26
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59:29
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59:39
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59:41
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59:44
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