Latest / IB Unplugged / Teaching with Heart: Humanising Pedagogy in IB Classrooms w/ La Mor

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Teaching with Heart: Humanising Pedagogy in IB Classrooms w/ La Mor · 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.
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Today on the podcast, we're thrilled to welcome La Mor,
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Deputy Head of School at Bavarian International School in Munich.
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With 30 years of experience across international education from Poland
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to Hong Kong,
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La brings a rich global perspective to leadership and learning.
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Their work is deeply rooted in trauma, responsive practices and community
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resilience, shaped in part by their time in Kiev during the Russian invasion.
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La is a passionate advocate for inclusive, transformative education
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and a key contributor to the ISADTF Humanizing Pedagogy framework.
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They're here to share insights on how schools and educators can center
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human dignity, challenge dominant paradigms,
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and co-create joyful, equitable learning environments.
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Yeah, we're really excited to be talking with La.
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In our episode today, we want to dive into the ISADTF
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Humanizing Pedagogy framework
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and really look at
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are there ways in which I'm maybe missing something or inadvertently,
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keeping people out of the loop when I want them to be involved in this.
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So I think there's some really meaningful stuff going on in this episode.
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We will most likely be doing a fair amount of visuals in this one,
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so if you can watch it online, that's great.
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But there will be some things that law is probably going to reference,
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and we will have those linked in our show notes as well.
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So you can always check those out as well.
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But we're really excited you here.
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We really hope you enjoy this episode of IB Unplugged with La Mor.
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Let's get started.
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Hello, La.
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Welcome to IB Unplugged.
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We're so glad you're here.
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No, thank you for inviting me. Absolutely.
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La, I'm really excited for a conversation.
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We're going to be talking
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about humanizing pedagogy and a framework that educators can be using to,
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make sure that we're being more inclusive in our practices.
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But before we do that,
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I wanted to give our listeners the chance to get to know you.
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And, of course, we met, a couple of years ago.
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You came to our school, did a workshop.
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And one of the things I remember from
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that workshop is you did a big thing on people's names.
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And given them the chance to talk about their naming,
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why they were named that way and what it meant to them,
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and how important it is for other people to recognize their names.
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And so I wonder if I can just flip that on to you.
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Do you mind telling us a little bit more about your name
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and why your name is that and what it means to you?
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Well, let me give
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credit first of all to, Rachel Caldwell,
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and that's where I first encountered this sort of icebreaking activity.
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And it's quite, about four years ago.
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And I remember the activity
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being just a wonderful introduction
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to someone I just met.
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So I was new to the school, so it was a lovely way
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to find out about people, because you're finding out
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aspects of their identity that you wouldn't necessarily,
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perhaps even ever find out about.
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If you're working
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kind of day to day, you often don't get the opportunity
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to talk about your lineage or your cultural background.
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So everybody's name,
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even if it's perhaps the same as someone else's because it's common.
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John can't relate to that.
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Yeah, I can't relate to that at all.
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That’s an interesting narrative attached to, you know, where it's been borrowed from.
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So my first name, which I don't use anymore,
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I suppose you could call it my dead name,
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was borrowed from my German grandfather.
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And so my current first name
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are the last two letters of the name,
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I was given at birth and
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I never really liked or felt comfortable
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with the name I was baptized with.
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And over time, my wife and my daughter started well,
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they shortened it, as often happens with a nickname, but the shortening meant
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that they gave me a non-binary name before I knew I was non-binary.
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So that was
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a kind of natural bit of gorgeousness.
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And so now that's my legal first
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name, and my surname
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is the name that I married into.
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But Mor was the name
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that my wife created for her child when our daughter was born,
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because she decided being a feminist hippie,
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that she didn't want her daughter to have her father's name
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or my wife's father's name.
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And more means the sea
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or mother, depending on where you're from or love.
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In fact.
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Well, the whole name does say. Some people meet me and say, why are you called love?
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And I'm like, that's purely accidental.
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Why not?
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That's so much better than my name.
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I remember doing that with, with colleagues.
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And just as you say, you discover things about them.
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I had worked with somebody for eight years
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and didn't realize these things that they had just told me.
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And so I really appreciate you sharing that right off the bat.
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And letting us know a little bit more about you and,
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you know, we're excited to dive into this conversation here a little bit.
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And I wonder if we can again, just set the scene a little bit here.
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We're talking about the International School Anti-Discrimination Task Force.
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We're talking about human pedagogy.
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Excuse me, humanizing pedagogy.
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And that framework.
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Could you talk a little bit about what inspired
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you to get into that in the first place?
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Why is that a meaningful thing?
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When I was in Kiev,
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we were part of the region
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and the region, at the time in terms of its work,
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was being led partly by a member of staff,
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at PSI, Meredith Klein.
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And we had this really brilliant speaker series
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throughout the time I was there.
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And one of the speakers was actually now
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and Angelina worked with us on becoming a totally inclusive school,
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which at the time was a very recent publication for her.
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And I loved how in her book
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you can really do
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a very in-depth analysis of all the different aspects of the way
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that your school works or doesn't work in terms of inclusive practice.
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And I can't remember now
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how I found out that she was involved in,
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ISADTF,
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or how I found out about that work in the first place.
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It will have been now two and a half years ago
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when I put my hand up to support
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one of the six areas that the task force is looking at
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and basically,
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it's always a privilege to be in a room with Angelina because she's just
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the most amazing project manager and leader
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of communities of practice.
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So as well as knowing that you're involved
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in something that is going to be
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you have faith and trust that the final product is going to be brilliant.
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You also have faith and trust that it's going to be incredibly meaningful,
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and it's going to have a life that is going to go beyond
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the people that you're immediately working with.
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It's going to have real value.
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And so over those two and a half years,
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it was kind of building from something that had been,
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shaped initially by a group.
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And then those two and a half years was really about,
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populating an idea,
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shaping it by making a framework.
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And then we got to publish it only now, a few months ago.
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So now we've been kind of doing a roadshow,
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in various places.
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Whoever has us,
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we're sharing the kind of
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the publicizing of the work.
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And so most recently, I took it to the IB Global Conference in The Hague.
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But it's kind of popping up in all sorts of places
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and being used for different things.
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So I've also used it with a school in the north of Germany,
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with students and just kind of reshaped it a little bit.
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So it felt like it was a project that I
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could directly contribute to.
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And come out of
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the project knowing that there was something that I, in
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the end, would be able to use in my school,
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with a view to shaping a better world,
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because that's a massive ask.
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It feels like an ask that is getting more complicated
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and more difficult on almost a daily basis.
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Where do we start? What do we do?
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And this framework for me
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supports me to do that, even if it does feel massive.
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A lot of the work I've been doing with the framework is finding entry points.
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How can we use something that's big to just make that first step
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or help guide us as we're going through and navigating complexity?
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That definitely speaks to me right away.
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There have been so many times where I've just asked myself, like,
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what are we doing?
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How do we move this forward? How do we get things
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going in the right direction? So I'm excited to hear more, but
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yeah.
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Anyway, looking forward to it.
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Yeah.
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When we first were talking about this topic, I, unlike John, I haven't been
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able to sit in any of your workshops or any of your sessions so far, but I,
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I was a bit disturbed.
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Stay with me of it being called humanizing pedagogy,
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because that means that pedagogy isn't innately humanized.
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And that was I mean, I think that something that doesn't
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sit with the way that teachers,
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I think want to be teachers or people in education
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are in it for the humanizing aspects most of the time.
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So it was a bit, I don't know, maybe sad that
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the that pedagogy needs to be humanized.
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And so then it was making me think about with your experience,
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and I was wondering if there's a kind of
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aha moment or a kind of moment in one of our experience
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in one of your schools where there was this idea of
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pedagogy, the way I know it, and teaching practice the way I know it is
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not humanized the way I want it to be.
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And if you could share that with us. I suppose,
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we can all agree.
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I would imagine that the majority of educational experiences,
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have been
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and still exist in a kind of one size fits all.
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And the curriculum doesn't
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dignify every and each individual that encounters it.
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There are people missing.
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For example, I taught for lots of years,
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DP theater.
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And when you
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look at the world theaters
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that are possible for students to to choose when they are creating a piece,
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of kind of research and practice around the world, due to
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tradition, there are two continents, that are missing entirely.
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It doesn't respect
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the tradition of theater in Africa
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at all.
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That starts to skew the students perspective, because,
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as we all know, that even subjects
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have a hierarchy.
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And when you start to, dig a little bit deeper into how curriculums
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have been created, how we're still existing
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in an industrial model,
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we have been sitting children in rows,
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we have been using bells, we have been using uniforms.
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To what extent is the school experience like a machine?
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Like a factory?
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Some of them might feel like prisons.
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Some of them have got police in.
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I think it was, Rudolf Steiner who said
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the increasing uses of technology
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will in the end see policemen inside classrooms.
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And we have got to the stage in many countries
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where you do have police on site. Basic kind of respect
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is sometimes
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problematic, depending on where your school is,
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who's in government.
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I think another question to ask is,
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and this is one of my problems with the framework is
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if we're talking about humanizing pedagogy, we're also
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assuming human supremacy.
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So as well as we being used to DIJ questioning white supremacy,
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perhaps particularly in terms of curriculum design,
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we're in the situation we're in in terms of climate catastrophe.
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That's perhaps around the corner being the result of humans
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presuming that they are superior to the rest of the planet.
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So this is one of the questions that was kind of put recently to,
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I can't remember his name, but the chap who created the report for
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and the frame, the conceptual framework for educating, for human flourishing.
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And the same question was put to him then, are you just putting the humans
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front and center?
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And that's been quite problematic.
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Should we be talking about planetary
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flourishing as well as human flourishing? So
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we have to ask the question
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when we are creating a school environment
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that should include everyone,
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not just make people feel welcome, but
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where children are seeing themselves represented in the curriculum.
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And when we do kind of decision making,
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efforts, who's not in the room?
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Which parents, perhaps turning up to school events.
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We start to investigate the humans
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that we are perhaps dehumanizing,
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not asks us to really do some deep reflection,
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have difficult conversations,
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and start to address, biases.
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But you don't know what you don't know.
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So I suppose the framework
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really helps an organization start to find out
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where the aspects of their practice
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isn't inclusive,
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doesn't represent
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the the kind of diversity of its population,
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and helps it become a more humane place for every single member of its community.
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We're not just talking about students, we're talking about
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bus drivers, and we're
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talking about people in the cafeteria who's cleaning.
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Everyone.
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Becoming a better IBDP
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educator is a daily practice informed through reading, research,
16:02
personal experience,
16:03
and episodes from IB Unplugged
16:05
like the one you're listening to right now.
16:08
But sometimes the show can go a bit too quickly,
16:10
or we simply forget some of the key points once
16:12
we're out of the car or back from our walk.
16:14
So to revisit the content in a condensed version, you can download
16:18
the episode summary at kognity.com/ibunplugged.
16:22
You'll find useful links to other resources and exciting
16:24
bits of information that you can use immediately in your daily practice.
16:29
So now back to the show.
16:32
All right.
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Well, I think if you've opened the box of what I thought was already
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a bit complicated, then reminded me, there's a lot that's complex here.
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And I really appreciate you grounding that back to
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we can't just make an assumption that because we are in the field of education,
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we want to work with young people, that we are necessarily humanizing
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as best as we possibly can.
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And I appreciate that recognition that there's
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definitely going to be omissions, whether they are intentional or otherwise.
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There's omissions of people, and people aren't going to be represented as well.
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So even just hearing you speak about it and, you know, looking
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a little bit ahead of our conversation here into the ISADTF
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framework and Humanizing Pedagogy framework, this is complex.
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There's actually a lot to consider.
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And I'm just sort of laughing at myself for moments ago where I'm just like,
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how do we start?
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Where do I get into this thing?
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How do we make some positive progress here?
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Because it kind of feels like a lot of things in education
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are at a tough point right now.
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Can you walk us through that a little bit?
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Can you talk a little bit about the framework?
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How would we get into it?
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How do we actually get going with this thing as educators?
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So the International Schools Anti-Discrimination Task Force,
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when it first came together in 2020 to split into six
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sub committees, humanizing pedagogy,
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was really focused around the curriculum.
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And as I started looking at the curriculum and getting into,
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even kind of smaller aspects,
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of the bigger question,
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they decided to work towards kind of two
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main areas of focus, the educator
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and the institution that they were working with in.
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So after lots of discussion
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it was about trying to find
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areas of focus for the educator
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and areas of focus for the institution.
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And as those areas of
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focus were being discussed,
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the question,
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that the framework puts to the educator
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puts to the institution is
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what do you need to look at and what do you need to do?
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Where are you in terms of your practice
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and what might be a next step in order to improve your practice?
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So in the publication of the educator
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commitments and the institution wide commitments,
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there's also a guidance document that kind of gives you
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a little bit of information about the context of the work,
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but also also some ideas as to how you use it.
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There's also,
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as part of the framework, a glossary
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and even the glossary in itself is a really interesting document
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because as we all know,
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jargon is a a problem, particularly for us in the IB.
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And, what's interesting
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now is almost all of the words
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in the glossary are currently banned
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in the United States.
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So the framework is partly
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described as humanizing pedagogy
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because DIJ is now a politicized term.
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So because we are working
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and talking about an area that has been politicized,
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we need to get back to the human aspects of respect and dignity.
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So when we as an educator start to ask ourselves,
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where can we improve our practice in terms of
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creating
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an atmosphere in a classroom that is full of respect and full of dignity and uses
20:30
the identities that are in front of us
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to unlock learning and support motivation.
20:37
These are some great,
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kind of commitments to look at.
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So I'll just share my screen because it's,
20:44
there's no way I can hold them in my head anyway. But,
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so one of the things that you can do, and this is one of the,
20:53
sort of workshop tasks that we've been giving
20:56
people, is
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if you're an educator or you're a leader
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and you would like to think about an educator,
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if you look at these seven commitments,
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and you've got an educator in mind,
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what could they do more of?
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Or just choose one at random, and you can then use
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what comes after this, which is a self-assessment tool.
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So let's say
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I want to challenge dominant paradigms.
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So in my position, my previous position as a DP theater teacher,
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I'm investigating the IB’s curriculum
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and asking myself,
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where can I introduce world theaters
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that haven't been represented by the curriculum?
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It gives you
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an entry point to start to investigate your own practice.
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And when you do that,
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because you've got maybe a phrase
22:05
like challenge dominant paradigms, what does that mean?
22:09
Where do you start?
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How can you start to investigate
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it and interrogate it?
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Which is why each one of the commitments
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is broken down to these sub commitments.
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So this is promote resilience
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and embrace unresolved complexities.
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And it's commitment number four,
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those four sub commitments start to ask yourself,
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start to kind of give you information about not just
22:41
where can I improve my practice, but what can I do to start
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to find out,
22:49
ways in which I can change the classroom
22:53
resources or start to
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redesign lessons or start to redesign schemes of work?
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Or I might even use it for a lens by which to develop an interdisciplinary unit,
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for example. I'm talking about the secondary context.
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Anyway, this is a very fast and efficient way
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for you to kind of analyze where you are on a particular commitment
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just by ticking those boxes at the top against the sub commitments.
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When you analyze the results, you find out where you're lacking
23:25
in your practice and where you might want to make improvements.
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Or you do it with a partner, or you do it with a kind of community of practice,
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and you start to have conversations about, yourselves as a group of educators
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and where you might be able
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to support each other, because if you're doing it as a group
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and you've got different results, you've got lovely opportunities
23:46
for conversation about how to improve practice.
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Then against each of the
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seven commitments is what does this look like in practice.
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So against each of those sub commitments
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this is what it looks like in the classroom.
24:03
This is what it looks like
24:04
as you're going through your teaching and learning practice.
24:07
And that's incredibly important
24:09
because when you're talking about something like challenging
24:11
dominant paradigms or promoting resilience,
24:16
again, we have to know what it looks and feels like
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so that we start to be able to find,
24:23
ways to have not just conversations about these important issues,
24:27
but actually changing and developing the ways in which we do things.
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And then there is this kind of top box
24:36
that supports progression and supports improvement.
24:41
So this is
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something that if your school isn't taking part in any
24:48
of the humanizing pedagogy work, isn't employing the framework as a whole school.
24:54
Any teacher, no matter where your institution
24:57
is or no matter where you are on your kind of DEIJ
25:01
sensitive lens, it's a place for you to start.
25:06
And so it would be lovely if individuals kind of
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google the framework.
25:11
Just kind of start using
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any one of those seven.
25:17
And starting to investigate,
25:21
that practice.
25:22
Yeah. I really like that.
25:23
It has this step one here this step to break it down.
25:29
I think that really is helpful.
25:31
The one that when I was reading about it before this episode,
25:36
the one that stood out to me
25:38
was about fostering joy.
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I mean, all of them are important, obviously,
25:44
but something that really stuck with me was that one, because, I mean,
25:48
even when we talked about why we wanted to do this podcast, it was like,
25:52
we want there to be joy in education for teachers, too.
25:56
And I, I think that it is something that's really important,
26:00
but it's also almost seen as unprofessional,
26:04
like joy is put with fun, and fun is put with no fun, like no fun allowed.
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Like if John, if you went to your board and you're like,
26:13
my priority for this year is just got to have more fun around here.
26:17
It's like, I love that for you, but that's not gonna work.
26:23
So I guess I want to unpack it a lot.
26:25
I want to double click on here on like, why do you think that
26:29
fostering joy is important in today's educational climate?
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And why do you think that it sits there at the same level as some really quite
26:41
heavy educator commitments as well?
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I think if I was answering that question a year ago, it would be a different answer
26:50
because
26:54
hate bait
26:55
wasn't what it was a year ago.
26:59
We, in my opinion,
27:02
are being increasingly polarized,
27:05
and so much of what we see and experience
27:09
in terms of social media is
27:14
just kind of littered with hate
27:16
and anger and division and separation.
27:21
When we separate from one another,
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we experience,
27:27
loneliness
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kind of as the end result
27:32
of being separated and
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when we do find
27:39
bridges of belonging, we start to refind
27:46
the joy that can be found in a really good,
27:50
healthy relationship.
27:53
When we have,
27:56
classrooms that are
27:59
full of fear, we don't have any learning.
28:02
And the more joy that we have around
28:05
learning, the more learning will happen.
28:09
And one of the conversations, particularly around kind of,
28:13
identity sensitive kind of curriculum design is, for example,
28:18
if an English department is looking at where they have representation
28:22
and the novels that they choose, for example, and let's say
28:27
they've got four novels in their reading list
28:32
that have black experience,
28:35
as part of the the text,
28:39
which of those novels are about hardship in terms of the black experience,
28:45
and which of them are about joy in terms of the black experience?
28:51
Representation is not enough
28:53
because we can be reinforcing a negative stereotype.
28:58
I think we need to be finding
29:02
opportunities for
29:05
joy and celebration wherever we can,
29:10
more now than ever before, because we,
29:14
I mean, is that now a political effort
29:19
to find places of joy and celebration with each other?
29:24
Maybe.
29:24
Maybe it is because it says,
29:27
I'm not going to go down the road of hate and division.
29:31
I'm going to find connection, and I'm going to be in authentic relationship
29:35
with everyone as much as I can, even when it's difficult.
29:40
Even those people who disagree with me, I'm still going to have a space where
29:46
let's have a conversation and try to find the human
29:48
in each other.
29:51
Everything I just saying there reminds me of,
29:53
you know, global citizenship, you know, and to be a good global citizen means to
29:58
to be open
29:58
minded, to listen to other people, to try to understand new perspectives.
30:02
And so just as you're speaking
30:03
there, it's making me recognize that, yes, there is a, a responsibility
30:07
within educators, one to be, of course, critical of the content we're using.
30:11
Just as you mentioned, if I'm selecting these novels,
30:14
have I been critical of this?
30:15
Am I thinking this through all the way and also just thinking,
30:18
what are the deeper lessons that can be taken from this?
30:22
Where am I blind spots maybe.
30:23
And I guess that's where I see this framework that you're talking about
30:27
as being so useful, because it can kind of expose
30:30
some of those blind spots you might not be aware of,
30:33
as you were talking about it, it seems like,
30:35
okay, we've got these sort of seven educator commitments and I like them.
30:39
I like the idea of I want to I want to know more about them
30:41
because I think one, there's that self reflection piece
30:45
at the beginning and that kind of exposes those blind spots.
30:48
And I love how you commented on it's it's useful if you have a partner
30:52
or a colleague or somebody to do that with you,
30:54
because then that can be a little bit more authentic.
30:58
I guess what I'm kind of wondering on and with regard
31:00
to using that framework and just sort of getting started into it,
31:04
would you suggest, is it better to kind of start in an area
31:07
where you feel like this is kind of a strength of mine?
31:10
I feel like I'm already I'm kind of in this and I like it,
31:13
and therefore it's a strong way for me to start.
31:16
Or is it better to say, like, I'm weak here
31:18
and I need to get into this right away?
31:19
What would you suggest for somebody who's first starting to use that framework,
31:23
strengths or weaknesses first?
31:25
I think that depends on you, you and your personality.
31:28
I mean, if it was me,
31:31
I would start with
31:34
the place I feel like
31:37
I'm probably most doing the disservice to the children in front of me.
31:41
That would be my motivator.
31:44
But I can imagine
31:48
that that might be a bit off putting for some people.
31:51
And they would like to start from a strengths based perspective.
31:54
Yeah, for sure.
31:56
But and this is something
31:58
I experimented with the framework.
32:02
When I did a workshop for students on the framework,
32:06
I rephrased the commitment into questions
32:11
that they could ask of themselves.
32:15
It's very possible that we could create,
32:18
using the framework, a set of questions for the students we teach,
32:22
and I ask them to identify where they see weaknesses.
32:27
I think that would be probably an ideal
32:31
like that would be really stepping out of perhaps your comfort zone
32:36
and asking your end user, if you like, what's your experience?
32:42
I think that's a powerful way into it for sure,
32:44
because then you're getting a little bit more authentic reflection.
32:46
And yeah, a few people know your blindspots as well as the students
32:49
in your room.
32:50
So, that could be really useful thing.
32:54
Yeah.
32:54
We're all nodding along like, yeah. Been there.
32:57
Yeah.
32:57
I think there's also maybe this idea of starting
33:01
with low hanging fruit also of like
33:06
different teachers are in different
33:08
contexts are going to make this easier or more challenging.
33:11
And I don't think anybody is ready to implement the entire framework
33:15
in one school year, obviously.
33:17
But even if there's,
33:21
if somebody is listening and they hear what your example
33:24
with the novels and it's like, oh, I actually need to review
33:28
my novel list this year, maybe this is another lens
33:31
that I'm going to put in and really thinking about which
33:34
of these commitments have some low hanging fruit that you can start with
33:40
and that also can inspire
33:43
other teachers when if everyone loves a quick fix.
33:48
So being able to say I was able to actually make this change,
33:51
I see meaningful
33:52
change in the experience of the students in my classroom because of this.
33:56
And then that can really set off making it a bit
34:00
more of a conversation with other teachers.
34:03
And it's easier to get more people on board
34:06
if they feel like there are some lower
34:09
commitment evolutions that they can have.
34:13
Yeah,
34:14
I am one of the with you, the other kind of,
34:18
common, areas of difficulty, particularly for people,
34:22
if they have been tasked with
34:25
leading DIJ work in their institution.
34:29
Not all schools have a DIJ representative.
34:33
We don't.
34:34
But the schools that do,
34:37
sometimes the people in those roles
34:41
feel very lonely.
34:43
Sometimes they feel like the work is really overwhelming.
34:47
The framework also gives those people,
34:50
and perhaps institutions that are further down the road in that work,
34:55
a kind of mechanism by which they hold and have
34:58
and keep a place for the continuation of conversation, the continuation
35:04
of professional development, the continuation of curriculum analysis.
35:10
Because you could just, if there's nothing
35:13
there, talk forever endlessly about everything.
35:17
And there are schools that are using the entire framework for,
35:21
you know, a whole year's worth of PD.
35:25
And then there are schools where there's only one teacher
35:28
who's asking themselves that low hanging fruit question.
35:32
And because it's a framework, it supports both of those points of interrogation.
35:37
Yeah.
35:38
As you were talking there, I was thinking in our own experience here,
35:40
and one of the things that our DIJ representative sort of or leader
35:45
put forward was just this concept of like, it does happen here, not
35:49
it could happen here, but it does happen here.
35:50
And that was just something that really kind
35:52
of got me thinking a little bit more on.
35:54
Yeah, all these things that I might think, well, not here because of whatever
35:58
allows me to have a better understanding that, yes, this is something that exists.
36:02
And when I thought about that, because the person that's in that role now
36:07
wasn't the person who was in it before, it was somebody else and that person left.
36:10
And, you know, as part of our leadership at the school, we were kind of like, well,
36:13
what do we hold on?
36:15
That was kind of their bag.
36:17
Like, who's holding that bag now?
36:19
And how do we push that forward?
36:21
And, so what I love about what you're talking about here
36:24
is this framework sounds like it's not individual specific.
36:27
And I think too often in schools, especially in my school,
36:30
you know, we're relatively small.
36:32
So it's easy for people to have ownership over certain things.
36:35
And then when those people leave it's like, well, wait a second, who
36:38
where does that go now?
36:41
But you mentioned at the start of this that when you were talking about the,
36:44
the task force and people working on humanizing pedagogy,
36:47
they kind of went in two avenues and one was the educator commitments,
36:50
and the other one was the institution wide commitments.
36:53
And it feels like what we're talking about
36:55
now was a little bit more on that institution wide commitments.
36:57
I wonder, could you lean into that a little bit more and unpack that for us?
37:01
What are the institution wide commitments?
37:03
What are the easy sort of ends
37:05
for an institution to implement this framework in meaningful ways?
37:08
Well, hey, there.
37:10
So let's say that,
37:15
the teacher who was looking at the education,
37:18
commitment chose,
37:23
looking at kind of and challenging dominant paradigms.
37:27
The next question can be if they're kind of working on their own,
37:31
where is the institution
37:35
kind of entry point to support me to be able to do that,
37:38
or what's missing in terms of how we work as an institution?
37:42
That means I'm not challenging dominant paradigms.
37:47
So it can be used kind of educator first.
37:52
So the educator says, okay, here's
37:55
the problem with my practice, or this is how I want to improve my practice.
37:59
How has that challenge been created by the institution
38:05
and or
38:07
what could the institution
38:09
do differently to support me to improve that area of my practice?
38:14
So let's say reflexive
38:17
practice is part of your institution wide kind of
38:23
ways of being,
38:27
you're never going to get to a place where
38:29
holistically, you as a school are really challenging and investigating
38:35
the kind of,
38:38
the learning conversations that need to be happening in order
38:41
for you to be able to improve yourselves as an inclusive community.
38:46
If we're not kind of asking and supporting
38:50
and creating space and time for staff to either
38:54
individually or collectively reflect on their practice,
38:58
then we're not really in a school that is designed
39:04
for healthy kind of learning or healthy progression.
39:07
Doesn't matter what it is you're deciding to focus on
39:10
as an institution, the better your reflexive practice,
39:14
the more likely you are to be and become a learning community.
39:19
But if you're just a reflexive practice and you haven't chosen
39:22
or focused on what you want to reflect on,
39:25
then you might have
39:28
200 educators who are all reflecting on different things.
39:31
But what if you want to really decide as an institution,
39:35
this is what we're committed to.
39:37
This is what's meaningful to us.
39:41
Purpose driven
39:42
education is one of the kind of places
39:46
where this framework really fits into, because
39:52
in an increasingly secularized society, I think we're going to be looking
39:56
to institutions to provide purpose and meaning.
40:01
And the clearer we can be on what's important to us
40:04
respect, human dignity, diversity,
40:08
enjoying and celebrating diversity.
40:12
Why don't we use our opportunities for reflexive practice to bring more joy,
40:17
to make sure that we are kind of celebrating diversity, but,
40:23
without that space and time given to us
40:26
by the institution, we can feel that we're on our own.
40:30
And that is something that can create
40:33
moral injury and moral harm.
40:37
Because if you are one person
40:40
who sees that within your institution, you don't have any time and space
40:44
to have these conversations, and you know that it's something
40:47
that needs to be done, within your institution,
40:51
but you aren't given the opportunities to talk about it,
40:54
that doesn't feel like a healthy setting.
40:59
But in terms of these institution wide commitments, it's
41:05
the’re structured a bit differently.
41:06
So if the foundational learning is very deliberately
41:11
first, you ask yourself as an institution,
41:16
have you got to find
41:17
the foundational pieces in place?
41:22
And then
41:24
you can start to do the rest of the work.
41:26
You can kind of look at this
41:28
like the educator commitments and ask yourself, where is an institution?
41:32
We kind of
41:34
not doing very well at and find your entry point,
41:36
but the foundational learning piece here is designed for something
41:40
to look at, kind of, you know, for an institution, first and foremost.
41:44
First of all, you need to understand what the commitment means.
41:48
And so every one of them has a descriptor that unpacks the commitment.
41:53
It's a very text heavy and very, very dense slide.
41:59
It's easier when you're kind of looking at
42:01
it published as a PDF, but
42:05
it is dense because we are talking about
42:10
trying to humanize an entire institution.
42:14
That's a big ask. It's super complex.
42:17
But again, the way that the seven commitments are designed
42:22
and what each one holds means that when and if you have done a good
42:27
kind of review as an institution, you can be sure that you've managed
42:32
to take the areas of work that really, really need your attention.
42:36
So first of all,
42:39
after you've kind of looked at the descriptors and kind of got
42:42
onto the same page in terms of what a commitment actually means,
42:47
you can start asking yourselves,
42:50
is that really happening?
42:53
Because you can say that it is.
42:55
But if it is happening, these are the actions that you'll start
42:58
to see
43:00
if that is alive and well in your institution.
43:03
And if it isn't, these are some of the actions that you could choose
43:07
to start to make that an institution commitment that is alive and well.
43:12
Similarly, these are lovely, lovely questions
43:16
that you can put to,
43:20
maybe a senior leadership
43:21
team, maybe a group of,
43:25
coordinators, even to a board.
43:29
These in themselves,
43:31
the questions that are attached to each and every commitment are places
43:34
by which you can start a really interesting conversation
43:38
and really interesting kind of analysis of your institution.
43:41
And then if you
43:45
think that you're quite healthy in terms of where your institution
43:48
is, in terms of the commitment, you can start to kind of look at, well,
43:52
what might we do next?
43:54
What are things that we haven't perhaps thought about.
43:57
Every
44:01
commitment is then hopefully described
44:06
by being put into context with an example.
44:10
Some of these examples, kind of real
44:13
and some of them, elaborated and some of them are completely fictional.
44:18
But what every learning story does
44:21
is it puts a commitment into,
44:27
a kind of lovely, full example of,
44:30
a school that's grappled with the commitment or a school
44:33
that's tried to make improvements to that commitment.
44:38
So this is what happened.
44:40
So what happened because of that?
44:42
And this is what the institution kind of decided to do next
44:47
or what their next steps might be.
44:50
Learning stories is something that
44:51
the whole kind of project is collecting.
44:54
And it's an ask every time we deliver, a kind of training around the framework.
45:00
And then there's a whole set of resources.
45:03
So there might be resources to documents,
45:06
organizations, podcasts.
45:09
And that's something that that's the kind of growing aspect of the framework too.
45:14
You can see that
45:16
the two words of reflexive practice, when they're unpacked,
45:20
there's this massive, dense amount of material
45:23
that really supports you digging in to asking yourself
45:27
as an institution, some of the most important questions that you can ask.
45:31
If you're really serious about doing this work.
45:35
Today's KogTip is
45:37
from Andrew Frieder from Nanjing International.
45:40
Andrew says Kognity’s translation, reading and accessibility
45:44
tools are incredibly valuable
45:45
when viewed through a universal design for learning lens.
45:49
These features are often overlooked or undervalued
45:52
because they're seen as supports only for students with specific learning needs.
45:56
But accessibility tools aren't just for accommodation,
45:59
but are tools for inclusion and better learning for all.
46:02
For instance, I personally find text to speech helpful even when I don't need it.
46:07
It supports my comprehension, helps me read more quickly,
46:10
and reinforces understanding as I follow along.
46:13
When we position these tools as universally beneficial, we empower
46:17
more students to engage with content in the way that works best for them.
46:21
Thanks, Andrew.
46:24
The commitments
46:26
that I was thinking about when I was first looking
46:30
at this, of ones that I think are a bit hard to hold at the same
46:34
time, are shared responsibility and accountability.
46:39
I mean, in
46:39
life in general, if it's everybody's job
46:43
to plan a group vacation, nobody plans the group vacation.
46:47
But then it's this idea that I think a lot of schools have where then they're like,
46:52
well, we're going to have one ambassador or one person who's in charge of this.
46:56
And then that does take away from the shared responsibility,
47:00
but maybe it's easier to have more accountability.
47:04
Those are kind of the ones that I think
47:06
are hard to really grapple with at the same time.
47:10
And I think that embedding that accountability is really tricky.
47:15
And I was wondering if you have any suggestions of any kind of
47:19
early warning signs that your programs for
47:25
DEIJB are performative
47:28
rather than genuinely impact like that, that real accountability for
47:35
not just that we're doing the thing we're performing this framework,
47:39
but that there's actual meaningful impact happening.
47:43
I think that's a really interesting question.
47:46
And when you start to look at the the work that's been done by the other five,
47:53
subgroups for the, the task force,
47:56
you start to see where accountability in terms of anti-discrimination
48:02
is being exercised, in terms of how we lead schools,
48:08
how we govern schools, how we hire
48:11
do recruitment.
48:15
Because all of those aspects of education,
48:19
when they do have aspects of accountability, start to,
48:24
well, hold people accountable.
48:26
And if we don't, then
48:30
commitment is only as powerful as the people
48:36
who are really dedicated to the work.
48:39
So, for example,
48:42
the leadership Subcommittee for
48:46
and the accreditation subcommittee for the ISADTF,
48:52
when they are talking
48:53
to accrediting agencies and they're saying
48:58
the people who go and, visit schools,
49:02
to what extent to you training them to make schools accountable
49:06
or not for their work within this this field of practice?
49:12
To what extent can we ask schools
49:15
if your accrediting body, for example,
49:20
will ask for there
49:24
to be a board representative for safeguarding.
49:28
That means that there is a level of accountability that improves
49:32
safer practice.
49:35
Where else can we find
49:36
those places that support us as institutions
49:40
to make sure that we're holding each other accountable?
49:44
Because shared responsibility can only go so far.
49:46
It's kind of,
49:49
relying on
49:51
perhaps goodwill.
49:53
But if we are not supporting that with accountability,
49:56
then then that's all we're doing.
49:57
We're just relying on people being prepared to be responsible
50:02
and being prepared to share responsibility.
50:08
We can ask a group of coordinators,
50:10
for example, to hold teachers accountable for kind of ticking
50:15
sort of boxes in terms of the ATL’s.
50:18
But how might we ask them to do that
50:21
in terms of representation in curriculum, for example?
50:26
Yeah, shared responsibility will only go so far.
50:29
So accountability is a sort of
50:32
necessary full stop.
50:36
Yeah.
50:37
Well thanks for for going over each of these.
50:39
I mean, both the institution commitments and the educator commitments and,
50:43
you know, as, as I'm thinking about this and learning more about it,
50:46
you can see where this would be definitely worth it for anybody to
50:49
to dive into and understand a little bit more and, and get a better idea
50:52
of how they can get into it in their own particular schools.
50:56
I just one other little thing I want to kind of just touching on here
50:59
is with regard to let's say you're implementing this for a while and,
51:02
and you want to see like, how's it working?
51:05
Are things going the way that we were anticipating it?
51:07
Is it going in a good direction?
51:10
I, I'm assuming that almost all of this has to be done
51:13
to sort of qualitative reflection, I guess.
51:15
But are there other ways in which you're kind of measuring that impact
51:18
or observing that impact of, of humanizing pedagogy
51:22
on student outcomes in wellbeing, teacher wellbeing?
51:25
You know, the institution itself,
51:27
what are the ways that we can see that framework, working?
51:31
Well, I'm really interested in this framework from the students perspective.
51:37
So an example from my particular setting is that
51:42
we have created five commitments as a school. And
51:48
those commitments
51:51
sort of unpacked and they have subcategories.
51:54
And then there is a survey to try to help us measure
51:57
the extent to which we are achieving our purpose.
52:01
So, you know, an individual school could create, a measuring system
52:06
by which they are asking students what's their experience?
52:09
Because I think those are the people we need to be asking.
52:13
But in terms of kind of finding out
52:17
the extent to which we are an inclusive institution,
52:22
I would recommend an existing framework
52:25
that exists within Angelina's,
52:28
becoming a totally inclusive school because
52:32
that is
52:35
a really, really comprehensive mechanism
52:39
by which you start to analyze where your gaps are as an institution.
52:43
So where the educator commitments helps with, a self-assessment tool,
52:49
the institution wide commitments doesn't provide a tool
52:53
by which you start to ask yourself, where are you on your path.
52:58
But that's one example.
53:00
The institutional,
53:04
wide kind of
53:06
inclusivity mechanism for measurement within that book
53:09
really helps you identify, where you've been successful or not.
53:15
But if I just share a really quick example,
53:18
when I went to talk to some students in a school in the north of Germany,
53:22
we looked at what these questions might look like
53:26
from from their kind of individual perspective.
53:30
So when I'm asking
53:32
the group of students to choose one of these, you start to ask yourself,
53:38
do I look at who I am and where I come from,
53:40
in your daily classroom experience.
53:44
You can have a show of hands, and that's an immediate indicator
53:48
as to whether or not that's happening in their child's experience.
53:52
We don't have to do an entire institution wide measurement mechanism.
53:56
We can have a conversation with a group of students.
53:59
So the question do I challenge assumptions and biases?
54:02
If they say no, it might be that the environment
54:06
and the atmosphere in the classroom doesn't allow for that, or it's a skill
54:10
that hasn't been taught or there isn't an awareness that's necessary or needed.
54:16
Likewise,
54:19
they can ask
54:20
questions as to what's being done to them.
54:24
So, for example,
54:27
am I taught how to create a safe space for listening and sharing?
54:33
We can find out from them in terms of their perceptions as to the
54:38
to their competencies and skill levels,
54:41
places for us to improve our practice
54:44
and the information that we're getting back from our students tells us the extent
54:48
to which their experience has been humanized or not.
54:51
I think just entering into a conversation with a group of students
54:55
gives you a really fast indicator as to whether or not they
54:58
they're having a humanized experience in terms of their education.
55:03
And I think when you look at some of these questions
55:05
from the students perspective, for me as an educator,
55:09
this gives me an easier way of actually analyzing
55:16
the end
55:16
users experience our children's experience.
55:19
I really like these.
55:20
I think this is a really nice way of,
55:22
earlier in the podcast, you were talking about,
55:25
when John asked you, how do you know
55:27
weel, and you're like, well, ask the kids.
55:29
And it's like, these are actually really
55:31
tangible questions to get that pulse of what the students are thinking.
55:35
So I think these are great.
55:37
I had a last question for you.
55:40
I think there are so many challenges and so many,
55:45
things that can maybe
55:47
make it feel like a very uncertain direction
55:51
when it comes to if we can follow through in this framework.
55:55
But what gives you hope,
55:59
that this is the direction that we can head in,
56:02
especially in international schools and kind of in our context.
56:06
I think if I go back to the organizations that came together to create the task
56:11
force in the first place, the task force and its model,
56:18
was hugely influenced by the
56:20
task force that came together on child protection in 2014,
56:25
and that group of organizations and educators
56:29
who've been absolutely focused on being collaborative to improve
56:35
practice, have done an amazing job on improving child protection
56:39
and safeguarding in our schools internationally.
56:43
And the same organizations are behind this work.
56:48
So ECIS and the IB
56:52
the power of those organizations, but it's the power of conversation
56:55
and collaboration that that's one of the main things
56:59
that gives me hope that this will
57:02
thrive and survive and continue to grow.
57:05
The kind of committee is under new leadership, and Angelina's
57:10
done an amazing work in creating the framework.
57:13
And now as we're kind of under new leadership,
57:16
we've got another opportunity to kind of like
57:19
have a new look at the ways in which
57:24
we're helping this
57:25
kind of framework come alive for different people.
57:28
The beauty of it being a framework is that you can make it suit
57:32
your setting and your school and your
57:36
your particular challenges, because there are some schools
57:41
who can't use it as a phrase or as a title,
57:45
they've had to remove all of that language from their websites.
57:50
And the fact that this is
57:53
an opportunity to still do the work
57:56
but not come under fire,
58:01
is something that gives me hope, because it still gives
58:04
those schools who need and want to continue the work
58:07
and opportunity to do so, because it's taken out
58:12
some of the things that are upsetting.
58:16
The people who don't
58:17
want us to live in joyful harmony with one another.
58:21
Thank you so much for for giving us your time
58:23
and and giving us your insights here with this framework that I think
58:26
is going to be super useful for educators and for,
58:30
schools, institutions, etc..
58:32
Obviously for our listeners, you know,
58:34
there's a lot of visuals that we've gone through in here,
58:36
and there's going to be chances for you to to dive to this.
58:38
I'm sure we'll link some of these things in our show notes.
58:41
You know, but this
58:42
this really looks like a
58:43
positive step forward, and especially if you're an educator
58:46
kind of looking at these things critically and going, we
58:49
we can be improving in so many different ways.
58:52
I think what you've presented here La is really useful for everybody.
58:55
So, I just want to,
58:57
yeah, personally, just say thanks so much for taking the time.
58:59
Thanks for speaking with us, sharing your insights.
59:02
And just like it was a couple years ago when you visited our school, it's
59:05
definitely a pleasure to chat with you. So thank you.
59:07
Thank you. Well, thank you.
59:08
Just, you know, as the last kind of,
59:12
plea, I suppose there is a call to action.
59:15
And the framework is deliberately designed to support practice.
59:21
And if an educator or a school decides to use the framework,
59:26
you are invited to share how you've done it and how it's improved
59:31
your practice by basically kind of getting in touch with us.
59:36
And then
59:38
if you have kind of made a transformative effort,
59:43
we would love you to not just tell us about the learning story,
59:46
but also if you want to get involved with the group, the invitation is out there
59:51
to anyone and everyone to join the Humanizing Pedagogy Committee.
59:56
And you can do that, via this this email.
59:59
Great. That's great.
1:00:01
Thank you.
1:00:01
I will be sure to put that in our show notes as well.
1:00:04
And yeah, once again, just thanks so much for taking the time and for,
1:00:07
sitting down with us here.
1:00:08
Really useful stuff. We really appreciate it.
1:00:11
IB Unplugged as a Kognity podcast hosted by John Patton
1:00:14
and Courtney Marline and produced by Katilina Gaffney.
1:00:17
Be sure to subscribe or follow and share with your fellow IB educators.
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1:00:27
Let's keep the conversation going
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and support each other in teaching with confidence, creativity, and joy.
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See you next time.