In today's day and age international schooling has very less to do with racial, and cultural groupings, having or having the IB syllabus, or being for-profit or non-profit. Of 112 IB Schools in India (2016) just about three or four IB schools teach the 'IB Way'. In my view, international schooling must be re-defined as offering any curriculum that must serve two purposes:
a. One, preparation for life that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Academic excellence alone will not fulfill this objectives. Academic rigour must be redefined to include critical cognitive and non-cognitive competencies like.
Vision Innovation
Empathy and compassion
Critical and strategic thinking
Collaboration
b. Two, teachers must be capable of unlocking their potential, and that of the students they are responsible for. Most of us operate at 8-10% of our potential, the rest lies buried undiscovered. Our potential comprises our:
Creativity and critical thinking
Higher order emotions like love and compassion
Talent
Divinity - be good and do good
c. Three, be local first before thinking global. In order to be innovative, we need to know a lot about our roots - spirituality, philosophy, science, history, customs and traditions. For Indian IB Schools, I will call this Indianness.
I will use three words to desirable international schooling: unlocking human potential. In a strict sense, the focus is, therefore on the teacher and not on the syllabus.
(This is the essence of the message brought to newly elected Leaders of The Indus Student Council at Bangalore, by Lt. Gen. Arjun Ray (Retd.), CEO of the Indus Trust on the occasion of The Ceremony of Investiture on January 26th, 2012)
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Date: 04/26/2024