The more I have worked in educational circles over the years (exceeding 40 years now, both in Mexico and overseas), the more I realize the value and necessity of working closely with my peers. I refer here both to peers within and without our own places of work.
As educators operating within our respective institutions, we soon find out how much our personal initiatives ought to guide the working weeks, as opposed to adopting and implementing plans provided by others (and, note, not always our line managers). We generally find that ‘balance’ and, all being well, all our efforts, because they are coherent, promote the whole institution’s mission statement.
Achieving that balance is all well and good, but, carried on for too long, it is a certain recipe that creates a stultifying comfort zone as opposed to an environment that challenges our methodologies and goals. We seek to preserve our personal well-being, not getting agitated by all that any significant change implies. There is some wisdom in that, yes. However, we are better, more professional educators when we take steps that take us beyond the lines (barriers, if you will) that we sub-consciously have erected ahead of us.
To recognize that other educators possess distinct and perhaps better approaches in enabling our students to acquire, comprehend and use new skills and knowledge is a liberating thing. In other words, there is no shame in admitting it. Nor, therefore, acting upon it.
To embrace useful change, we are not condemning what we have always done. It had great value. Yet, clearly, no one person has all the answers. The times do move on, and, in new (and sometimes choppier waters, viz. AI), the huge ship that we help crew - and even steer - needs to alter its tack. It puts me in mind of Wittgenstein who did not think any the less of earlier astronomers who, looking at a setting sun, therefore concluded that that celestial body was moving and not this spinning globe. Given what they then knew, he said, the evidence they saw could well have been true.
The Wingate School, located on the western side of CDMX, recently hosted several other British-international schools as part of its SEP continual professional development. Our mini-conference theme revolved around “best practices “. (In whatever way one dresses up such gatherings, surely that’s what we always aim at.) That overarching theme is a common one, then: what was assembled beneath that umbrella term was not.
Following three excellent keynotes - each one focused on sharing its North Star (namely: self-regulation; what colleges really are looking for; four main shifts in modern educational thinking), and each within just thirty minutes - we had the opportunity to enjoy a choice of eight breakout rooms. Four followed by four presentations, addressing the different curriculums in our schools, IEYC to IB Diploma, enabled teachers to switch, and, happily, generate much discussion in all cases.
It is really gratifying to hear the subsequent positive feedback of teachers, presenters and audience members, who have participated in such events. Oxygenating the water, sharing great, practical ideas, has to be a healthy thing to do. It is time very well spent.
Did the topic of AI and its role also rear its head? Much? Of course it did. But, although the jury is still out, in our conference plenary one emphatic consensus remained: AI is a superb adjunct, not a replacement. For the humanity provided by our teachers in our classrooms, our unique ability to really see and deal with the students’ myriad needs, will not be, and should not be, replaced by ‘intelligent electronics,’ impressive though they are.
Our noble profession, then, not losing sight of the power of sharing its ideas, humane to its core, united in its purpose to help shape students’ lives and therefore tomorrow’s societies, always will thrive.