A lesson learned

What lessons have we learnt from Covid 19?

Arguably, none.

So here we are today, sitting through the sixth mass extinction and things have gone ‘back to normal.’ As 2022 begins to fade and we look back at this year, we are faced with an ecological crisis, a water crisis, a food crisis, an energy crisis, a ‘heat or eat’ crisis, an economic crisis… and dare I say it - an existential crisis? The backdrop of our man-made, self-inflicted poly-crisis ought to encourage us to question why we are carrying on teaching as normal? What is our role as educators in all this? With rising inequalities, rising tides and rising nationalism, do we keep going as normal?

Our raison d’etre is to encourage our students to question and challenge. To challenge and question. If they are to be the change-makers of today and tomorrow, we need to ask the very big, very messy questions. The IB allows scope for this, despite the pressure, internally and externally, to deliver the results. But It is only through challenging the status-quo within the very system that we have profited from that we can begin to rethink our/their own privilege and future impact. Clinging to an outdated, elite and broken way of thinking rather than flipping the table does not ensure the best future for our students. We must start by asking what we do and why we do it.

This requires a holistic, systemic response to the most complex and complicated of problems. As Lant Pritchett (2013) points out, somebody from the 1920s plonked on our planet today would recognise very little, except for our schools! Teachers, seats, desks and bells are still present when nearly everything else has changed. As he explains so saliently, ‘spider’ systems which are prevalent in education are often closed systems, centralised, top down and slow to evolve. Therefore, how can we, as educators, hold up the mirror to make the system visible and call for a whole system change?

It is daunting but I think we need the audacity to zoom out and to let go of the granular. I am reminded of a conference I attended a few years ago about the Finnish education system, regarded by many as being the best in the world. Scandinavian pragmatism and a few pearls of wisdom were summarised at the end of the talk. The apparent secret of their success was no secret at all. ‘We just took things out. More play, less assessment. The kids start school later and there are fewer hours in the day.’

Well, perhaps that is going to take some convincing in our learning communities… Instead, as English B teachers, we can draw attention to our plundering, extractivism, consumption and ongoing exploitation of the global south. We can deep dive into addressing systemic structures that perpetuate inequities and practices which place profit before people, within our institution, classroom and conversations. Through the themes or the literature we tackle. We need to spend our time looking up and out rather than down and inwards. For this, we need to create time and space in the curriculum and timetable. Again, easier said than done.

We might begin to raise the critical consciousness of the next generation by asking questions such as, why are ‘poor’ countries poor? (Hickel, 2018). Here, inquiry based learning and critical thinking is not an addition to the programme but offer an opportunity to reframe global misconceptions and challenge hegemonic thinking. If we are able to carve out the time, we can authentically question our local leaders, question our international misunderstandings, show by example, hold accountable and call out.

I suppose what I am getting at is about asking the really hard, awkward questions. The questions that might feel uncomfortable and which disrupt. We cannot tiptoe around the social, political and cultural as there is no such thing as a neutral education (Friere, 1970). It requires the courage, tact and audacity to confront head on, the very qualities we expect from our IB students.

Covid was a lesson in stopping, resetting, rethinking, relearning and reteaching. Maybe it’s time to take another moment where we step back from asking what we teach and start thinking about how and why we do what we do…

Rebecca Greenway