How are we making the IB mission real?

As educators inspired by the IB mission to create a better and more peaceful world, we must ask ourselves: how are we using our schools, our teaching, and our leadership to make that mission real?

Over the past two days, I have been privileged to be part of—and help facilitate—an International Education For Peace Summit, organised by Sustainability Education in liaison with Younited School. Set against the backdrop of the ongoing war in the Middle East, the gathering brought together students, teachers, and concerned professionals from across the region. It has been an opportunity to reflect on the role of ourselves as school leaders: not only as educators but as custodians of learning spaces where dialogue, understanding, and hope can flourish, even in the most difficult circumstances. One student shared, “Even online, we are trying to understand what is happening around us. We are trying to make sense of it.” These moments reminded me that schools are not just sites of knowledge—they are places where young people help to make sense in the midst of complexity.

School leaders are, in many ways, storytellers and stewards. G. K. Chesterton once described education as “the transmission of the soul of society from one generation to the next.” Leaders are the custodians of their organization’s vision, the “chief storyteller” who relates purpose to everything they do: “the overarching explanation of why they do what they do, how their organization needs to evolve, and how that evolution is part of something larger” (Senge, 1990). Purpose stories evolve as they are being told, shaped by listening to the visions of others and adjusting where necessary. As one teacher reflected, “We need to hear every voice, not just the loudest or most visible. Even in the classroom, silence can be a story we ignore.” As leaders, we must ask: whose stories are we hearing? How are we shaping spaces where multiple perspectives can coexist and where students can explore, question, and imagine beyond their immediate experiences?

Throughout the summit, it became clear how stories in action help young people make sense of the world. Students spoke of hope, of “going out of your bubble… to experience connections and friendships with people with different perspectives.” One student reflected, “Hearing these stories makes me feel less helpless and more like I can do something.” These moments highlight the crucial role of sense-making in learning organizations: helping students—and ourselves—interpret events, reflect on meaning, and integrate understanding into action. In this way, schools become places not only for learning, but for navigating complexity, building empathy, and imagining new possibilities.

• What stories are we crafting to help students make sense of the world around them?
• Whose perspectives are we amplifying, and whose might we still be missing?
• How can we create spaces where listening and reflection are central, and where stories become tools for connection and hope?

In our schools, sense-making is not just an intellectual exercise—it is the work of shaping the soul of our communities, guiding the next generation toward thoughtful, compassionate action.