“One way of thinking of learner agency is when learners have the ‘power to act’. When learners move from being passive recipients to being much more active in the learning process, and actively involved in the decisions about the learning, then they have greater agency.”  (Derek Wenmoth, CORE Education 10 Trends)

Derek explains how student agency involves 3 dynamics: 

• Agency involves the initiative or self-regulation of the learner. Learners must have a belief that their behaviour and their approach to learning will make a difference for them in their learning context – in other words, a personal sense of agency. 
• Agency is interdependent. The learner is not working in isolation doing their own thing and what suits them, there's connectedness. How we work together, give and seek peer feedback and create an environment where students want to learn together is incredibly important. 
• Agency includes an awareness of the responsibility of ones own actions on the environment and on others. Every decision a learner makes, and action she or he takes, will impact on the thinking, behaviour or decisions of others – and vice versa. You can’t just act selfishly. (Derek Wenmoth , 2014)

As IB educators we are commited  nurture young people with deep values who will go out into the world and make a positive impact on it in the service of others (a la the IB mission statement).

“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

This question was stated by John Lewis [1940-2020], who devoted much of his life to promoting equality, justice and human rights for all people. It is call to action, a summons to urgency and agency. It asks for leaders to step forward and not wait for another time.

What are you passionate about? What inspires you? What lights your soul on fire? If you set out to bring about positive change, what contribution would you make to the world?

Baseball player Jackie Robinson said: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." Mark Twain said: "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."

Build your legacy 

How bad are things?

Use the problem-ometer protocol to get students thinking about (global) problems.

Considering the world's situation, how serious are the problems we face? Where would you place the dial on this problem-ometer?

• Use the following ‘problem-ometer’ to discuss world issues that concern you.

Active Hope is about finding, and offering, our best response when facing concerns about our world situation. It is about strengthening peoples' ability to make a difference.

 “Active Hope helps us face our concerns about the world and respond in ways that contribute to positive change. Active Hope is something we do rather than have. It involves being clear what we hope for and then playing our role in the process of moving that way. When our responses are guided by the intention to act for the healing of our world, the mess we’re in not only becomes easier to face, our lives also become more meaningful and satisfying.” (https://www.activehope.info)

The active hope protocol asks us to become active participants in bringing about what we hope for. it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation to foster engagement. Here, we start with identifying different problems that can be addressed by fostering engagement.

The seven sentence starters in Support of Active Hope are a great way to build agency in our content areas and local or global issues we are exploring with the learners.

• Create: Take the issues you identified in the problem-ometer and use the active hope protocol to create “I hope” statements.

• Reflect: how does the active hope protocol develop how you think about global issues?

It is so important to help students think about what future they would like to live in, and help formulate what that future would look like.

Re-Imaginary: Cultivating cultures of sustainability is an organisation that helps people to search for practices, metaphors, mental models, and narratives that support ecological regeneration and the well-being of future generations. It provides many resources including a freely downloadable toolkit, entitled  Arts-Based methods for transformative engagement.

One of their resources is Postcards from the future: This method supports participants in imagining the future and future generations in a way that is tangible and personal, rather than abstract and theoretical. Each person writes a postcard to themselves from an imagined relative or relation from a future generation (e.g. great-grandchildren or great-grandchildren of friends). Participants are asked to imagine that important positive changes have taken place in part due to their efforts, and that the future person wants to thank them.

Why, why, why chains are a great way to get learners to think critically and deepen their understanding about an issue / challenge.

The 3 Whys is a Harvard Thinking Routine for nurturing a disposition to discern the significance of a situation, topic, or issue keeping global, local, and personal connections in mind. This is how Harvard describes its use:

“Intrinsic motivation is a key engine of deep learning. As humans we are motivated to learn when we come to believe that a topic or body of knowledge matters. However, gauging significance — i.e. determining whether something matters and why — is a capacity seldom taught. Assessing global and local significance requires the mind to operate at several levels at once. The 3Y’s routine invites learners to move step by step across personal, local and global spheres. This routine encourages students to develop intrinsic motivation to investigate a topic by uncovering the significance of the topic in multiple contexts. The routine also helps students make local-global connections and situate themselves in local and global spheres. You may use a rich image, text, quote, video or other inviting materials as provocations to ground students’ thinking.”

• Use the Why, Why, Why chain protocol to break down a major issue into concrete factors and actions that contribute to causing it. 
• Research the issue to form a fact sheet (e.g.,Issue: violence against women; Source of information

Agency plays a strong role in determining how to learn through engagement and action. It is important to consider the difference between having agency and using power when considering engagement with systemic issues. The Types of Power protocol can be used to consider what power looks like and the ways it contributes to our impression of what to act on. Understanding power and privilege and how it affects agency is a very important step in preparing to engage with others. There are four types of power in this protocol:

• Power over
• Power to
• Power with
• Power within

What do you think is the difference between these types of power? What might be examples of each type of power?

An overview of types of power comes from Brene Brown. Click HERE. It is based on an excellent document, Making change happen: Power written by Just Associates.

What have you done for the world today?

Take one issue from the problem-ometer and use the response-ometer to respond to it: how much do you feel you can take action on that issue? 

The 'decision tree' are excellent tools for helping you to choose between several courses of action. They provide a highly effective structure within which you can lay out options and investigate the possible outcomes of choosing those options. They also help you to form a balanced picture of the risks and rewards associated with each possible course of action.

This is how MindTools describes them:

Reference: Decision trees for decision making, HBR

A ladder is used to show that there are many levels of connection between us and others. Connectedness is personal understanding, knowing of self and other. This diagram graphically links together the levels of connectedness. Moving down the ladder shows an increase in connectedness.

Watch this video to understand the levels of connectedness.

This tool:

• allows students to identify their own level of connectedness within a context
• encourages the students to examine if they are striving to meet the learner attribute of caring
• unpacks compassion as something that can be developed over time
• develops non-verbal communication skills by allowing a graphical representation of a complex relationship
• expands students’ awareness of connections within systems.

In relation to the problem you have identified, use the ladder of connectedness to consider where do you connect? What would it take for you to move one more step down the ladder?

This protocol comes from the toolkit for compassionate system leaders.

Aiden Hammond, of Branksome Hall School provides this great overview of how you can plan to make a change. HERE is a link to a great site to help you with the planning process.

Berkeley Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR): YPAR is an innovative approach to positive youth and community development based in social justice principles. This hub features expansive curriculum and resources to enrich YPAR projects.

Case study: Frankfurt International School organise Changemaker Conferences.  You may find it interesting to explore their website to learn about their speakers and their toolboxes as well as watch recordings.