From the Head of School

Approaches to Learning Karate Kid was one of the most popular teen movies of the 1980s: an American boy, Daniel, first learns, then masters Asian martial arts, going on to learn to use his new skills morally. The story begins with how Daniel finds his teacher, Mr Mayagi, who is initially reluctant to take him as a pupil. Mr Miyagi agrees to teach the boy but he first has to perform some cleaning tasks for him, and in very specific ways. After a while Daniel becomes frustrated as he appears to be learning nothing, just working for Mr Miyagi for free. Mr Miyagi then reveals that the muscle memory from these chores are the building blocks of the basic karate moves. The movie provides two lessons about learning: we become good at what we repeatedly do, but repetition without context, meaning and variation is impossible to maintain. Most people leave school able to read and write - highly complex skills that are easy to underestimate because they are now so widespread. These are skills that children practice every day in schools, year after year - but they engage with lots of different types of texts which entertain or inform. This is repetition with context, meaning and variation. In schools as well, how we learn is as important as what we learn. In science, students may learn about the water cycle sitting in a row of desks listening to the teacher tell them the facts followed by my reading more facts in a textbook and ending by writing those facts down for a test. Hopefully they will have learnt some facts about the water cycle; they will also have practiced and improved upon learning to sit still, listening to and accepting authority, reading, some writing, and memorisation. These side products have varying degrees of worth. But if the teacher is only aware of the final product (the written test results) and not the whole package, then this is how everything in school is learnt. Students leave school experts at sitting still, obediently memorising information but have missed the opportunity to develop in all sorts of other ways. IB programmes (diploma, middle years and primary years) insist that teachers are aware not just of the ‘what’ of learning but the ‘how’ as well. They call these the ‘approaches to learning’ - the skills of: thinking (critical and creative, problem-solving, and metacognition); social (collaboration, communication, empathy, and intercultural understanding): communication (listening, speaking, writing, and presentation skills); self management (goal-setting, time management, organisation, and self-regulation) and research (Information gathering, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Listening and self-regulation are still in these ‘approaches to learning’ - but alongside a far broader range of experiences that are consciously thought about and repeated in all the meaningful and various contexts of subject ‘whats’ throughout a child’s time in school. Yesterday, middle school students took part in an interdisciplinary day (see Stuart MacAlpine’s blog). They broke into small groups to design clothes using recycled materials, coming up with a company name and a mission statement. It was also one of many opportunities at ISA to practice creative thinking, collaboration, presentation, planning and research. If you are of a traditional frame of mind - don’t worry, I have no doubt that today they still had the chance to practice listening and self-regulation! In the movie, Mr Migaya helped the Karate Kid understand that true learning is less in what you do, than how you do it. It is a fundamental truth at the heart of the IB as well.