40th Anniversary Lecture
"Global education and the developing world" - His Highness the Aga Khan
On 18 April 2008, the IB celebrated its fortieth anniversary in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. On this occasion, the annual Peterson Lecture was delivered by His Highness the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, and the founder and Chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, non-denominational development agencies working to empower communities and individuals to improve living conditions and opportunities, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East. For further information, please go to www.akdn.org.
His Highness the Aga Khan spoke on “Global Education and the Developing World”, a topic of great relevance to the IB itself and also to IB schools and teachers. He also explained how he has chosen IB programmes for an ambitious new network of Aga Khan Academies (please see New schools aiming high in the latest edition of the IB World magazine), which he hopes "will become an effective bridge for extending the IB programme more widely into the developing world".
We invite you to watch the Peterson Lecture and to use the comments feature below to respond to some of the big questions that it poses to educators worldwide - at a time when the IB looks back on 40 years of international education, and considers new challenges for the future.
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Guiding questions for educators
"As we work together to bridge the gulf between East and West, between North and South, between developing and developed economies, between urban and rural settings, we will be redefining what it means to be well educated."
What do you think this means for the IB?
How could/should it impact the curriculum? What does it mean to you in your school and classroom?
His Highness the Aga Khan summarises areas of focus that he feels essential within "a curriculum that responds effectively to both the global and the tribal impulses... We intend to place special emphasis on the value of pluralism, the ethical dimensions of life, global economics, a broad study of world cultures (including Muslim Civilizations) and comparative political systems."
Do you think that these areas could/should receive more emphasis in the IB model?
The Peterson Lecture presents the offer of "an effective bridge for extending the IB programme more widely into the developing world".
How would you like to see the IB, and your school, work with others to bridge the learning gap which His Highness calls "a Clash of Ignorances"?
The Peterson Lecture
The Peterson Lecture delivered by HH Aga Khan, provided a deeply resonant clarity on the connection between Education and what it means to become truly human. The core sentiments expressed were of the beauty of developing our unique essences as individuals, embracing and indeed inviting the multiple perspectives of all others and from this collective wisdom, synergistically moving forward together as one heterogeneous human race.
HH Aga Khan, in his invitation to the IBO as the curriculum framework of choice for the AKDN, is placing before the world an opportunity so rare, so expedient and so fragile, that it has all the magnitude of the greatest Nobel Peace Prize, yet presented with words that betrayed such a gentle humility. This moment must be grasped and made tangible; there was nothing about this lecture that entered the realms of rhetoric.
The momentous merger of the IBO Mission and the vision of the AKDN will indeed potentially build a bridge between worlds but the desired outcomes of an ideology immersed in pluralistic and meritocratic values cannot be assumed to simply follow. HH Aga Khan refers insightfully to the “art of thinking” and absolutely indicates that we have to teach, as a long-term strategy, those underlying prerequisites that enable the blossoming of genuine democratic engagement. The pedagogues of these academies will also need to be experts, in my opinion, in how the brain conceptualises; know how to enable the creative synthesis of original thought, and foster the emotional intelligence that leads to compassionate living. Such teachers and the children they inspire to follow them, step naturally beyond the “tribalism” so prevalent in extrinsically competitive arenas. A Curriculum for Humanity instils instead, an intrinsic competition with the self; an inner life-long striving to achieve a self-transformation that ultimately, altruistically, also advances human kind.
All IB teachers have a role to play in this dream and for my part I am honoured to have been a very small spark in the AKDN´s emerging creation.
“Being Human and becoming more so, is the concept of the educated person.”
Pring
Therese Clemo
The guiding questions posed
The guiding questions posed in this blog are very relevant. First of all, there is no doubt that His Highness the Aga Khan has given us real food for thought as he outlines his vision for international education. I would like to pose an additional guiding question for IB educators to consider. This arises from the recent Global Language Convention hosted in Atlanta by CASIE in collaboration with the IB. If we are to progress towards the vision of international as being a part of all cultures, then surely we must find ways to incorporate second/third language development as a genuine requirement for IB credentials, rather than simply seeing language as simply an required subject. Dual language programmes are of tremendous benefit in this regard, and there should be a real move to incorporate local languages into such programmes. This will give much greater credence to non-European regional languages, and help students from those backgrounds develop a real sense of their own heritage in a global context. In turn this will enhance their ability to become influential participants in the interconnected world of the 21st century.
Alex Horsley
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement and Study of International Education
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
alex.horsley@casieonline.org
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