Sessions preview

Jeffrey Beard

IB Director General

Building a better IB for a XXI century world

The IB celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2008. It has come a long way since Alex Peterson first developed and introduced the concept of the Diploma Programme. In 1968 to facilitate the international mobility of students by providing schools with a curriculum and qualification recognized by universities around the world. The IB now has both primary and secondary programmes, and currently well over over one-half million students are enrolled in one of its three programmes. Growing from a small base of a few pilot schools in the late sixties, it now consists of over 2200 authorized schools in 125 countries. It’s been said that the IB experience is not just a way to learn…it’s a way of life… and the way to a better world.

But what is the IB doing to meet 21st century needs? With a growth rate that doubles its size every five years, what is IB doing to ensure it has the capability to authorize more and more schools in the future? Also, the IB has defined access as: “enabling more students to experience and benefit from an IB education regardless of personal circumstances”.  What does this really mean and how is the IB able to assure it can deliver on this goal?

Join Director General Jeffrey Beard for the plenary session on June 7th to hear more about how the IB is addressing these issues as it aims to create a better, more peaceful world.

Isabelino Siede

Associate Professor of  teaching methodologies in social sciences

Educating citizens  through school justice

Citizenship education requires a complex set of knowledge and information, which is taught as a specific subject. However, everyday life at school also offers many enriching opportunities to learn about how to participate in public space. Conflicts and their resolution, decision-making circuits, and the creation of different criteria to think about school life can be useful tools to build a responsible citizenship.

Education takes place in contexts that are utterly unequal, unstable and uncertain. Schools wonder, placed between omnipotence and helplessness, whether they can do something to preserve what is best in this world and change what needs to be changed.  Revising previous pedagogic ideas can help us think about what is specific about teachers’ contribution in building a more just society.