recent posts
- From instructors and Powerpoint and whiteboards to mentors: The human future of teaching in an AI-rich world
- The crisis nobody’s talking about (but every IBDP teacher should be)
- The social media ban: A Trojan Horse for digital IDs
- Walking your way through CAS
- Europe’s crisis: Demographics and an imminent banking catastrophe
about
Category: Uncategorized
-
For generations, teaching has been a profession pulled in two directions: the deeply human work of shaping minds and the administrative burden of systems. Lesson planning, marking, attendance tracking, and endless preparation of slides have often crowded out the very thing that draws people to teaching in the first place, working with students as individuals.…
-
There’s a photograph that has become almost a cliché of our age: a polar bear, gaunt and bewildered, perched on a shrinking ice floe. It is heartbreaking, immediate, and visceral. You don’t need to understand radiative forcing or carbon parts-per-million to feel its weight. You just need to be human. Now try this instead: explain…
-
IB Diploma students, Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) can sometimes feel like one more requirement in an already demanding programme. But what if one of the simplest daily habits, walking to and from school, could meaningfully fulfill all three strands of CAS? Walking 30–45 minutes each day provides consistent, low-impact cardiovascular exercise. That alone should…
-
If there’s one book every IB Diploma student should read, regardless of their subject choices, it’s William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. More than just a adventurous and dark story of stranded schoolboys, this masterpiece is a study of the human experience, a thicket of ideas that dips into almost every DP subject. It’s not…
-
After watching a documentary on the 2004 disaster, a tourist cancels their trip to Phuket out of fear of a tsunami despite the statistical rarity of a tsunami. Their brain is hijacked by the availability bias, mistaking the vividness of the documentary for a high probability of another tsunami. Ironically, they choose to spend their…
-
Do you remember when teachers were agitated and dismayed and moaning into our Nescafe in the staffroom about Wikipedia? ‘Unreliable,’ we lamented. Wikipedia’s now become a relatively trusted and frequently visited website. It’s often the first stop for students (university and high school) researching assignments, adults checking a fact, and even journalists refreshing their memories.…
-
Dual Processing Theory proposes that our thinking operates through two systems. System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive. It relies on gut feelings and mental shortcuts. System 2 is slower, deliberate, and analytical and it requires conscious effort and logical reasoning. System 1 helps us make quick decisions, but it’s also prone to bias and…
-
If there is one debate that overshadows every other in education, it is the question of respect for teachers. Once regarded as pillars of the community, teachers today often find themselves dismissed, distrusted, and demoralised. And let’s be honest: some of this is unfair, but some of it is self-inflicted. Start with the basics: salaries.…
-
Schools love a fad. Every decade or so, a new “miracle cure” for student stress, distraction, and bad behaviour sweeps through classrooms. Right now, that fad is mindfulness. Teachers dim the lights, tell kids to breathe deeply, and pretend that ten minutes of pseudo-meditation will fix everything from exam anxiety to playground bullying. Let’s be…
I think, therefore IB 