Changemaker Curriculum Live

Originally published on 21st May 2021:   https://www.edge.co.uk/news-and-events/blogs/shaun-mcinerney-is-senior-project-coordinator-for-changemaker-education-at-ashoka-uk-a-post-funded-by-the-edge-foundation/ ‘Why is it that everything you care about is worth precisely zero points in the IB?’ This was not strictly true. I was sitting in the back of a 4x4 bumping along potholed Mumbai roads, engaged in a lively conversation with a colleague, an IB History teacher, about where our school priorities should lie.    Living in Mumbai in the early 2000’s, as it embraced globalisation in all its complexity was exhilarating. The past and future combined to create a hyperreal present. Teaching IB Economics developed critical awareness but was it helping young people make sense of themselves in the world?  My answer, and the source of my colleague’s jibe, was the Community Leadership Programme I started.  130 students exploring their emotional selves and a social...

First published on 25th November 2020  at https://www.ashoka.org/en-gb/story/what-changemaker-education We need to seize the teachable moment.  Learning sticks if it is based in the now; if it is relevant; if we are present; if it resonates emotionally and anticipates needs because it is rooted in context.  The ‘teachable moment’ of the current pandemic is to shine a light on our current practice and, more fundamentally, the aspirations we have for our children and young people to be able to thrive in an uncertain future and also play a role in shaping it. As a group of 15 UK Ashoka Changemaker Schools we have spent this Summer reflecting on emerging practice that is meeting this need; and also on who we need to ‘be’ and ‘become’ as Changemaker Educators in order to lead this practice in our own schools and beyond.  This is a deliberately diverse network that has intentionally built trust to enable new ways of working.   Ecological diversity helps natural ecosy...

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it; does it make a sound?   If a student learns but does not sit their exams; did the learning still happen?  Usually we miss that which we hold most dear but can we honestly say we are hankering after the exam sessions that have been cancelled this Summer? It’s understandable that students feel anxious as they have had this means of validation denied to them. So let's take this opportunity to think where else they may get this validation from. Learning has happened. Our young people are well prepared for their next steps and they have a trail of excellent work and deeds that showcase their passion and progress; their growth, development and maturing.   So, as we adjust to changes thrust upon us, we can ask whether we will be like the caged bird, fearful of what freedom might bring; or whether we can be brave enough to shape a new era of education reform that allows our curriculum to meet the needs of students and t...

Do we have 2020 vision? Moving into this new decade encourages us to take a long term perspective.   We have been around 13.7 billion years and expressed in 24 hour chronological time, we humans only show up at 22:30 and the whole of recorded history happens in the last 10 seconds before the chimes of Big Ben at midnight! No wonder then that we may be reeling with the pace of change; or is it just me?   Thomas Friedman  thinks not: he implies technological change is outpacing our ability to adapt to it.  The technological supernova is charging ahead and we lack the cognitive (let alone the social or emotional) capacity to keep up.   If the pace of technological change (expressed in terms of the development of Intel processors since 1971) were applied to a VW Beetle, it would be hurtling around at 300,000 miles per hour and we’d be getting 2 million miles per gallon of petrol.  It would cost US 4 cents.   So what are the...

Now this is the antidote against a poisonous civilisation: the plan of life for adolescence at school and out of school, should give a place of importance to activities meant to stir and sustain the love of skill, the love of enterprise, and the love of aloneness. On 22 nd December 1940, in the aftermath of heavy bombing in the City of Liverpool, Kurt Hahn made a speech in the Cathedral entitled:   The Love of Enterprise; The Love of Aloneness; The Love of Skill.   This was a rallying call for educators to cultivate these ‘healthgiving passions; to harness the motivations and develop the talents and dispositions of young people to find meaning and purpose through action in extraordinary times.   This speech started: ‘ If it be true that Education can heal the State, then indeed we educators have a grave and anxious responsibility.’   It is clear that the ‘State’ now, as then, is struggling to meet the challenges of the time and s o our responsibilit...

I am three weeks into my new role as Director of Learning Innovation at UWC Atlantic.  This is my introductory blog that will help me share this exciting voyage of learning innovation we’re embarking on.    I say voyage because we journey alone but we voyage together.    I have recently been re-inducted back into Atlantic College having taught Economics, History and Political Thought here from 1998/9-2002/3 which clearly ages me!  My recent induction reconnected me to the sense of belonging that is unique to UWCs.   From the many offers of support I have already received from UWC Alumni, clearly this belonging lasts a lifetime.   There are huge expectations for what we can achieve as we reimagine the curriculum here at AC and with Rebecca Warren’s leadership, across the UWC movement.   Bouncing between the UWC, international schools and the British state system as a teacher, Head of Faculty, Assistant Principal, Principal and E...