Learner Profile

Principle and Balance

It would seem that a school was getting itself into murky territory once it started evaluating students according to the principles that they demonstrate. After all, what I value may differ markedly from what you do. We may belong to the same community, but that doesn’t mean that any one of us should get to be the arbiter of values.

Personally, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, as a Theory of Knowledge Examiner, I am acutely aware of the need for schools to defend the right of students, faculty and parents to hold and yet to respect divergent views of the world.

That does not mean however that education should be undertaken in some values vacuum. As a school community, we seek to produce well-rounded graduates, ones that learned more at ISWA than triangulation, market elasticity and the structure of cells. Values, such as respect for diversity, respect for one's peers, appreciating the value of thinking independently and knowing why you need to be able to take care of your own stuff, both personally and intellectually, are all qualities of mind that a school can play a key role in defining and developing. At ISWA, we don't intend to just hope that this happens, we intend to plan ways by which they can be nurtured.

Students enrolled in the IB Diploma are required to demonstrate that they have the ability to reflect of their actions, that they view learning as something more than the means to a grade, that they recognise the role they must play in the school community, that they demonstrate a willingness to undertake activities that take them outside of their normal comfort zones, and finally, that they come to recognize themselves as part of an international community of students.

As custodians of this program, we do not intend to allow our students to undertake CAS activities that we do not see them growing by, or to undertake activities without reflection, or merely to achieve additional points. We undertake this position because we believe that there is a lot more to school than remembering facts, and that we need to define qualities that will come to typify students from the ISWA Diploma Program. We do so, because we recognise that these are qualities that will enable our students to contribute a great deal more to the world after they have left us.

Damien Kerrigan

IB Coordinator