IB Curriculum Evolution 5 Key Changes You Need to Know @JBCNInternationalSchool

0:00 You know I give a simple example if it's a young learner it's say 5 years 6 year old learner you just ask them what is 1 + 1 and the obvious answer is two if I ask anyone over here you'll say two and if you say hey why is 1 + 1 2 and you'll say hey one glass and another glass is two and then you ask them that what is one drop of water plus one drop of water when they get together it's not two it's one large drop of water and that's where the curiosity starts [Music] 6,500 learners of JBCN. You feel so responsible for educating a generation with so much of automation that is going to come into play. What do you think will be the foundational skills that make a school relevant for a child today? It's not only skills. I think it's a combination of skills and values that is required for young kids today for learners today. Uh you know adaptability for example just to be able to pivot everyone in this room had to pivot their business in some way or the other when covid came right if you were not adaptable if you could not transfer that skill set then uh a lot of the businesses or a lot of the organizations didn't survive. So I think adaptability is something that's really important as a skill. Uh your obvious ones like leadership, communication etc. I also feel that for today's kids moving forward, I think EQ is more important or as important as IQ. Uh I think a lot of what we're going to see in the future is about people management because you will have tools AI or any other tools that come up in the future that can do a lot of the work that is being done now but you need the right EQ and the right mindset for people management and similarly I think the values are important just to have the right values in terms of respect honesty integrity I think these are time-t tested uh doesn't matter what's going to happen in the future uh I think that'll always keep an individual grounded and give them the you know mental strength we keep talking about. And the last thing I want to say is at least at JBCN I think we've changed the narrative. I don't think it's about building the right skills or values to be future ready. But the narrative that we are going with is actually build them so you can go out there and actually change the world rather than try to fit into what the world will be to actually go out there and say, "Hey, I'm going to make a difference as I move forward." I absolutely love that because when you know when you're not aware of the unknown, you rather just be so resilient and evolving that it helps. What would be the pillars of how schools can contribute to raise curious learners, global learners and for someone to be in that evolution phase of the unknown, right? Where they don't know what they're really prepping for what is the role of schools and how is it evolving?

3:08 How how old is JBCn? Like how many years and how has that evolution been from the time that you started to how the curriculum has changed? Yeah. So JBCn's now 20 years old. Uh and I think the the change and the evolution now is not you know earlier it used to be every 10 years or 12 years. I think now every 2 or 3 years we are seeing change. We're seeing an evolution. We're seeing different skills that are important. And just to kind of think about the way we've gone about this entire process. I think for us it's about identifying what we want to achieve and then going into how we want to achieve it. So whether it's curiosity, whether it's an entrepreneurial mindset, whether it's resistance or any of these skills that we spoke about, I think we first identify what we want to do and then we think of different programs, resources, teachers, training of how we are going to implement this. And you know what I what I really want to emphasize on when you spoke of EQ and if I go back to our opening acts both of last year where we did the drum circle and this year where we did the dance how those integrate or what is the value of those into a learner in in a learner's life like how do you integrate that and why is it important? I think it's just about allowing the mind to do different things rather than focus on one thing. I think when we all were in school the focus was only one thing and we had subject after subject. We have teacher after teacher coming into the classroom.

4:45 I think now uh you know all the learners are so so much more mature that they need different stimulation and the stimulation is just to keep them engaged to keep their focus levels high. In fact, we've redesigned our schools for example where even in pre- primary the learners go from class to class, from zone to zone rather than teachers coming in because re research has shown that even that one minute break from going from one zone to the other, kids are chatting, they're pushing each other, it's almost like a refresh button, they go into the next zone or the next area where learning happens and they're fresh again. So these are all part of the learning process where we kind of keep the engagement levels really high.

5:32 You've studied in an IB school. I want to ask you this question which is how different was it back then? How did it shape you and how different is it today? So I think uh again just coming back to education as a whole is very different from when I did the IB program 20 20ome years ago uh to what it is today. I think learners are doing a lot more. For example, the CAS program learners are really involved in social work. It's a cause that they're taking up where they're realizing and building empathy and saying hey this is a way of life. uh sports physical uh activity has really changed because it's become now not only about sports but there's a technical aspect to sports lot of analysis etc. So much data is available. So when you're applying to colleges, the data you have, not only for the university you're applying to, but the program within the university you're applying to has completely changed. When back in the day, we just knew the names of universities and said, "Hey, these are good universities. Let's apply there without knowing or having enough data on the program."

6:44 But if I can just add one more thing to my answer, what hasn't changed in the last 25 years is the grades and the expectations of high grades. So what it was 25 years ago of how well a learner needs to perform to get into a great university that has not changed 25 years later as well. I think all the top universities fortunately or unfortunately still have a barrier saying hey this is the minimum grade that is required for you to even be considered to that university when we went to university there we were all clones I think there was a set template saying this is what you have to do these are your grades you do this this this and you'll get into a good university no more the case today I mean today you have to be doing something that you're passionate about that you want to pursue do uh you know we've had uh learners across our schools uh starting their own business and actually doing fundraising for their business and they have a thriving business while they want to go to university. Uh there kids in our school in in and he knows them that actually had uh built a prototype of a ebike I think and got a patent on it uh and they want to pursue that. So, it's no more about saying, "Hey, this is the set template and you do these six things and you'll get into college." In fact, if you do those six things, you probably won't get into the college that you want to get into. It has to be out of the box different 7% 5% acceptance rate. So, I know that in today's time, I don't think I would have gone to college. I don't think I would have got into college if I was applying with with with all these kids. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For parenting tips, celebrity interviews, recipes, conversations with experts, DIYs, and lots more, subscribe to Kidstop Press