Schools in the 21st Century: insular or elevated?

SCHOOLS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: INSULAR OR ELEVATED?

BY NICHOLAS SAMPSON

“Schools must look outwards and seek to build partnerships with like-minded and similarly intentioned institutions in other geographies and societies in order to hold current knowledge of approaches, initiatives and challenges elsewhere.”

The social researcher Hugh Mackay has written extensively about the erosion of local community life in Australia against a societal backdrop of growing loneliness and declining social connectedness. Indeed loneliness, defined as a subjective experience of social isolation, has been identified as the next public health epidemic of the 21st Century. In 2018, the British Government appointed a Minister of Loneliness to address the issue. This year, Dr Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, released an 85-page advisory paper, naming loneliness and isolation as “profound threats to our health and well-being.” He wrote of the importance of genuine community, warning that a failure to rebuild vital social connections would result in paying “an everincreasing price in the form of our individual and collective health and well-being … we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners—angry, sick, and alone.”

All of us have a fundamental and understandable need to belong—human beings are at heart social creatures with a deep desire to bond with others. This became particularly apparent as we experienced the deprivations of the COVID-19 pandemic. As individuals and as a community we learnt again to value the essential and humanising need to connect, to see each other face-to-face, to break bread together.

Yet, paradoxically, this desire for connection is presenting real challenges as we move into the digital age. New tribal identities, often formed online, offer an appealing substitute for the communities we once had. While these connections may seemingly offer us all the positive aspects of group membership— acceptance, support, solidarity, loyalty—there is another, more dangerous side to this drive: an exclusivity and blind loyalty that can fracture society. Researchers are discovering that certain attributes of social media—particularly the ability of users to surround ourselves with information we already agree with and filter out information we disagree with—allow this form of technology to contribute to political polarisation. The social media algorithms that determine what content appears on our newsfeeds rarely show us new perspectives, instead offering up opinions we already agree with. Increasingly, there is precious little room for nuance or neutrality when it comes to any new local, national or global news. We are simply asked to “pick a side” by changing our avatar on Facebook or Instagram.

Schools are not immune to this paradox. Healthy schools are busy places with lively internal cultures. They are powerful sources of community with shared routines, practices, and stories that bring people together. Of course, schools defy easy analysis: they undertake a mixture of functions in a myriad of ways. Schools can be neighbours, operating in the same setting and serving the same communities, but can be so very different in character, atmosphere and approach. And, of course, this variety provides families with a range of valid choices.

Nevertheless, this very vitality can feed the enemies of a great liberal education: introversion, tribalism, parochialism, complacency, and diminution of intellectual hunger. In essence, as well as offering a secure community where individuals can belong, schools must also aim to expand young minds and to prepare students to flourish within adult society. A vibrant school must counteract the forces of insularity and polarisation through the encouragement of broader perspectives.

How are we to do this? First, it is essential that schools look outwards, seeking to build partnerships with institutions in other geographies and societies to hold current knowledge of approaches, initiatives and challenges elsewhere. Cranbrook is currently in membership of two international groups, the G30 and WLSA, the World Leading Schools’ Association.

As a member of the G30 the School enjoys the opportunity to forge relationships between and among schools globally. The G30 is a community of around 30 schools from various parts of the world, with membership by invitation. The composition of the group changes over time but currently includes leading schools from North America, the UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, India and Oceania. It is both important and personally refreshing to belong to an organisation whose aim is to help school leaders look beyond the day-to-day individual concerns of a school to discuss broader issues in education that have a universal impact, regardless of geography. The G30 offers an annual conference which allows the opportunity to compare notes on current trends, challenges and opportunities as well as to explore ways of collaborating with trusted colleagues. Guest speakers come from the field of education as well as from a broad range of pursuits. In the past we have discussed issues as varied as environmental stewardship, wellbeing, the impact of pluralism, or preparing for tomorrow’s workforce. Given the impact of coronavirus, I have not been able to meet other heads in person since 2019 but this year I was delighted to able to attend the G30 conference in Sweden in April where we reflected upon the legacy of COVID-19 and considered the impact of emerging technologies, particularly the effect of digital transformation on society, economics and politics.

Cranbrook is also a member of the WLSA, or World’s Leading Schools’ Association, a joint educational foundation which brings leading universities in the USA and UK together with schools from China, the US, Canada and Australia. The WLSA aims to promote cooperation and academic exchange and culturally broadening programmes between leading associate secondary schools in the world as well as experts in the field of higher education. The WLSA network connects associate school heads and faculty from some of the world’s leading schools to foster circular knowledge sharing; the network is continually collaborating and learning from one another through exchanges, conferences, publications and collaborations for both school students and staff. The WLSA’s aims are now being revisited in the post pandemic setting and will, I hope, offer interesting avenues to young Cranbrookians.

Second, it is also essential that schools challenge their students to look outwards through an enriched curriculum that builds deliberate connections so that students become internationally minded: responsible members of local, national and global communities. International-mindedness is a view of the world in which people see themselves connected to the global community and assume a sense of responsibility towards its members. The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) was established in 1968 to foster international mindedness amongst future generations. As an IB Continuum School, Cranbrook is an active and substantial part of an international educational community, embracing countries and schools. The IB delivers programmes to nearly two million students within the five thousand six hundred schools within one hundred and fifty-nine countries: we are, therefore, members of a transnational community of institutions and professional educators who have opted to deliver IB programmes. The IB is not perfect, but it is based upon principle, best practice, values and ideals: it is not subject to shortterm political imperatives or governmental change. It is designed to prepare young people for further study, not as an anachronistic full stop to full time education. Through to Year 10 we teach the NSW curriculum through the lens of the IB: thus, once again, local identity is complemented by global connection.

In my observations, the most vibrant schools I have visited share some qualities: they trust their teachers, they are as independent, but also as self-critical, as they can be, and they see freedom, fairness and integrity as their mainspring. They forge connections globally, in order to be challenged and inspired by different ideas, cultures and settings. Such a prescription does not, indeed, lend itself to easy analysis or magical measurement: the steps we are taking at Cranbrook, however, towards coeducation, academic independence, global awareness and fulfilling partnerships with schools around the world are designed to support our pursuit of excellence. ■