Dear Catalina of yesterday,
You were a hard worker and you always tried your best. You read the brochures and emails, you made sure to listen for whatever constituted useful learning, you grew into the job and grew the job with you, you engaged with families wholeheartedly. On most days. And as you grew, so did your empathy, ability to listen and hold space for the difficulty which is so often found in transitions between continents, countries, schools … worlds.
And, all your good intentions aside, the blind spot of not having been a parent of a DP student, in hindsight, harmed. By omission. By advice steeped in presumption and not in knowing. The Catalina I am today, no longer an Admissions Director and fully a parent of a DP student, amidst the excitement and angst of exams, would like to tell you what you were missing. Had I still been Catalina, the Admissions Director today, my conversation with parents coming wanting to enrol their children in an IB school would be quite different.
First and foremost I would intensify my listening and evolve my bank of questions: what do they actually know about the programme? Is there simple inertia that is driving them into it or a purpose? If the latter, what is it? Asking pointed questions and allowing for space to process and utter the answers not only offers the prospective school a view into the intentionality of choice. It offers families an opportunity to pause and think, together, about the world their entering and how that might look like not only for their child but for all of them.
Secondly, but equally importantly, I would make sure to bring into the conversation the subject, object and conclusion of everything – the young person we are there to support. What is their style as a learner? What does learning mean for them? What feels challenging and what feels uplifting from their school experience? A chance for them to feel seen, heard and to think alongside the adults ultimately making the decision.
Thirdly, and definitely still quite essentially, I would form a coalition with my colleagues in the DP section of the school. To both understand each other and where we stand and also be able to offer parents the most revealing image of potential futures for their child before they make the important decision of enrolling in an IB DP programme of studies.
And because of the activist side of me, I would most probably engage in a conversation about or read to understand how the IBO is receiving all of the feedback that previous programs don’t prepare any student for what the DP asks of them, that the way they are prepared (on computer almost exclusively), does not match the (sometimes) five hours of handwriting requested in a DP exam day (that can go up to four exams), that for many students (especially those who spend their entire career in an IB continuum school) this exam, the most important of their high school career is … the first most important exam of their life. I would wonder if, aside from looking at curriculum, assessment and marking schemes, the IBO is also looking at these seemingly small but oh so very important elements that are directly linked to the wellbeing of students – the so trumpeted buzz word that everyone seems to have on their lips and websites these days. That and “human fluorishing.” But I digress …
Dear Catalina of Yesterday, I know you did your best. But let the lesson be that there is always harm that can be done in sharing from incomplete images, from assumption, rather than from knowledge. What could you have done, you ask? What could you have done at a time when you had not yet had the parent dimension of the experience? As always, the solution lies in curiosity. You could have revealed what was hidden in the blind spot by engaging in conversation with parents waiting for their kids to take the DP exams. Yeah, you know, the worrywarts waiting in parking lots, dying for someone to talk to. You could have taken part in all the senior events where the knowledge you needed was ripe for the taking. With the story of the last DP year so fresh in their minds and hearts, parents would have shared openly and honestly. After all, their child was done: no more of that worry that their criticism would end up in the wrong ears.
So many missed opportunities. And mostly because we are always, always pieces of work in progress. Catalina, you are no longer an Admissions Director. There is nothing you can change about the past. But I am writing this letter to you because there may be other people’s presents that can still be made better by this insight.
Onward,
Catalina of Today
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