Bulletin #8 | October 23rd, 2019

Last week, I was talking with a parent who mentioned that she was hearing the word ‘agency’ more and more at school and knew it was to do with PYP but wasn’t really sure what it meant. No one had ever really explained what it meant. As an educator, I have always been aware of how easily it seems for a new buzzword to spread across a school, and how rarely do we really stop and explain it to those that matter: parents and students. I hope I can put things right a little, at least in relation to this term, here on our bulletin.

Agency is not a new idea, nor is it exclusively PYP. Perhaps it is a more commonly used word at JFK now, but refers to the style of 21st century education we are continuing to work on and improve at JFK.

In traditional classrooms, the teacher was always the font of all knowledge, the judge of what was right and wrong, and the determiner of what was important to know and learn. Students were passive participants in school, trying to learn what they were being taught so that they could do well on the test later on.

Student agency is about helping the student become the one with the active role in the classroom and not the teacher. It is the student who is the agent in their own learning: making, creating, doing, sharing, thinking, collaborating and solving in ways that make sense to them personally. This is not really a new idea and follows something that we all know that we learn best when we are interested and when we can make connections to our own world and what has meaning for us.

Another phrase we use with similar meaning is to say it is a ‘student-centered’ approach, rather than ‘teacher-centered’. The teacher needs careful planning and acts as a facilitator in the classroom. The teacher raises student awareness, provokes interest and helps connect student passion for what is being discussed. We are not aiming just to help the students memorize facts and processes, but encouraging deeper thought and inspiration to consider the world on a much larger basis, helping them to find, access and use relevant information in ways that are meaningful to them.

This is how we encourage students to become ‘lifelong learners’, to have a mind set and the skills necessary to continue making sense of a changing and unpredictable world long into the future. By using agency, we can encourage creativity and connection and allow for learning that comes from deep within the students’ strengths and passions. This will last long after the words and facts taught by traditional teaching will have faded and become obsolete. Students with agency and ability to be self-inspired and self-directed will continue to be those who are capable of rising to the challenges of an unknown future.