What It Means to Be an Active Learner: How the International Baccalaureate Program Encourages Action
by Alice Baird

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English teacher and ninth-grade advisor Kathy Adamee:
"The most exciting time in my teaching career."


Knowledge, like money, is not something merely to accumulate. It is something to use. Through our International Knowledge, like money, is not something merely to accumulate. It is something to use. Through our International Baccalaureate programs in grades primer – 12, our students are learning to put their knowledge to good use. Baccalaureate programs in grades primer – 12, our students are learning to put their knowledge to good use.

In keeping with our Episcopal tradition, we have always recognized that knowledge is not the end product of a CCES education. Rather it is what our students do with the knowledge they gain—to change themselves and those around them—that is important. That is the reason we offer a Christian education, why we teach and model values in and out of the classroom, and why we incorporate service learning into our students’ experience.

In the Lower School: Making Action More Intentional
Commenting on the way the International Baccalaureate (IB) programs have encouraged action as a byproduct of knowledge, Lower School Director Denise Pearsall explained, “We have always taught our students how to care for others and how to take action. But the IB Primary Years Program (PYP) has helped us to make it more intentional.”

According to the PYP philosophy, “international education must extend beyond intellectual attainment to include not only responsible attitudes but also thoughtful and appropriate action.” Students—and faculty—are encouraged to reflect on what they have learned, to choose how this knowledge will change them, and to act on their newly acquired learning.

“The emphasis,” added PYP Coordinator Terri Garvin, “is not on grandiose service projects, it’s on individual action. One of the key concept questions built into every unit of inquiry is, What is my responsibility? What the IB does for children is to empower them to feel that they can make a difference.”

“We know it’s working when our parents come in and say, ‘My child learned about composting in his class, and he wants us to start a compost pile at home,’” said Mrs. Pearsall.

Most often, students feel empowered to take simple actions. A case in point occurred after Brenda Mulliken’s primer class read The Sunflower House by Eve Bunting. The children asked if they could plant sunflower seeds in the Primer Garden so that they could have a sunflower house too. (Answer: Yes.)

Miss Valerie and a group of fourth-graders pick up the
meals that they will deliver to the needy and homebound
on "the CCES route."

But simple actions can also be profound, noted Lower School Chaplain Valerie Riddle. “The IB gave us added impetus to change our community service focus from raising money for things our children had no connection with, to doing service from the heart,” she said. Lower School students return from their trips for Meals-on- Wheels or A Child’s Haven and reflect on what they can do to make life better for the people they have encountered. This may lead them to action involving their families, their Scout troop, or their youth group at church.

"The Most Exciting Time in My Teaching Career"
Together, they have 46 years of teaching experience. Yet both Middle School Director John Walter and Upper School English teacher Kathy Adamee, both of whom serve as coordinators of the IB Middle Years Program (MYP) in grades 5 – 10, claim that this is “the most exciting time in my teaching career.”

The reason? Both credit the changes that the IB program has brought about in the classroom and in their students.

“IB pushes kids to think more about the issues and what they can do about them,” noted Mr. Walter. A case in point was the sixth-grade animal notecard project a few years ago. Every year students in Alice Munn’s art classes create wonderful animal portraits in conjunction with their classroom studies, but in 2003 the sixth-graders came up with the idea of printing their artwork as notecards and selling them to support Friends of the Reedy River.

According to Mrs. Adamee, “Because of the IB program there’s more openness in the classroom today, more critical thinking, more attention paid to the choices students make in their own lives. We have a more tolerant, internationally minded student body. There is a greater sense that we are all in this together, whether ‘we’ is the classroom, the community, or the world.

“Helping students discover their roles in serving the community early in their school careers not only contributes to a lifetime of public service—it also contributes to developing students who are more tolerant, more compassionate, more receptive to the views of others, and more willing to work collaboratively as team members to examine and solve the real issues facing their world today,” reflects Mrs. Adamee.

“Just as they recognize that people of all cultures will have to work together to solve the problems of these
extraordinary times, they also realize that solutions to such diffi cult problems will require insights from a combination of disciplines, and that if they are truly to have an impact on the complex issues of their world, they will have to look to several sources of knowledge to find the answers.”


Sophomores discuss what they learned from their MYP
Personal Project. The two students offered an after-school
art program at Earle St. Baptist Church in Greenville.

The MYP Personal Project, a yearlong, independent project required of all tenth-graders, gives students the opportunity to study a subject they can be passionate about. While the Personal Project includes a research component, many students also use it as an opportunity to take learning risks— and to take action—in new areas. Two CCES students teamed up to offer an after-school arts and crafts program at Earle St. Baptist Church in Greenville but didn’t stop there. They also did some thoughtful research about the social problem of unsupervised children in the “danger zone” hours between 3 – 6 p.m.

Mrs. Adamee points to many Personal Projects where students were not content merely to conduct an academic investigation. “Hannah Wheeler ’08 and her family are building a boat in the family’s garage, a project that would have been excellent for a yearlong study,” she noted. Yet Hannah wanted to do something for others. When she learned that Claire Johnson ’08 had two sisters living in Bangladesh and volunteering with the street children there, they teamed up to learn more about the street children and what they could do to improve their lives. The students, working with the ABC School in Bangladesh, are now heading up a community drive to collect vitamins and hygiene articles for the street children there.

Another favorite project took place last year, when Holtie Murphy ’07 incorporated her love of horses into a project entitled “In the Irons: Helping Disabled Children Through Therapeutic Riding.” This year Caroline Sartain ’08 organized a drive in the Middle School to collect supplies for Concerned Citizens for Animals, and Jen Kotrady ’08 created a pamphlet about dyslexia that she is distributing through doctors’ offi ces and other organizations in Greenville.

Students in the IB Diploma Program (grades 11 -12) are also required to perform community service as part of their Community, Service and Action (CAS) requirement. This year’s juniors have been volunteering to read to youngsters at several area child care facilities through the Lapsits for Literacy program. In addition, many seniors incorporate action and service into their Senior Theses.

Is It IB, or Is It Who We Are
Perhaps we could argue whether it is our IB programs, our numerous Community Service initiatives, or our longstanding Episcopal tradition that have inspired more and more of our students to take the knowledge they have gained and put it into action. According to Senior Chaplain Richard Grimball, “The IB fits nicely with our Episcopal tradition, not the other way around.”

Whatever the impetus, it is wonderful to see our students in action.

Author's Note:
Alice Baird is CCES Director of Communications & Marketing. She also serves as editor-in-chief of this website.