What Does It Mean to Learn at GSB?
We talk about learning every day at school, but what do we actually mean when we say that someone has learned something? Peter Senge's work on learning organizations challenges us to think about learning as something much bigger than acquiring knowledge. A true learning organization is a place where people continually expand their ability to create meaningful results, develop new ways of thinking, build a shared vision, and learn together. Learning happens when an experience changes us.
This matters enormously for how we think about students at GSB. We want children to acquire strong knowledge and academic skills, of course, but we also want them to become (in the IB parlance) thinkers, questioners, problem-solvers, collaborators, and reflective learners. We should expect them to encounter things they cannot immediately do. We should expect productive struggle. A child who changes their approach after receiving feedback is learning. A student who realizes their first solution doesn't work and tries another is learning. A student who listens to someone with a different perspective and says, “I hadn't thought about it that way,” is learning. Success isn't always getting it right the first time; oftentimes the most important learning begins when we don't.
The same expectations must apply to teachers and leaders. We cannot ask students to be curious, reflective, open-minded risk-takers while the adults operate in a culture where everyone is expected to already have the answers. Senge describes team learning as developing a group's capacity to create the results its members genuinely want, emphasizing dialogue, deep listening, and the suspension of one's own views long enough to understand another perspective. This is no easy feat! At GSB, we expect our educators to collaborate, share expertise, examine student learning together, seek feedback, and change course when evidence tells us something isn't working. “We've always done it this way” cannot be the end of a conversation in a dynamic learning organization.
And finally, this definition of learning includes families. Schools are complex systems, and Senge's systems thinking reminds us that what happens in one part of an organization affects other parts, often in ways that aren't immediately obvious. He asks us to move beyond simple cause-and-effect explanations and instead look for relationships, patterns, and the larger system in which a problem exists. That requires all stakeholders to approach challenges with curiosity rather than immediately assigning blame. Instead of beginning with “Whose fault is this?”, we can ask, “What is happening here? What might we not yet understand? What can each of us contribute to making it better?”
Perhaps the most powerful implication for GSB is that learning cannot belong only to children! If we want to call ourselves a learning community, then everyone in it must be a learner. Our students should see their teachers learning. Our teachers should see school leaders learning. Our families should know that the school itself is capable of reflection and change. Senge ultimately challenges the traditional (read: old fashioned!) idea of the leader as the person who has all the answers, suggesting instead that leadership involves designing the conditions in which collective learning can happen.
That is the kind of school culture we want to continue building at GSB: one where knowing matters, but curiosity matters too; where high expectations coexist with permission to make mistakes; where reflection leads to action; and where learning is something we pursue together.
Melissa Bourgeois, Head of School
