When in the 1960s the world's first international school turned to designing an international curriculum (which would become the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme - IBDP) there were, of course, a number of educational traditions to draw upon. The whole culture of outdoor learning came from the United World Colleges of the Atlantic movement, led by Kurt Hahn (who was also behind the setting up of Gordonstoun and the Round Square movement). This is what led to Creativity Activity Service being a core part of the Diploma. Then there was the debate between the English tradition of depth and the American and continental approach of breadth. In the end, one of the reasons why the IBDP is so rigorous is because, essentially, both are engaged: students study across a range of subjects as they do in the French Baccalaureate, Matura and liberal arts systems but three of those subjects are studied in great depth, akin to the standard found in A-levels.
Then there was the question of philosophy. Should this be a compulsory subject? There was, and continues to be, a strong tradition of philosophy in Latinate European countries such as France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Philosophy has always been a core part of the curriculum in Greece. As the IBDP was developed through a series of conferences chaired by the International Schools Association and the International School of Geneva, members of the French Ministry of education who were part of those working groups, insisted that philosophy be part of the curriculum, the argument being that any well educated person must have studied philosophy and must have some grasp of the great ethical, logical, aesthetical and metaphysical questions of the human condition.
Eventually philosophy did enter the IBDP in the form of the course of Theory of Knowledge (ToK). This coincided, and by no accident, with the creation of the chair of the History of Systems of Thought at the College de France, first occupied by the polemical and dazzling philosopher Michel Foucault: the late 1960s were a time when philosophical inquiry was at its mainstream height in France. ToK is essentially epistemology, a subset of philosophy which deals with particularly conceptual questions about the manner in which knowledge is created and distributed. ToK remains an important part of the IBDP today1.
While it is important to understand the introduction of ToK in the IBDP as the influence of a certain cultural tradition, it is equally important to understand that philosophy was considered a fundamental part of the learning experience at the International School of Geneva (or Ecolint) and had been since its earliest days. There can be little doubt that the strong tradition of philosophy at Ecolint served to influence the introduction of ToK in the IBDP, a thought system focussed on critical thinking. That spirit of critical thinking animated the classes of international education pioneers no matter their discipline. A notable example was Robert Leach, who famously provoked his students to take a critical stance in his history lessons. Not only were the founders of the school and first pedagogues well versed in the classics and in philosophy, some having studied directly under famous phenomenologists and ethicists; one of the school’s greatest teachers carried the tradition to poignant heights. She was Jeanne Hersch.
Jeanne Hersch
Hersch studied under the great Swiss philosopher Karl Jaspers, an existentialist who, although drawing from from Nietzsche, elaborated a thought system of transcendence, focused on how human beings can find a path of illumination and inner salvation without rejecting the moral parameters that keep responsible for other people and our role in human society. After the horrors of WW2 and a deeply misguided, cynical Nazification of Nietsche’s thought, doctrines of transcendence were dangerous, and Jaspers elaborated a response which, in the end, was closer to the work of Kierkegaard.
Hersch, a great philosopher in her own right, taught philosophy, along with French and Latin, at the International School of Geneva for over 20 years, creating in her classrooms an atmosphere of critical thinking and critical inquiry. Hersch went on to be one of the first women to hold a professorship in philosophy at the University of Geneva (many of the early Ecolint teachers also worked at the University) and she was the first director of UNESCO’s philosophy division.
The importance of philosophical inquiry
Given the premise of international education was to offer young people an education that would have them consider the world from multiple cultural perspectives while questioning the wisdom of war and given that the spirit of inquiry, heavily influenced by Rousseau's ideas on independent thought, characterised the type of interactions and work that student did in the early days, it is not surprising that philosophy stood at the centre of much of the school’s activity.
Today, 100 years later, independent thought is possibly even more important than it was then, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence and algorithm-fed social media which leads thought down a recursive and tautological rabbit hole, feeding on bias and preference rather than risk-taking and reflection about the unknown. Indeed, philosophy or at least Theory of Knowledge, is a vitally important course for students to take, to question, to critique, to surmise and to rethink.
At Ecolint we have introduced philosophy for children for all Primary students across our schools as a means of reinforcing this spirit of inquiry so necessary for discernment. That ToK remains a central part of the IBDP is of essential importance and something that other school examination boards should consider. Socrates once said “the unexamined life is not worth living”. That might be a bit too strong, but a life examined is surely richer than one led mindlessly.
1To read more about this, see Ian Hill’s detailed account (Hill, Ian. (2002). The Beginnings of the International Education Movement; Part IV; The Birth of the IB Diploma. International Schools Journal).