A journey through affective skills, the IB Learner Profile and a lot of critical thinking at Luanda International School

Sónia Montgomery and Rita Pinto, MYP & DP Language & Literature Teachers at Luanda International School, take a look at the importance of positive and critical thinking and how it develops a student's 'affective skills'.

Ordinary schools focus on knowledge. Extraordinary ones add affective skills to the equation. But what are these? Affective skills are part of the ATL (Approaches to Learning) skills explicitly taught in IB schools and relate to attitudes that students need to learn in order to be effective in their personal and academic lives. Being able to persevere, practise positive thinking and to find strategies to overcome obstacles are a few of these attitudes.

Language & Literature teachers Sónia Montgomery and Rita Pinto from Luanda International School in Angola thought of creative ways of directing students to make connections between the novella they were reading in class, a guest speaker’s experience with refugees and the students’ personal lives. To start the lesson, the school counsellor, Shane McCann, was invited to share a practice of mindful breathing. This ties in nicely with the affective skills needed to reduce stress and anxiety.

Throughout the lesson, meaningful connections between affective skills and the novella were made through a listening exercise, quotes and guided discussions. This allowed students to critically think about the protagonist’s (a mediaeval knight) choices when faced with severe challenges ahead. As the knight proceeded along his journey, the class followed his footsteps and thoughts, whilst discussing wise choices that would allow the character to move forward.

Through this physical and psychological journey, students were able to realise that throughout life there are many obstacles and choices to be made. Just in the same way that the forest the knight had to cross to get home was a maze of paths and pitfalls. To give students a more current global context perspective, a guest speaker, Constância Quitério, was invited to talk about her experience with refugees. Through her presentation, students were made aware of other kinds of hurdles and how important positive thinking, perseverance, resilience and concentration are to help find effective strategies. What kind of IB Learner Profile attributes did the knight and these refugees show? Many hands up to answer: “Thinkers”, “Open minded”, “Risk takers”, “Balanced” with a myriad of explanations and insight!

Through the explicit teaching of affective skills, the students understand that the attitudes that pushed the knight forward to successfully arrive home are identical to the ones real life refugees have to employ to survive in dire situations. The skills are similar to the ones students need to develop to be successful. The notion that literature, a real world context and their own identities are all connected has strengthened the students’ international mindedness, their understanding of the importance of a positive mind, and the already embedded idea that the inner and the outer worlds are interconnected.