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During my time as a senior administrator at an international school, the school offered a curriculum for primary classes from grade one to six, secondary students from years 7 to 12, and an additional year 13, which was equivalent to the first year of tertiary education. This school was home to people from around 80 nationalities, including students, teachers, administrators, and support staff.
It was not long after my arrival that I noticed something remarkable. The secondary students in years 7 to 10 exhibited a very high level of social, emotional, and intellectual maturity. As such, I immediately became deeply curious about what was contributing to this exceptional level of intellectual and social development.
In my role as supervisor of students and teachers, I had the opportunity to conduct a qualitative empirical study. My responsibilities included monitoring students’ academic performance and social behaviour from years 7 to 10, as well as regularly evaluating teachers. This involved attending classes and observing teachers and students during their lessons.
From my observations, I soon discovered what appeared to be a number of key factors in the extraordinary maturity of these secondary students. Explicit teaching was taking place, and the majority of students were totally immersed and engaged in their studies.
There was also the unexpected educational administrative feature at the school that I could only describe as astonishing.
From year 7 to year 10, students participated in a weekly exam that assessed the material covered in the previous week. The structure of these weekly exams consisted of true-or-false and multiple-choice questions.
From my observations, there were no signs of anxiety, protests, or opposition from students or parents. No parent, for example, ever kept their child home on exam days. The students, teachers, and parents did not view these weekly exams as an imposition; they viewed them as essential ongoing progressions that continually advanced educational potential.
The results of these weekly exams were systematically analysed and transparently reported in detail to the director, school supervisors, teachers, and students. This data-driven approach allowed all stakeholders to effectively monitor academic progress. The pass mark for these weekly exams was set at 50 percent. Any student who did not meet this benchmark was brought to my attention.
With this outcome in place, my role involved meeting with these students, their parents, and teachers to analyze the exam results. The purpose was to identify challenges and develop tailored strategies to support each student’s ongoing learning potential.
Part of this strategy included the requirement to attend daily, after-school study sessions. To my great surprise, this involved student peer teaching. Teachers supervised these after-school lessons; however, peers also assisted with the teaching and supporting these “struggling” students.
I regularly enquired with these peers about their participation. Their involvement was voluntary. I asked why they chose to do this. All stated that they were gaining additional meaningful insights into each subject by teaching and helping their peers.
This response brought to mind an anonymous quote: “We remember 10% of what we read. We remember 20% of what we hear. We remember 30% of what we see. We remember 50% of what we see and hear. We remember 70% of what we discuss. We remember 80% of what we experience. We remember 95% of what we teach.”
Another unexpected aspect of the school’s educational system was the requirement that students who had failed their weekly test (with a pass mark being 50 percent) must attend a 30-minute catch-up test on Saturday covering the same subject matter. The only difference was that the passing mark for this catch-up test was set at 80 percent.
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If (during this time) a student did not achieve this 80 percent passing mark or higher, they were required to retake the examination until it was achieved. And it was achieved. One student took four attempts, but this was the exception.
During my regular administrative discussions, I often asked students, parents, and teachers for their views on these weekly exams; the after-school study lessons; and the Saturday exam, with a pass mark of 80 percent. The response was overwhelmingly positive. All stated that these strategies helped to consolidate and improve their ongoing learning potential.
All of this reminded me of the quote by President John F. Kennedy: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
In relation to this statement, I believe that this entire moon-landing mission would have been and was driven by an emphasis on competence and a merit-based pursuit of excellence (for everyone and everything), as noted by the following statement by President Kennedy: “[This] goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
As such, it was my hypothesis then, which still remains in place, that all NASA-selected team members would have undergone rigorous selection to ensure that all chosen team members were selected based on their skills and knowledge (across all required disciplines).
The purpose of which, of course, was to ensure that NASA could achieve absolute operational excellence. Which, of course, is precisely what took place (Ericsson, 2008; Gajda et al., 2017; Salas et al., 2012; Schneider et al., 2013).
Regarding student education, I was also reminded of Glasser’s (1986) research. Glasser points out that even with the best teaching strategies in place, learning and achievements cannot be guaranteed. Glasser points out that a student’s intrinsic motivation and personal attitude have the most significant influence on what the student accomplishes.
By examining and reporting on student behaviour and attitude in relation to their learning outcomes, Glasser (1986) acknowledges that “[w]hile there is no doubt that some teachers are more skillful at motivating than others, there is no teacher, no matter how skilled, who can teach a student who does not want to learn.” To which Woolfolk (1998) adds: the “responsibility and the ability to learn [remains] within the student, [no one can actually] learn for someone else.”
As such, if learning is to ever take place, it is the student who must decide they want to learn. As noted in Responsibility Theory, it is the student who is responsible for and has the power over what they think, do, say, choose, and learn (Purje, 2014). As noted, these students, at this international school, wanted to learn.
This desire and action led to consistently high levels of skill and knowledge and to the presentation of social, emotional, and intellectual maturity. Yes, indeed, reaching for the stars and continually applying universal principles of excellence is what matters. “We choose … not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills” (JFK).
