The Overseas Filipino Educator by Elmer R

I enjoy going to a yoga class, particularly if I am facing the beach of Boracay or overlooking the bustling city of Bangkok. For some strange personal reason, both scenes gives me a sense of peace, belongingness and gratitude for being part of this mindful community.

Despite my practice, as an adult, I sometimes catch myself being a yoga snub because I am very particular about the quality of teaching and the environment the yoga teacher creates for the next 90 minutes of the class. I look for certain qualities in my yoga class, like:

purpose of selected postures ('asanas'),
flow of the class,
teacher's voice,
support in achieving a better alignment,
permission to express, at the beginning of class what we wanted the practice to focus on,
the permission to explore variations, to challenge ourselves further during the practice, and
permission to rest and rejoin the class when ready.

It sounds like a classroom scenario, isn't it?

Again, as a (paying) adult, if I don't find the class satisfactory, I would be hesitant or will refrain from attending future classes with the teacher.

Now, imagine if students can do this with their teachers.
How will we, educators, respond if our students are to walk out on us OR not return to our classrooms if we are not doing a good job?

As I mentioned earlier, I appreciate it when my yoga teacher gives us the permission to explore, challenge, rest and rejoin the class during our practice. Experiencing permission on the yoga mat, made me think, connect and wonder:

How much permission does our teachers, school policies, community, and daily teaching and learning practices provide our learners to develop student agency: ownership, voice and choice?

Student agency has recently become a movement among the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP) community. It has raised significant, relevant, engaging and challenging discussions and collaboration across regions. However, I wonder how much permission should we surrender from our curriculum standards, school policies or even our own authority for student agency to be an authentic reality?

'To give permission to something means to surrender another thing.'
Nicole Honasan (yoga teacher, Boracay, Philippines)

This positive change is very exciting as it leads to a higher awareness of empowering and celebrating our students to become change agents. It will take some time and it will come with a price (permission - surrender). Let's not forget that we must give ourselves the permission to fail along this journey, for this will allow us to reflect and become a better version of ourselves.

My one thought of recommendation is to perhaps use Ron Richhart's '8 Cultural Forces that define our classroom' as a guide to evaluate the readiness teachers/schools for student agency.

My yoga teachers often reminds us in class to often to connect with the breath, firmly ground ourselves and listen to every part of your body for its readiness to achieve our intentions in the practice. These lessons from the mat guides me to reflect how we could fully achieve change, student agency in our schools, we need to keep calm, be principled and don't forget to listen to those who will be affected.

Namaste!

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