Engaging the IB in Christian COntexts

For many years, thousands of International Baccalaureat students around the world have turned to ‘Codrington’s Geography’ as their key source of information.  It is a remarkable thing to realize, then, that the emergence of two books in the series represent volumes 60 and 61 in the opus of Dr Stephen Codrington’s works. As Alphacrucis College’s Director of School Governance and Leadership Development, Stephen is undoubtedly a world leading educator with (through the IB network) a global impact.

​Our Changing Planet (a 336 page book) covers the three core themes of IB Geography that every student studying the course must undertake – ‘changing population’, ‘climate change’, and ‘global resource consumption and security’.  

The EBook version of Our Changing Planet, which will be used around the world by IB students.

The 320 page Our Connected Planet extends this to cover the three core topic areas of the Higher Level Extension of the same course – ‘power, places and networks’, human development and diversity’ and ‘global risks and resilience’.

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program began in 1968, initially as a matriculation credential for internationally mobile families.  In the subsequent 52 years it has grown to become the world’s most widely recognised and highly regarded program for university acceptances, and is now taught in more than 3,000 schools world-wide.  

Stephen has been involved with the IB for more than 30 years as a Head of School, classroom teacher, Deputy Chief Examiner, school accreditation officer and parent.  In 2014, he was appointed as an IB Ambassador in recognition of his contributions to IB.
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​Stephen has been writing books for IB Geography since 2002, and his books are currently being used in 92 countries (that he is aware of – there may be more). 

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These two new books are based in large part on Stephen’s own field research, and are thus extensively illustrated with hundreds of his own photos.  E-book digital versions have also been published through Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0849YKLVN/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0849MPPDL/).  

As part of his work at Alphacrucis College, Stephen engages with the dozens of Christian schools across the Asia-Pacific region that teach IB programs.  These schools have common needs: often they have turned to IB as a mechanism for providing both better curriculum options than is sometimes available in their national jurisdictions. The parents and guardians of children in these schools also appreciate the mobility and international recognition of the IB awards,  enabling students to move readily to some of the most prestigious universities and centres of learning around the world. 

While solving resource and mobility problems, however, these schools are also left with the problem of connecting the IB to their core Christian Mission. Christian schools often find that there can be particular—though not insurmountable -- challenges teaching their IB programs within an authentic Christian perspective. An innovator in the area of critical thinking pedagogy, Dr Codrington is thus exploring with a number of schools the value which might lie in establishing a network through which ideas can be shared about integrating Christian perspectives into IB teaching.  

As a practical and helpful response to such challenges, Alphacrucis College is offering to help Christian Schools which teach IB programs share ideas and expertise. Programs proposed will commence with a website for encouraging discussion and sharing resources, and may extend to support for cooperative meetings, workshops and conferences.

Schools that are interested in this initiative are invited to contact Dr. Codrington at [email protected].