Learning From Captain Sully

Learning From Captain Sully

Many of us know the story of the US Airways pilot, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, depicted in the film Sully:Miracle on the Hudson. Captain Sully was forced to take matters into his own hands after an unexpected catastrophe disabled his aircraft’s engines. He saved the lives of all his passengers by skillfully landing his plane on the Hudson river. However, instead of lauding his actions, a defiant air transportation authority claimed he was in error, and he was forced to prove his actions were justified in a court of law.

I share this not to offer a movie review, but because I have found some striking similarities between Captain Sully and my own recent experience as Head of an international school. As we headed into the spring of 2020, I was trying to “land” a school year filled with a graduating class whose futures were at risk because of an unexpected catastrophe named Covid-19. And the authority I expected to be my advocate and partner in such a dire circumstance, the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), instead became an entity creating a twindemic.

Covid-19 was our equivalent of Sully’s bird-strike. My “crew” responded like true professionals, keeping our students and families calm while providing an exceptional learning program to continue preparing our soon-to-be graduates for the IB exam that would determine college acceptances for many of them. Our students responded in kind with grit and determination.

 However, on 23 March the IBO announced that May 2020 exams would not be held “based on compassion for our students and teachers and, fairness for the difficult circumstances our students and educators are experiencing.” As the “pilot” of my school, this was akin to the air traffic controller telling me that they were closing down all airports in the area. My student passengers had heard this alarming news through their social media networks before I knew of it, given that the IB’s communication snafu led Facebook to be the go-to source for information rather than the Head of School. 

 One student summed up what they all were feeling: “We’ve been running a marathon for the past two years and the end is in sight. We don’t want to be told the race has been cancelled but don’t worry, you’ll get your medals.” I experienced “radio static” when calling the IBO for assistance, and our school was denied the use of the IB exams that had already been prepared and paid for. We were instead promised IB scores based on a mystery algorithm that was untested and did not offer our students the anticipated rite of passage of completing the exam experience that was to be their “finish line” to a hard-fought race over the past two years. 

 After consulting the school’s “crew” and community, we decided to land the plane ourselves, creating our own assessment experience. It also included the option for a creative culminating project to replace some of the exams. Our teachers and administrators bent over backwards to provide a challenging and meaningful experience that was fitting for the culmination of two years of learning. Yes, this option may have been landing on a river instead of a runway, but the elation among those on our “plane” at learning of our intention was worth the effort.

However, I found, as Sully did, that even after we had “landed,” the story was far from over. The IBO lauded the success of the class of 2020, stating that universities were looking forward to welcoming the class to their institutions in the fall and the IB “bell curve” of results had been maintained. 

 But the truth was that the IB’s mystery algorithm failed. Student results across the world were not matching up with teachers’ well-calculated predictions and historical school trends. Teachers who were principal examiners had the grades they assigned lowered as well. Within a few days, a petition to review the grades from “pilots” and “passengers” alike had amassed 25,000 signatures. 

Despite the chatter on social media condemning the situation, there was radio silence from the IBO for the next ten days. Then, after constant prodding from schools, a new review process was announced. There was an acknowledgement that some school results may not have been what they had expected. Schools could now ask for a review of the results at the individual level, the subject level, and the whole school level. The required data (almost all of which the IB had provided to schools in previous sessions) had to be submitted within a three-week window back to the IBO. In our school’s individual case, this was more than 40 student scores contested with multiple courses per student, 28 subjects, as well as a school-wide appeal to be drafted. The IBO was also overwhelmed with over 700 other schools needing a second review of results.

 After an extraordinary number of hours spent by our team drafting and submitting appeals, more weeks went by without a word. Then we learned the IBO had changed its course and was presenting a new process in which the Internal Assessment and predicted grades would undergo a macro adjustment based on new criteria. While this was helpful to many, it was certainly not a panacea for all. 

I suppose the IBO’s action could be seen as the rescue boats coming to take passengers off the wings of the aircraft floating in the river. Similar efforts were being made by the Scottish and British authorities, which had quickly decided to honor teacher predictions. This response of those authorities allowed those students to still “make their connections” to their chosen universities. Unfortunately, unlike the response of the UK educational authorities, the IBO offered too little too late. In addition, the ensuing delay caused countless students around the world to lose offers to universities. In short, the belated IBO rescue effort actually led to the only casualties in this sad story. 

 Let me be clear. I have made mistakes in my tenure as a leader as well. But I expect the same of the IBO as I would of myself: to be accountable for my actions, apologize for my mistakes and be solution-focused moving forward. We need to come together as “pilots” and learn from our “black boxes” that hold the keys to what can be learned from this experience. This can only occur if the IBO begins this process with the humility to accept responsibility for what went wrong and listen intently to the “pilots” who, like Sully, have professional instincts that can help the IBO make this unfortunate series of events a learning experience rather than a misfortune to be forgotten, or worse, repeated. I expect that collectively we can restore the luster of an IB Diploma and personally am ready to contribute in any way to develop future solutions.