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Carolyn P. Henly - learner profile

Find out more about Carolyn P. Henly , her life, her hobbies and passions!

Carrie is the author of Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma, English Literature for the IB Diploma, series editor of English Language and Literature, Literary and Textual analysis for the IB Diploma.

This is one of my strongest learner profile traits: I have loved learning new things all my life. I read extensively—more than 100 books a year

Throughout my teaching career I made sure to keep developing my craft by attending workshops and conferences and I kept revising my curricula every year in order to improve the experience for my students.
Now that I have retired, I have continued to learn new things about teaching and I have taken up some new projects, including learning the violin, learning to paint, and learning to crochet. Lifelong learning is what keeps life interesting!

Having the opportunity to teach Theory of Knowledge for 20 years meant that I necessarily had to expand my knowledge well beyond what I had when I first started teaching.

I had university degrees in Linguistics and Secondary Education, along with the equivalent of a degree in literature, but for TOK I had to start learning an enormous amount about mathematics, science, human science, history, and the other arts.
My husband and I run a butterfly census and participate in a Citizen Science project through Cornell University tracking bird populations in our area, so I continue to develop my knowledge. I figure there is no such thing as too much knowledge!

Most people who know me would probably say that one of my defining traits

is the way that I approach the world from a highly rational thinking perspective, much more than from an emotional or intuitive one.
You can convince me to agree to something much faster by appealing to my thinking brain than you can by appealing to my feelings.

I spent my adult life in a career dedicated to helping people improve their communication skills: the teaching of English, including literature, writing, and speaking.

I had the very good fortune, while in high school, to have been taught how to write very well, and, when I went to university, I discovered that that skill was much less rare than I had previously believed. I learned very fast the great value to me of the skill my high school teachers had given me. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how much you know: if you can’t communicate it, no one can appreciate it. I deliberately chose teaching as a way of paying that gift forward.

I am principled, I would say, in a sort of old-fashioned way, which says that one must do what is right because it is right, regardless of whether anyone else is watching or will ever know.

I try, though I do not always succeed, to live my life by asking myself, before I decide to do something: ‘Would I be embarrassed if others knew I was doing this?’
I also do my best to live up to agreements. I always think that rules do, indeed, apply to me, just as much as they apply to anyone else. I try to take definite actions in order to help solve problems such as ensuring fair access to elections for all citizens, improving the environment and doing something to stop global warming.

I was born in a part of the world in which open-mindedness was, and is, highly valued: the San Francisco bay area.

My parents always made it clear that other people—no matter how different from me—were to be considered my equal in every way and that I was not to make judgements based on appearance or traditions or beliefs which differed from mine. Probably this early experience is part of what drew me to the IB programme with its expressly stated value for open-mindedness and the belief, stated in the IB mission statement, that ‘…others with their differences can also be right.’

I care about fairness, integrity, and striving for excellence

I love books, music, and cats, and I have been married for 31 years to a man I dated for 7 years before that.

I have taken on several new risks in the last year since I retired from classroom teaching:

I have undertaking co-writing and editing several books for Hodder Education and I have undertaken the job of writing two new workshops for the upcoming Theory of Knowledge curriculum.
I have also taken up learning how to play the violin and how to crochet, though I cannot say that great progress has been made in those endeavors just yet!

or most IB teachers, balance is one of the most difficult of the learner profile traits to achieve,

because we put so much time and energy into our commitment to delivering the IB curriculum for our students as it ought to be delivered.
I have been involved in many projects related to the IB programme since retiring —including writing and editing books and giving teacher training workshops—and I have not had a lot of time to balance out my life with many other activities. Still: I make an effort with reading, running a butterfly census, watching baseball and curling, geocaching.

I can be reflective to a fault

I am my own worst critic!

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Carolyn P. Henly - learner profile

Carolyn P. Henly - learner profile