Whenever I see freshly baked egg tarts at a bakery window, I can’t resist. My body takes on a will of its own, and I find myself handing over five Hong Kong dollars in exchange for a warm (sweet, flaky, delicious) treat in a little plastic bag. To me, egg tarts represent many things — not only fond childhood memories, but concepts that are important to me in my educational philosophy: 1. Cross-cultural appreciation. The melding of British and Chinese culinary cultures and knowledge that led to the birth of the egg tart in Hong Kong. 2. Individuality. The egg tarts at each bakery are different. Although at first glance, to the uninitiated, egg tarts are simply round yellow bakery products, it is undeniable that the art and craft of each baker leads to their own signature combination of flavour, aroma, textures. 3. Depth of understanding. Layers. Just like the French croissant, the Chinese puff pastry dough must be folded and rolled many times, requiring experience and a fine touch to ensure it will bake into flakiness. 4. The beauty of simplicity and persistent hard work. The hard work of the bakers who get up early every morning to prepare the dough and create hundreds of tarts and other baked goods. That’s why the IB is my curriculum. Especially in a post-ChatGPT world where it is more vital than ever that students gain deep transferable understanding and learn autonomous thinking, concept-based and inquiry-based learning and teaching are inalienable parts of modern education. As a former Deputy IB coordinator in a small school, and now English and TOK teacher on the much larger platform of ESF, I have had the opportunity to engage with the IB in many different ways over the years, including being TOK coordinator, and designing and implementing an IB Core subject based around the MYP Community Project. And I have even come to realise I enjoy teaching TOK even more than teaching English. There is a reason every IB subject guide and IB workshop begins with an introduction of the programme model, including the IB core, ATTs and ATLs, the learner portfolio, and international mindedness: teaching the skill of thinking clearly, and cultivating the whole individual, is just as important as the academic subjects. Concurrently, coaching Team Hong Kong for the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships has been one of the most rewarding teaching experiences in the past two years. This opportunity came as a result of my track record of building competitive teams at two separate schools – I currently supervise a roster of over 50 debaters in the debating club of my current school. In fact, “Egg tart” was one of the prompts I gave my debating club students for impromptu speaking recently. Among my greatest joys as an educator are the experiences of personally cultivating talented individuals to success. Outside of teaching international mindedness and the learner profile attributes of ‘caring’ and ‘open-mindedness’, I am a Director at Effective Altruism Hong Kong, a non-profit that helps individuals and organisations maximise their impact in philanthropy and charity given our limited resources. At the end of the day, I am an IB student, not just an IB teacher. A baker of egg tarts, not just a consumer.