Alexander Duncan Campbell Peterson OBE (13 September 1908 – 17 October 1988) was a British teacher and headmaster, greatly responsible for the birth of the International Baccalaureate educational system.
He played an important role in South-East Asia, and was largely responsible for the Indian Forward Broadcasting Unit, which was very successful in the Burma campaign.
[7] In 1962, Peterson's connections with the military (he had served in Lord Mountbatten of Burma's staff) and his acquaintance with Kurt Hahn earned him a job planning an academic curriculum for the future students of the newly founded Atlantic College in Wales.
In his 1960 report Arts and Science Sides in the Sixth Form, he vocally described the need for a new kind of educational system, essentially very similar to what the IB Diploma Programme eventually was to become.
He felt the very purpose of education to be, to stimulate the mind and encourage critical thought, rather than focussing on simple memorisation of detail.
His views are reflected in the structure of the IB Diploma Programme, in the way that it incorporates elements such as the Extended Essay, the CAS programme, and Theory of Knowledge: the student is required to do independent research, to participate in meaningful tasks outside the immediate school community to benefit society, and to develop a concrete image on the nature of knowledge that he comes across in his studies.
Despite his assumption of the task of IBO director-general as only a part-time job, Peterson was very productive in advancing the cause of the International Baccalaureate.
Until the morning of his death (when I had from him two manuscript letters and the copy of a draft speech) he was interested in the introduction of new subjects and new ideas in the IB.