International Baccalaureate Primary Years Prog?

[Mirzam]

Anyone have a child that goes to a school that does this? I would love your thoughts both good and bad. DS's school is looking into this.

Many thanks

[IlluminatedAttic]

I'm a homeschooler myself but one of my best friends sends her two sons to a school which follows this program. They are in 1st and 4th grade and both started at the school in summer pre-K programs. My friend and her dh have been very, very happy with the program. She is a former college professor and they both have advanced degrees. A traditional/classical education is highly valued by them and they researched many schools before deciding on this one.

The boys are assigned lots of projects/extensions for what they are learning in class (at least one a month which are in-depth enough to require some time dedicated to completing them every weekend) and I have often been pleasantly surprised by the elements of creativity that are a required part of these projects. They also seem to do a lot of independent and group projects during class time which seems to me to have enabled both boys, one of which went into school 'advanced' for his age and one a bit 'delayed' and who have very different learning styles, to progress and excel. I myself do baulk at the amount of homework they have, even in kindergarten, but this is not unusual for even the public schools in the area where they live. I also find it positive that the school employs multiple avenues for learning certain elements. For instance both phonics and sight words were equally used to teach reading whereas most schools in the area follow only a pure phonics approach.

The only area of curriculum which my friend has found lacking, and extremely so, is in second language acquisition. She is a native Spanish speaker, the second language the school teaches beginning in first grade, and although she has spent a lot of time volunteering in both boys classes to offer students extra opportunities with the language she continues to be disappointed. Her own boys speak Spanish very well from home use but most of the older boy's classmates, who have been receiving Spanish instruction for almost four years, have only a very rudimentary vocabulary and cannot converse at all.

Again my philosophy of education is different, but from the outside looking in overall the workload seems intense but the curriculum seems well rounded and fostering a good depth of knowledge.

[Mirzam]

Wow, thank you for your thoughtful post. The second language thing is interesting, the school teaches two languages, Spanish and Mandarin, from kindergarten onwards and I can't see them changing that. As for homework, my son, who is in 3rd grade has very little, although he did just complete quite a lengthy project on Galileo which is loved doing. The school is just in the beginning stages of the process, it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

[fadedgirl]

I have no firsthand knowledge of this program nor do I have an opinion on it, but there are critics who state that it is anti-American and/or entirely pro UN. It seems to be a rather contentious issue for some. Here are some links regarding this if interested:

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/00...ch/2-23-ib.htm

http://www.howardstephenson.com/docu...ram%202-22.pdf

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0314-02.htm

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/Ma...baccalaureate/

This guy tees off on the critics:
http://www.computernewbie.info/wheat...s-battlefield/

http://www.ednews.org/articles/9228/...lum/Page1.html


-------------------------

Now, aside from the anti-American argument, there are critics who are simply against its pedagogy. The IB pedagogy is supposedly in alignment with Howard Gardner, Dr. Joseph Renzulli's Schoolwide Enrichment Model, & Theodore Sizer. They abhor rote memorization and do not spiral (reportedly).


So now I am interested as well if anyone here has any experience with IB!

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by fadedgirl

I have no firsthand knowledge of this program nor do I have an opinion on it, but there are critics who state that it is anti-American and/or entirely pro UN. It seems to be a rather contentious issue for some. Here are some links regarding this if interested:

I've heard this criticism before. I will check out your links, thks.

[velochic]

My dd attends an IB school. We really like it for the above positives given by IlluminatedAttic.

The only difference for us is that dd's is a language immersion school, so from the 3yo program, the kids are fully immersed in the target language. For that reason, they easily acquire the target language. Dd is in 1st grade and is completely fluent for her age level (that is, she speaks like a native 7 yo, but not a native adult, of course).

I don't find it to be anti-American, but it certainly follows more closely to European models of schooling. Dh is not American and he thinks the American school system is a joke. He's also a university professor, so he sees the great difference between the critical thinking abilities of foreign students and American students. He understand the pedagogy better than I do, as I'm not an educator, but he feels that instead of teaching a child "this is the answer... memorize it", IB teaches, "What are all the possible answers and why do you think this is the right answer. What methodology did you use to arrive at that conclusion." This is how he explains it to me. Dd is already a much better critical thinker than her peers (which outside of school are her cousins). She is multi-lingual. We love the school and are glad of our decision to send her there.

[fadedgirl]

I had a very hard time, despite the links, finding any basis or substantiation for such a criticism. But one of the sites did state the following:

"A recurring criticism concerns IB's promotion of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Critics point out that students are not taught nor is the public informed that Article 29 of that UN document puts the United Nations in authority over individual rights -- unlike America's founding documents, which describe individual rights as "inalienable." Article 29 states: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

I have no idea how this would come into play in a curriculum. Our neighborhood elementary school is certified IB. We do not send our daughter there, but not for any reason having to do with IB (it is actually one of the reasons I considered it). All of our neighbors who send their kids there love it, aside from the typical public school complaints such as lack of arts, class sizes, funding, etc. I don't believe that anyone around here, or frankly most places in this country, would stand for a curriculum steeped in or that outrightly taught anti-Americanism.

Still, I have no firsthand experience. I'd sure love to hear from someone who has taught at an IB school.

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by fadedgirl

"A recurring criticism concerns IB's promotion of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Critics point out that students are not taught nor is the public informed that Article 29 of that UN document puts the United Nations in authority over individual rights -- unlike America's founding documents, which describe individual rights as "inalienable." Article 29 states: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

I love my country, but if this is what they mean by "anti-American" I say bring it on. There are people who believe that it's anti-American to teach a child to speak a language other than English, too.

[Belleweather]

Originally Posted by fadedgirl

I had a very hard time, despite the links, finding any basis or substantiation for such a criticism. But one of the sites did state the following:

"A recurring criticism concerns IB's promotion of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Critics point out that students are not taught nor is the public informed that Article 29 of that UN document puts the United Nations in authority over individual rights -- unlike America's founding documents, which describe individual rights as "inalienable." Article 29 states: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

Whoever wrote that pile of bovine excrement needs to audit a class in international law before they start talking about the UDHR and the UN, and perhaps check a dictionary before they start using words like "inalienable", which doesn't mean what they appear to think it means.

Seriously, if teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is "Anti-American", then sign me up! We have the IB program as an option for our kids, and it's one of the few things that would convince me to move into the big city school system again. I'm very excited about it.

[texmati]

Originally Posted by uccomama

Anyone have a child that goes to a school that does this? I would love your thoughts both good and bad. DS's school is looking into this.

Many thanks

Ooooh! I'm an IB grad (class of 2000) it was a 4 year high school program at my school. I loved it! i'm in a rush, but I'll post more later.

[quantumleap]

I'm in Canada, and am a grad of the IB high school program. I don't know as much about the early years programs, but the IB is what got me through high school. Seriously. I learned how to write a good, analytical paper. I learned how to juggle insane amounts of work. ToK (Theory of Knowledge) class meant we had to come to school 45 minutes before everyone else and miss two recesses, and we all loved it! It's the middle of the circle of curriculum, and it was awesome. As someone who went through traditional public schooling, getting into a ToK class where we had to discuss and defend/critique points of view and philosophy was amazing. I was leaps and bounds ahead of my university classmates academically. Our projects often had to encompass multiple subject matters (combine biology, physics and chemistry, for example). I wouldn't say that the UN's ideologies where at the center of the whole curriculum, but there was an emphasis on international awareness. In total agreement with eilonwy about the value of this.
Drawbacks - heaps of work. I got up, did homework, got on the bus where I did more homework, got to school, went to class, did homework over the lunch break if I wasn't working on the school newspaper, went directly to the dance studio after school, got home, ate, and did more homework before going to bed. Friday nights were pretty much the only time I hung out with friends. That said, we did spend a decent amount of time doing hoemwork as a group, so we weren't all total hermits. We were just hermits together, and we actually liked it that way.
Oh, and I did the program in French, and while the quality of our second language instruction was really good, the IB requirements were not exactly stringeant. I easily got a 7 (out of 7) on the exam with half the work I put into chem or history, for example. BUT, there are two streams of second language intruction, A and B. We did a B language, but the A languages are a lot more rigorous. Especially when schools are first offering the program, there is little choice in subjects offered and in the level they are offered at. Perhaps the criticism of language programs reflects the fact that they are "lower level" course offerings, instead of "higher level"?
We plan to homeschool, but if the IB is offered somewhere where we live, I would seriously consider enrolling my child.

[fadedgirl]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

I love my country, but if this is what they mean by "anti-American" I say bring it on. There are people who believe that it's anti-American to teach a child to speak a language other than English, too.

Uh, when you quote something I quoted, please include the fact that it was a quote from another source...so that it doesn't appear as something *I* said. Thanks!

[texmati]

Originally Posted by selkat

I'm in Canada, and am a grad of the IB high school program. I don't know as much about the early years programs, but the IB is what got me through high school. Seriously. I learned how to write a good, analytical paper. I learned how to juggle insane amounts of work. ToK (Theory of Knowledge) class meant we had to come to school 45 minutes before everyone else and miss two recesses, and we all loved it! It's the middle of the circle of curriculum, and it was awesome. As someone who went through traditional public schooling, getting into a ToK class where we had to discuss and defend/critique points of view and philosophy was amazing. I was leaps and bounds ahead of my university classmates academically. Our projects often had to encompass multiple subject matters (combine biology, physics and chemistry, for example). I wouldn't say that the UN's ideologies where at the center of the whole curriculum, but there was an emphasis on international awareness. In total agreement with eilonwy about the value of this.
Drawbacks - heaps of work. I got up, did homework, got on the bus where I did more homework, got to school, went to class, did homework over the lunch break if I wasn't working on the school newspaper, went directly to the dance studio after school, got home, ate, and did more homework before going to bed. Friday nights were pretty much the only time I hung out with friends. That said, we did spend a decent amount of time doing hoemwork as a group, so we weren't all total hermits. We were just hermits together, and we actually liked it that way.
Oh, and I did the program in French, and while the quality of our second language instruction was really good, the IB requirements were not exactly stringeant. I easily got a 7 (out of 7) on the exam with half the work I put into chem or history, for example. BUT, there are two streams of second language intruction, A and B. We did a B language, but the A languages are a lot more rigorous. Especially when schools are first offering the program, there is little choice in subjects offered and in the level they are offered at. Perhaps the criticism of language programs reflects the fact that they are "lower level" course offerings, instead of "higher level"?
We plan to homeschool, but if the IB is offered somewhere where we live, I would seriously consider enrolling my child.

Selkat, you said everthing that I was going to say. Also, I went to a Highschool of 1300 in a grade. There were about 60 in my IB group, which meant that we were all going to basically the same classes and had the same teachers that knew us. The other college level program at my highschool was the AP program, where you could pick and choose your classes. IB was the closes that I could come to being in a private school.

I also used to come home, eat, nap, and then study well into the night. Then wake up in the morning to go to 'zero hour' (classes before first period.) My first two years of college were a breeze.

[jeliphish]

I did the partial IB program in High School (did not do the math and science part). I found that it can be a little stressful for High School students and many of us stressed soooo much about our grades that it just wasn't healthy. IB can be intense.