IB PROGRAM IN MY VIEW

 

Introduction

The International Baccalaureate, a program from Switzerland, integrates mastery in content with life skills. It is a 3-19 years’ continuum with the Middle Years Programme focused on 11-16 year olds and the Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme meeting the needs of 16-19 year old. The overarching objective is to create a space for students to grow into holistic human beings that make the world a better place through inter cultural understanding and respect (Iborganization,). It is, as a student reflected, “who I am, who I want tobe and how my being at IB school would support that”.

IBPYP

IB starts with the IBPYP which is a curriculum for students aged 3 to 12 years. At the end of which is the PYP project, which is the strongest pillar for PYP and a valuable and pivotal experience in the life of the schools, families and students (Coppersmith). The students have a lot of freedom but within the bounds of a very structured and respectful support of the teachers. The project however, is the end of the road and a culmination of a yearlong work. The road is filled with learning that integrates inquiry and personal development under the umbrella of 6 trans-disciplinary theme based learning.

This encapsulates what I feel are the two chief strengths of the IBPYP, the road of inquiry with personal development culminating in a personal project that is a testament of the journey that the students have taken. The road to inquiry is through the trans-disciplinary themes, implemented through the units of inquiry for 6 to 7 weeks that develop a central idea to a trans-disciplinary theme. For example, when students develop a unit on how the world works, they would have a big idea surrounded by inquiry questions that would drive the learning. They could also have a wonder wall to post any questions that they have on the topic under consideration (Leeth,).

             However, this leads to some difficulties. Having taught PYP students who came to middle school, I found that they were a delight to be with due to their open minded nature, and the range of topics that they knew about were large. But the depth of content in maths was often missing. For example, students in a class went to a pizza house and learnt about fractions by specifying their choice of topping on a pizza. They gathered an intuitive understanding of fractions, however that is where it ended. When it came to the very grounding and rigorous work in the middle school, it was hard for them to abstract the knowledge.

The other aspect is the level of work required by teachers for developing units of inquiry for PYP that are free, flexible yet with an intelligent structure. This requires an enormous staff team work, collaboration and hence leadership. The PYP exhibition for example, is left at the discretion of the school. Hence it requires a good deal of planning for teachers. Staffculture is the key for PYP program. Reflective practitioners are hard to find or develop. Hence it runs in half-baked state.

IBMYP

IBMYP is the next in the continuum, which is for the 11-16 years old students. this is when the trans-disciplinary nature of learning changes into inter-disciplinary nature. The centre of which is the attitude to learning or the ATL skills in order to set the tone for building the skills needed for living a fruitful life. This is my favourite part of IBMYP, where the focus is on skills not as a separate body but with an integration with subjects. I used it a lot in my classes in teaching maths. For example, I asked students to investigate the meaning and purpose of scientific notation by giving exploratory questions such as (a) who invented scientific notation? (b) why was it invented? (c) who needs it? (d) what would happen if it did not exist? Collaborative learning was a continuous feature in the classes with students working in groups on tasks such as projects, problem solving or comprehension of concepts. Teachers need support and time to practice these and we received the time.

The other part that I love is the community service. There is an attempt to create caring members of the community through service. The most memorable experience for me has been a German student with an Indian village student working together to build a kitchen for the latter with his class. End of it, both sat together on a wall, bare feet, and talked in their own languages but with full harmony and happiness.

Every strength brings with it limitations. Looking at IBMYP hence, does bring up elements of disproportionate nature. MYP is completely learner centric and requires a range of assessment tools (Hughes). Assessment in MYP is something not all educators are on the same board at. This could be due to lack of available material for the same. ATL skills are not understood fully and hence not integrated well by the teachers. Lessons often become the same old traditional chalk and talk lessons. In the absence of proper training and collaboration, teachers are not able to implement them. Community service, initiated to bring students closer to communities around them, if not directed properly, also becomes a lip service. As we saw in one of the schools, where children from neighbouring village came to school to learn English. Most of the time, they were awed by the opulence of the school and I am not sure how much they actually learnt.

Conclusion

As I reflected on my time in the IB through this article, I see again and again the theme of training teachers coming up. Although IB schools have continuous professional development, from my experience, the best professional development is through the systems and procedures set by the internal school leadership. Without having a leadership grounded in giving a safe space for the team to come forward and express itself in the path to grow, the vision might not find a fertile ground to seep into.