Hey my own children have gone through an IB program at the PYP level!

In fact last night at Uptown School the grade 5s did a fantastic Exhibition with acting, dancing and the whole 9 yards to really demonstrate what they have learned and how they have learned about the environment!

And this was just one of the units of enquiry, imagine!

Here is a sample of the goods!

But I have a few question when all is said and done.

Is it possible to teach in an IB manner without doing in an IB manner?

Odd question you might say but one we need to ask.

Here is what the PYP is all about.

Six transdisciplinary themes

Six transdisciplinary themes of global significance provide the framework for exploration and study:

• who we are
• where we are in place and time
• how we express ourselves
• how the world works
• how we organize ourselves
• sharing the planet.

Teachers are guided by these six transdisciplinary themes as they design units of inquiry that both transcend and articulate conventional subject boundaries.

The programme can be illustrated by a hexagon with the six transdisciplinary themes surrounding six subject areas:

• language
• social studies
• mathematics
• arts
• science
• personal, social and physical education.

The transdisciplinary themes and subject areas outlined above form the knowledge element of the programme.

Five essential elements

The five essential elements—concepts, knowledge, skills, attitudes, action—are incorporated into this framework, so that students are given the opportunity to:

• gain knowledge that is relevant and of global significance
• develop an understanding of concepts, which allows them to make connections throughout their learning
• acquire transdisciplinary and disciplinary skills
• develop attitudes that will lead to international-mindedness
• take action as a consequence of their learning.

Curriculum model

The curriculum is expressed in three interrelated ways:

• the written curriculum—what do we want to learn?
• the taught curriculum—how best will we learn?
• the assessed curriculum—how will we know what we have learned?

Under certain conditions, schools may deliver the programme in any language, although the IB provides services in:

• English
• French and Spanish

So, my question is can we teach IB without doing IB?

Can an administration administer an IB curriculum without itself living by the very tenants it is asking its students to embrace?

And here in lies the problem with all but a very few schools today, our schools are teaching one thing but acting very different.

Sure there are a million reasons to justify a school operating as if it was the turn of the century, the 1st being that that is they way it has always been done.

I believe it is time, yesterday, for teachers and administrators to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask whether they are doing what the student needs or what they are comfortable with!

If teachers were unbridled from administrators I am sure the classroom would be a very different place!

What we need in our schools today.

1. teachers who understand children, parents do make better teachers

2. administrators who work for the school not the board of company

3. to be engaged with the community not walled off and segregated from the reality

4. parents MUST engage

5. a work/education harmony

6. realistic expectations of teachers

7. honesty

Why is that an issue?

We professors, we bureaucrats, we parents, we …. are truly bankrupt of creative ideas.

What we do have is a means to implement ideas but what we lack are ideas, new innovative,creative ideas.

Look at Greece! How do they fix their financial problems? Loans! Throwing more bankrupt ideas at a problem is no solution.

The environment! We have big problems! How can we fix it?

Has anyone bothered to ask our youth? Does anyone want to listen to our youth? NO, what do the youth know!

I spoke with 7 kids aged between 10 and 12 about their take on the environment and how they are looking at things, the conversation gives me hope!

Uptown Primary School Students Go Green

Nightline a Conversation

Think about it for a minute, we want people to take risks, create the next best thing, work as teams and WOW the population.

And we learn this where? School.

Sure we have IB schools that claim to do this BUT every IB school I have been to talks a good game BUT is not practicing what the preach! Sorry IB people but the sad reality is if you are going to teach IB you have to be IB and all I see is the old system with a new coat of paint.

Other models exist but for the most part they do the same old thing 8-3, lunch, homework… repeat!

Sure our schools have the elements to create the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs BUT the problem is there is a reality detachment and the biggest piece of this is TIME!

Change happens in real time not in the slow motion that education acculturates us to!

You have 20 weeks to make magic in a school! The real world is have it on my desk in 3 days!

School does not teach us how to manage a team, my own school for example, is eliminating conflict resolution from the curriculum as we move forward, but is the management of people not fundamental to the new social economy?

We are living a social experiment BUT do we really know how to socialize?

So, here we are in search of the next best thing and the cards are stacked against us as we wrestle with imperfect inputs to the system!

Is it any wonder that the most innovative ideas emerge from those people or groups who work outside the system?

Maybe that is what we need from our education, a model that is decidedly outside the norm. We need to seed the next best thing and so far all I see is the field being plowed over, again and again!

Just a little morning rant!