College. - Laura
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Life is going by so fast that im starting to get really really freaked out about it. i remember being in 7th grade, thinking nothing about colleges, SATs, college apps, like it was yesterday. ive watched all my brothers go through the IB program, suffering their way everynight trying to meet their deadline and ive always thought to myself "im so glad thats not me. i dont have to do that till im old." that was three years ago!!!! and it went by like a flash.

A few days ago i was looking through the mail that was just put on the dinner table, when i came across a couple letters that where addressed to me. "woah, thats wierd" i thought, "i never get mail." i quickly tore open the envelopes and pulled out the cards that were inside them. They were all from different colleges in the US trying to convince me that their college was the one to go to. That freaked me out. For some reason, getting mail from colleges made me realize that i couldnt play around anymore. i have to grow up. all these years leading up until now, ive had the mentality that everything would be alright and things would work out fine for me, whatever i did. Mom and Dad had everything under control and if anything went wrong, they'd take care of me. how stupid. my future depends on how much effort i put into my work today. Mom and Dad cant type my essays, cant do my presentations, cant write my exams. i have to. what becomes of my life depends on me alone. Because it took me so long to understand this (i admit im rather slow :D) i had to make up for so many years of "dumbness" in the spand of a couple days. i had to completely change my mindset. At times, thinking about all this has put so much pressure on myself to do well at school that its making me want to explode but i always try and convince myself that its worth it. suck it up for now, tolerate it, and later on in life you'll be glad you didn't give up.

But no matter what, i will always miss the times where i had no homework. I will always miss the times where i didnt have to take notes in class.

I will always miss the time when life was simpler.

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posted by four and a half at 6:58 AM | 1 comments
Love Learning, Despise School
Thursday, August 30, 2007

So let it be said to those who are "purist learners" (a la "football purists") - IB is most definitely not for you.

At our school the benfits of IB are heaped endlessly onto us (yes, they really do need to emphasize that your prospective university will take IB credits twenty million times) and apparently they feel the need to enforce it upon everyone who attends this school. Very much like the Asian (Chinese?) stereotype to mold every student into perfect overachievers, isn't it?

The IB Diploma Programme is an internationally accepted university prep program. The DP prepares you for university, but what else does it do? You learn how to analyze a political cartoon in the most textbook way possible, your biology classes are spent making sure the mitochondria and Golgi bodies on your cell sketch is exactly as you see it in the photographs, your essays are filled to the brim with SAT words and constructed in a way that would make a computer proud and after two years you are essentially a walking, talking encyclopedia. That's not a bad thing and it certainly gives you that preparation for university life that's mainly academia, but there is such a thing as learning for the sake of knowing. In IB you work towards exams, grades mean everything and creative ranges are diminished in favor of more practical work. Opinions can be wrong and classes are chosen in accordance to your 10 year plan. Besides, who would take a course just because it seems interesting?

IB teaches you do well in school. It teaches you to do well in university. It teaches you to excell in a class environment where everything seems black and white. You grow knowledgeable about IB things (or so says Johanna and Alice).

Not even all facts are black and white. Nonetheless, there are so many things you can do with them. Knowledge should not be something that is so clearly defined when the world is full of information that is controversial and ambiguous. How then can it be categorized as something that is absolute?

The grades of IB are sometimes ridiculous. Can one's acquisition of knowledge and information really be ranked? It would be immensely difficult, to say the least, for an accurate report of progress to be made on each individual student with the current teacher-student ration that exists without the use of the current grading system. It is international, after all. How else can you effectively measure the success of getting "stuff" into a child's mind?

But really, are exams worth 80% of your grade really necessary?

Apparently the IBO felt it was important to stress the fact that IB isn't all about exams: (video)

Seems to me like a one-size-fits-all program for a people wearing sizes 0-30.

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posted by Pb, lead at 10:38 PM | 0 comments