I did the International Baccalaureate program for high school and graduated with an IB diploma. The New York Times has an an article about IB and that is awesome, since I’ve spent the past 11 years surrounded by people who have no idea what the IB program is and who don’t give a damn about it. To describe it, I’d usually say that, in comparison with a full load of AP classes, IB is focused on writing. In fact, it did a pretty good job of preparing me for college, the first year of which I barely remember because it was easy enough that I managed to sleep through most of it.
Going through IB is probably something like the teenaged version of going through law school: you learn to take an issue, figure out what the question is, answer the question, answer any questions about the question, add a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t exactly matter (but demonstrates that you understand what you were supposed to have been studying), then include some nod to whatever overarching ideas or themes this whole study is supposed to be about, and finish gracefully. In writing. By hand. For eight hours or something ridiculous like that.
IB taught my peers and me to think sharply and broadly at the same time, to be hypercritical without getting lost in the criticism and, unfortunately, to cheat pathologically (no one from my class has been involved in any cheating after graduation). At the time (1995-1999), I remember joking about how IB is constantly and consistently described using the words “rigor” and “rigorous.” Those words were a little odd and uncomfortable due to the vaguest sexual connotation and of course due to the motif of death (rigor mortis), with IB students being so tired all the time that they are like walking dead. It’s fitting and just that the Times has chosen to describe IB in the same way:
Many parents, schools and students see the program as a rigorous and more internationally focused curriculum, and a way to impress college admissions officers.
…
Many schools, and many parents, see the I.B. partly as a way to show college admissions offices that students have chosen a rigorous program, with tests graded by I.B. examiners around the world.
…
Because it is so rigorous, the I.B. is not for everyone.
What is it about this word, “rigorous,” that excites IB people and people writing about the IB? I see that the word “challenging” is used only once and “difficult” is not used at all. I think the problem is that Tamar Lewin’s English teacher let her get away with telling instead of showing. She should have gone to the IB.
Tweet
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Those evil IB commies: “And while I understand why some parents might worry that the program is international-based, I think it’s good for America for students to learn how others nations think”
The international part was kind of bullshit. I could have comfortably skipped the Africa units in IB History and IB English, and I’d have gotten through life acceptably so far without knowing that Tanzania is comprised of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. But I’ve met a lot of people who have a pretty negative opinion of Americans, and when I tell them that I went to an “international school” for high school, they suddenly get the impression that I’m one of the good Americans. So that has definitely worked in my favor.
This is a good moment to reflect on the IB program, which both of us graduated from over a decade ago. As we’ve spoken about before, I certainly agree with you that IB stressed writing, elevating our abilities far beyond that of our average non-IB peers. This didn’t become evident until college, and for me, reared its head again in graduate school. In short, it’s fascinating how easy it is to get through school (and, perhaps, life) simply by being a good writer. As an example, one of my peers told me this past spring that, before starting graduate school at NYU, she did not know how to use commas when writing. A professor suggested she visit the NYU Writing Center, which provided guidance. (This begs the question: how did she gain admission in the first place?) In all, I think the formula is ever simpler than what you suggest: most school and work assignments require only determining what the central question is, distilling the information that is relevant in answering it, and presenting it in a clear and concise fashion. I have found that most people are unable to properly do any of those three things; those who are able to do all three typically get by pretty easily. I learned these steps probably due to two experiences: 1) the formal instruction provided by the IB programs, and 2) a process I developed informally (and unknowingly) in a pragmatic attempt to efficiently achieve a high grade.
My junior English teacher’s comment on one of my assignments still echoes in my head. I should note that I absolutely loathed English class, and I dreaded writing “commentaries,” which I found to be total bullshit. In one such assignment, I commented that it is the job of the writer to impart meaning in such a way that it will be discernible to the reader. The reader’s job is merely to read; if additional work is required to understand the author’s intent, it is ultimately a failure on the part of the author to communicate effectively. The teacher (I forget her name) responded to the effect of: “While I understand what you are saying, your comments are unfortunately completely contradictory to the modern concept of literature.” Hmmph.
I conclude with a final comment: it is difficult to explain to people not only what IB is, but what the nature of our particular program was. We did not just take IB courses in the way that some people took AP courses. (And we also took AP courses.) Rather, our program was the top-ranked in the world when they stopped ranking them (apparently it got too competitive), with only one out of 100 seniors not receiving their IB diploma each year. It was not only rigorous, but immersive. I think we’ll spend the rest of our lives contemplating the positives and negatives of our high school experience as a result of the IB program in a way that few other IB participants will.
I totally agree. In many, many ways, my high school experience has shaped who I am and what I’ve done since then, and I doubt this would be true of almost any other high school (unless I’d gone to a private Jewish school or an elite prep school). To a large extent, it’s simply because of the IB program – the curriculum and classes. But I also think it’s because we didn’t just go to “the IB Program,” we went to a magnet program in Montgomery County, Maryland, that adopted the IB with competitive admissions. It could have been something else – maybe even plain AP – and it still would have had a major impact on my life because of the phenomenal students and the teachers (some of whom we know were awful, but almost all of whom were above average).
I remember in my freshman year of college that I could reliably produce one page per hour of text on any subject with zero preparation and without breaks until a paper was complete. I could work all night, if necessary, without blinking, but it was never necessary. I could understand what professors wanted and give it to them in my essays, while at the same time expressing myself – that is, I’d figured out how to have my cake and to eat it. Some of my peers were very impressed. I never realized how well we were being taught to work with language and to transmit ideas until I saw people who were perfectly smart, but just hadn’t been trained like I had been. Almost every professor I had in college told me that I wrote very well.
The struggle you had with your English teacher, whom I’ll assume to be Ms. Martin, is one that I also had and that a handful of students had in RM’s IB English program every year. I think she considered me a dimwit and I know that none of the English teachers ever liked me, except Mrs. Wilcheck, who was one of the best teachers I ever had in 16 years of formal education. I never really got the sort of analyses we had to write, and I definitely have not read literature in that way since I left RM, but I did eventually manage to go with the flow and just bullshit some analysis that I considered nonsensical but which was at least in the ballpark of what the teachers wanted. I think the core of the problem is that we were getting immersed in “the modern concept of literature.” So I gained a pretty solid appreciation of modern literature, even though I basically don’t like it, though I wish we’d focused more on the classical concept of literature.
I wish RM IB grads could get together and discuss how good (and bad) the IB program was openly and honestly. Unfortunately I think the elitism was a big turnoff to a lot of people, and for others who’ve continued at much better known elite universities, they don’t exactly have the same sense of awe about RM IB that we had.
It was not Ms. Martin — unfortunately, I remember her. She also certainly thought I was a moron (but, in hindsight, I take it with a grain of salt — surely, she had nothing but contempt for all men). And I recall how she would repeatedly bad-mouth the non-IB freshmen that was was forced to teach against her will for one period a day. How professional of her.
I pulled up the current RMHS staff page to see if, by chance, the teacher I am thinking of was still there. The only name listed that rings a bell is Mrs. Shay, but I seem to recall was the only English teacher in my junior and senior years that I actually liked. (I once wrote and performed a parody rap about Rosencrantz and Gildenstern in her class to the tune of Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys. And for my final assignment senior year, she let me read Animal Farm which was, what, all of 80 pages?)
The best grade I ever got in an IB English class was when I worked on a project with Katie U. and, because Katie was half of the partnership, I got an A- from Mrs. Shay. I was shocked, since all my assignments got a B- from Mrs. Shay. The project involved existentialism in the aforementioned play and we did something with Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” Ah, high school. For my final assignment, I read The Fountainhead. I’m sure one student pesters her to read it every year.
Also, it occurs to me — this would be an excellent time to re-post your memorable “Meaning Creates Language” (and not vice-versa) post from your original website in high school. (I tried to find it myself, but that particular page doesn’t seem to be archived anywhere.)
I’ll try to find it, but I hardly know where to look.
Although the Nathan’s Page of Dark Cynicisms homepage is archived going back to 1999, it doesn’t appear than any of the subsidiary pages are. I think what we’re looking for was on the “Ramblings” page. This material doesn’t appear to have existed on Serene Angst, which is archived pretty completely back to 2000 (the first iteration was just lots of links to your other page). Searching for and finding the URLs for those sites was half the battle. I fear that, unless you have it somewhere offline, it may be lost forever.
In other news, I can’t believe HIS is still around.