Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree with the poster above. I think the IB/PYP program works very well at Yu Ying. I have a child in 4th grade. Last Friday they had an exhibition on their electricity unit. It was pretty cool to see my child and the rest of the class explaining circuitry in both Chinese and English. Their exhibition last year in third grade on influential people was pretty cool too. They were able to get into character and explain their accomplishments in Chinese.

I do not feel that my child is behind in any subject because of either immersion or because of the IB/PYP curriculum.

You speak Mandarin? You have Mandarin speaking relatives, or at least close friends? So know that your kid's Mandarin is good? We speak Chinese fluently, as do our children, we talk to Yu Ying kids in Chinese and generally aren't terribly impressed. It's easy to tell that they aren't learning the language from peers, Chinese-speaking parents involved at the school, or at home (other than for a handful who have Chinese-speaking friends, the pals of our Chinese au pair). The IB/PYP program works well at the international schools we attended growing up, in Hong Kong etc. Yu Ying does a better job than a great many schools in DC, but, objectively speaking, it's a stretch to say it's all that great.

Here we go again. Can't mention Yu Ying without someone piling on the hate, even when it has nothing to do with the original post.

Anonymous wrote:And I just checked and indeed there are four schools in DC that are official PYP schools: WIS (private), Thompson, HD Cooke and Shepherd. It would be so awesome if parents from these schools were able to contribute to this dicussion.

HD Cooke parent here, with a kid in the early education program. Teachers seem committed to the IB teaching methodology, which works for my kid and thus it works for me. Ms. Yeftich at HD Cooke is the IB Coordinator and can probably answer detailed questions. Despite low test scores and high FARM rate, it's gotten tougher to get a spot in pre-school if you're OOB, ever since they moved back into their regular location. So you'd need to cast a wide net if you're desperate for an IB program for a younger kid.

Anonymous wrote:I am assuming it will end at College Gardens at some point since MCPS is not expanding the PYP program. It will be difficult/impossible to fund the coordinator, training etc. Also they will likely lose the Chinese Immersion program to the new elementary school in the cluster which will end the language connection. I wonder if it is better at the higher levels??

It couldn't be worse.

Anonymous wrote:14:42: I am a little confused then. So you teach it but you think it's "pretty silly stuff"? Yikes.

There's almost no transparency with IB. You really have no idea how silly it is until you're teaching in a school.

I am assuming it will end at College Gardens at some point since MCPS is not expanding the PYP program. It will be difficult/impossible to fund the coordinator, training etc. Also they will likely lose the Chinese Immersion program to the new elementary school in the cluster which will end the language connection. I wonder if it is better at the higher levels??

14:42: I am a little confused then. So you teach it but you think it's "pretty silly stuff"? Yikes.

It's interesting that College Gardens Elementary in MoCo and Thomson E.S. in DCPS had the same principal, Albert DuPont. He claims to be an expert on IB PYP.

I'm a teacher at an IB PYP school. What you actually get to see on the public website is pretty vague. When you work for an IB school, you get tons of ridiculous rules and conventions that do nothing to enhance the curriculum but add an extra layer of nonsense to anything that is of value. All of the content teachers teach must be integrated into 6 themes, with touchy-feeley names like Where We Are in Time and Place, Who We Are, How We Organize Ourselves, How We Express Ourselves, How the World Works, and of course, Sharing the Planet. It's pretty silly stuff and all the arcane rules get in the way of teaching high quality content. I wouldn't send my child to an IB PYP or MYP school. But then I have a low tolerance for nonsense.

In a middle class/high SES class, almost half the kids are already decoding to read. This is never the case in a poor school. IB does not really support those basics of phoneics and you would be surprised how much prior knowledge matters on a number of topics. The gap between a middle class and a poor child can be thousands of words and thousands of hours of reading.

PP: thanks so much for this insight.

RE this:
A poster above mentioned an urban school adopting the curriculum. GHaving taught in a low income, urban school before I can tell you that it would be a disaster. PYP builds on prior knowldege and inquiry. Students have to be intrinsically motivated.

I guess you're talking about mostly upper elementary -- but at the PreK/K level, then, the issue wouldn't necessarily be prior knowledge but quality of instruction?

I am a teacher and taught in an international IB school. I have training and certification in PYP. I taught 5th grade and did Exhibition.

In my opinion, I think the curriculum is a bit fluffy. Fifth grade Exhibition (if done right) is awesome. However, I have visited many schools where it was not done correctly and appeared to be a waste of time.

My last two years that I taught PYP, I had the highest math scores out of eight fifth grade classes. That is because I went back to the "old school" model of math instruction. I noticed that the students that I got from the teachers that were most "PYP" tended to lag behing those who had teachers that used more "traditional" methods.

I wouldn't put my child in a PYP school for many reasons. Most teachers are not even trained in PYP from the IBO. They get turn around training from another staff member. One complaint that our lower school got from the MS staff is that our students were very weak in science. That was due to our units of inquiry.

A poster above mentioned an urban school adopting the curriculum. GHaving taught in a low income, urban school before I can tell you that it would be a disaster. PYP builds on prior knowldege and inquiry. Students have to be intrinsically motivated.

Just my opinon.

22:35 You are right actual lived experiences matter a lot. My experience at Thomson was awful and I felt my kid came out educationally in science and in language arts for the worse.

I know those who have kids at WIS and love it and friends at College Gardens that are fine with it, but they don't have comparisons to upper grades because their kids are 4th grade and younger.

The question is how much is high SES making a difference here and how much is IB. I found that IB in a system where many kids were struggling with the basics to be a disaster because higher order thinking requires you know how to read and write and have numeracy skills. But that said I would not move to another IB program in a wealthy area. I found that I did not believe in its idea that soft skills like presentation and teamwork matter more than actual content knowledge. I just personally think that kids need to work toward knowing more and working harder and nothing I see from IB shows me that it is the direction it pushes schools.

17:15 and 22:50: tell me why these other posters are wrong. I did google it and yes I understand the model and the philosophy. But what I want to hear about is people's actual real live experience with a pyp classroom. There are some detractors who have given examples of where they feel the pyp fell short. To the boosters: tell me, how have you children done once they hit traditional math and science classes?

Anonymous wrote:Frankly I have read the stuff on the IB website and it feels like code. That is why when it is implemented it can be a mess of pointless student projects and minimal content.

Well, then, there you go. Don't send your kid to an IB school and get off this thread. buh bye!!!

Frankly I have read the stuff on the IB website and it feels like code. That is why when it is implemented it can be a mess of pointless student projects and minimal content.