Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Experiences with the IB Diploma Program?

I am looking for personal experiences with IB. Specifically, what sort of kid will excel, what sort of kid will fail, and if you/your child completely burned out as a result of it.

Some background:

I have a 16 year old son who is attending a very small private high school after being homeschooled through grade 10.5 (he started in the second semester of last year). The school offers the IB Diploma Program in grades 11 and 12, but it is not required.

My son is HG, but he has dyslexia and ADHD. He is currently on Strattera for the ADHD and it is working fairly well. His dyslexia is reasonably remediated and his achievement test scores in math/reading/language are consistently at the 99th percentile (with an extended time accommodation).

He is working *all* the time. Until midnight on weeknights and all day on the weekends. Not only that, he has now started to fail the math tests. This is a kid who has always gotten As in math.

Does it get better? I'm guessing that it does not. Am I insane to think that a 2E kid could excel or even survive in an IB program? Should I be concerned about his mental health?

The head of this school says that kids shouldn't be "happy" in high school. I'm not sure what to make of that.

I realize that I'm rambling. Any input would be much appreciated!

eghads, that's disturbing...

Clearly something has to give. For example, can your son take 1 or 2 fewer classes? I agree with the other poster that the principal seems to have a bad attitude.

FWIW, My niece who also is dyslexic and ADD did survive. She went on to college, and promptly abandoned her degree upon completion. She is adrift but I doubt IB is the source of her issues. She is VERY bitter about being 2e and seems to host her own pity party on the issue. Her brother completely burned out after IB and never went to college. I don't know whether he is 2e. He pursued a career in the arts but is now realizing that he will never make a living wage on his chosen path.

My other two nephews who are HG and super organized made it through fine. One played an instrument and played a sport. The other is a senior and seems to be working very hard but unscathed.

I don't know if it is a difference in IB programs, personalities or family issues.

I did the IB diploma program and enjoyed it thoroughly! It gave me an opportunity to branch out and pursue a truly multidisciplinary set of studies. I was able to accelerate and cover upper year undergrad material and got early university placement. It was basically just a transplanted undergrad.

While the program has a loose curriculum, a lot can be customized to suit the individual student or institution. I was fortunate in that I was basically given the freedom to study any supplementary topics I wanted. My success was, I believe, the result of a good fit between the school and myself.

If your son is getting worn down, I think it would be worth reevaluating the resources available to him. Are the teachers staggering deadlines across courses? What level of one-to-one instruction is available? Is he informed about readings in advance? Given latitude for self-study? My studies really took off when lecture attendance was optional.

I don't believe a student--particularly a HG one like your son--should be unhappy. My nose tells me he's receiving an inappropriate style of instruction.

IMO, the program is ill suited to students who have a splinter interest, or even students pursuing a pure science career due to university prerequisite requirements. Some of my friends aiming for med school were getting burnt out carrying extra courses to meet admissions requirements, and people who had difficulty with large reading volumes were getting bogged down like your son. These were high achieving gifted students, too.

My first major was economics, so I had fewer constraints. I was able to play on varsity teams and do about 20 hours of extra curricular activities during the week. I'm embarrassed to admit that, as a terrible procrastinator, Sunday night was when I cracked the books.

I'm sorry I can't comment personally on the health considerations.

Hope that helps!

I should emphasize that we had laptops, so I would just zone out and read about whatever I wanted in mandatory lectures. Most of my coursework was done that way.

My children aren't in high school yet, so we don't have personal experience in our family, but fwiw I suspect, like all programs, a large part of how the program works depends upon how the local staff choose to implement it and their vision. I'd be concerned about the principal's statement, but would look for input from other families who's children have been through the program at the school for a good idea of what the program is really like. Our local IB (and our local high school program for HG+ kids) both have reputations of being programs where the teachers equate high achievement with high amounts of homework. My 2e ds struggles quite a bit already with the amount of time that homework takes for him - the work itself isn't a challenge (intellectually/conceptually/etc) and he's got a great system of accommodations etc.. but I'm sure he's spending much more time each night completing his homework which is a combination of 2e + his own inner drive and curiosity. When I look at what's out there for high school for him, the IB and HG+ program are the two that would seem to fit best intellectually, but I also don't want his high school experience to be all about hours upon hours of nothing but never-ending homework. So, no real advice here but a lot of empathy.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hmm.

1. Have you asked the guy running the school or the teachers if the workload increases with time? These people will give you information accurate for your situation. I expect that IB programs vary a lot.

2. What do you want your son to get out of this program and/or out of school in general? If you look closely, what's the quality of his assignments? Do they get him to think, or are they just piled on under a banner that shouts RIGOR = MORE HOMEWORK! ?

Is your son getting what you want from this program? Or is he simply crushing through from assignment to assignment and from test to test? What's he really learning? Is the IB program at his school teaching him to be a thoughtful person, or is he learning how to be hyper-industrious? Or is the answer somewhere in between? If so, how does the balance feel to you?

Americans prize industriousness. Getting stuff done is great, but unfortunately, the idea seems to have been taken to extremes in high-performing schools. For example, a recent principal of Stuyvesant High School used to tell incoming freshmen that they had to pick two out of three: grades, friends, and sleep (he got resigned a couple months ago in the wake of the cheating scandal). Sorry, but that's ridiculous. This is not an opinion. It's a fact.

We escaped this problem with our eldest by homeschooling. CTY, AoPS, Stanford, and other places have good online courses.

This is an interesting thread for me and well timed... I recently had a conversation with a friend in which we debated the IB Vs. a "double Dogwood" (grade 12 graduation in BC, in both French and English). The IB gives you international credentials, but the DD gives you access to more post-secondary programs in Canada. Hmmm. Which way to go? My kids are 8/gr3 and 9/gr5 so we have years to go yet before deciding, but I'm eager to hear everyone's IB stories

Thanks all. I'm trying to figure out how to make some changes to his program. I'm also starting to intensively coach him at home about time management. I mean, more intensively than I was before.

Aside from the homework issue, which is only partially the fault of the school as my son has very slow processing and so is...slow, I'm finding that the humanities courses have a lot of scaffolding in place to ensure that the students are successful. The math is a different story. And this is a kid who has been great at math his entire life. The instruction is at one level (both in the book and in class; the in class presentation is identical to the book with identical examples) and then the problems jump in at another level. Major disconnect. So I have a kid who always struggled in English and history not struggling in those subjects (other than with the amount of work) and who never struggled in math failing math. It's insanity.