SP Teachers Comment on IB Program
Upper School English teacher Mollie Pilling was the IB Coordinator for seven years at St. Stephen's School in Rome, Italy, where she taught International Baccalaureate A1 English and Theory of Knowledge. In addition, Mollie taught IB English in international schools in London and Athens over the past 12 years and has experience as a CAS (Creativity, Action, and Service) Coordinator. She teaches the CAS course at St. Paul's.
“Although many in the St. Paul’s and surrounding community are not familiar with the International Baccalaureate, it is well-known elsewhere and for good reason,” she says. “There’s nothing mystifying about this program, except perhaps for the name. It doesn’t supercede the existing curriculum at a school, it enhances it. It injects an element of global standardization that is very appealing in today’s world. Our graduates will be competing with young adults from all over the world in college and beyond – for jobs, for leadership positions, and simply to be heard. Offering the IB curriculum is a great way to give our students an advantage.
What appeals to me and many other Upper School teachers is that the program encourages students to be accountable to global standards, not just the standards set by a particular teacher in a particular school. That raises the bar. St. Paul’s has offered the AP for years. We’ve recently gone through our 10-year AIMS accreditation and examined our academic curriculum closely. Now, we’re ready to take on a new challenge. The IB program is that challenge.”
Pilling says the method of assessment is simple. She has been using the IB rubric in her ninth grade English class this year in their study of The Tempest.
“I've been sharing the rubric with them and we’ve been talking about the criteria that an IB course would evaluate, such as interpretation, presentation, and formal use of language. The IB assessment would involve assigning points for how well the student met each of the criteria. Those points would then be added up and fall anywhere within the 1-7 range.”
Science Department Chairman Ed Brady:
"Having been in training for the IB for the last year, I have come to appreciate the integrated nature of the curriculum. Every course is related to the others by the central Theory of Knowledge course, and within the sciences there are student-designed projects which will be completed by students from the combined biology and physics classes. Another aspect I appreciate is that the science course group is called the “experimental sciences.” Students are expected to do lots of experimental work for which they have the bulk of the design responsibility, and they are allowed to fail and try again because there is time enough to do so in a two year course.”
Assistant Head of School Rich Schellhas:
"What excites me most about IB for modern languages is that the focus extends far beyond the dominant culture. For IB German, for example, students need to be conversant in the cultural specifics of all German-speaking countries (Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein – and I've even added the Pennsylvania Dutch). While modern language might seem like the most straight-forward part of the program, I appreciate the wide scope. I also really appreciate how the IB tests what students know instead of focusing on what they don't know. Since IB assessments don't rely on multiple choice, they're always geared toward students really expressing themselves in different languages.”