Welcome to Gaia! ::

What's this? First post on page 200? Along with the first one on page 100? Seems like I'm on a roll.

@ Valll: Yep, I still have Sam. And you can be sure I'll take pictures of the cat before he leaves. So cute. =D

@ Ihabia: Congrats!! (:

IB(MYP) stands for International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme. Middle years being high school years, because they have IB in elementary and college too. There are something like two hundred countries in the world with schools that offer it, and the headquarters are in Wales.

The classes that are taught each belong to one of the eight subject groups (Language A, Language B, Physical Education, Sciences, Arts, Mathematics, Technology and Humanities), and they're taught using the five Areas of Interaction. The Areas of Interaction are meant to have us explore different areas we will touch during our lifetimes, which include:

1. Approaches to Learning: How to learn; the different ways we learn things (ex: teachers, group projects, books, individual work...) and the way you yourself learn best.

2. Environment: What do I have to do with my surroundings? What are my responsibilities towards nature, the people around me at my workplace, my home... ?

3. Homo Faber: Man the Maker. What has humankind created over the years / what can I create? Remember: every paper you write is a creation of your own.

4. Community and Service: What is my responsibility toward my community? We are required to do a number of community service hours each year.

5. Health and Social Education: Concerns health. A healthy mind means a healthy body? Physical and emotional well-being = good life.

We're often graded on a set of five criteria (that have to do with organization, spelling/grammar, etc. respectively) instead of.. well I don't know what it's called but like when a teacher puts a test on 50 and grades accordingly. The normal way...

There are requirements, too. To get in, we had to go through a series of examinations (for each subject we would be taking, i.e. Math, Science, English, French, ...). They accepted the top (I think) 175 students that also had good recommendations from their teachers. Obviously the number will change with the size of the school. Ours is huge. We're expected to maintain an average of 70% or more and not fail any classes. We're given numerous projects, for every class, over the terms (Approaches to Learning: this is one method of learning). We also have to complete the required number of community service hours for our level.

It's an advanced/enriched programme. The math we took until this year was always a year ahead of everyone else (but the school decided to stop that, so now we're just advanced for our grade). All the other subjects are enriched, which is why we don't share classes with people from other programmes (except for math, which we share with advanced Immersion students). Some of our classes, like Canadian History (this year) and Geography (last year) are taught us in half the time the other students get.

To get our IB certificate, we have to have done all of the above, plus a Personal Project, which is a year-long commitment that me and Val will be starting soon ( ;_; ). It's there to test what we've learned from the programme over the first four high school years. Basically, the sky's the limit. We can do whatever the hell we want. As long as it's very time-consuming and touches all the Areas of Interaction.

SO, does that answer your question? XD

I don't know how complete it is. sweatdrop This is stuff I've learned over the years, but I don't know if it's everything.

Immersion:

The incorporation of the French language into several of your classes throughout your high school years.

...

Short n sweet. Easy. :B

I do too. I love the atmosphere. I have a funny feeling the people in IB are generally a lot more mature than the ones in Immersion.

Good point.

And onto other neeeews, wanna see the kitty? =D





Teehee. heart So cute.

Aww, kitty! heart