Goodbye to IB
It’s possible to do the right thing for the right reasons and still wish you didn’t have to do it at all. That feels very much the case with the local public school board’s decision to pull the plug on the two-decade old International Baccalaureate (IB) program at I.E. Weldon Secondary in Lindsay.
The program’s original promise glittered brightly: It would, its supporters said, offer a true challenge and a globally portable certification to the best and brightest students, creating well-rounded citizens and exerting a magnetic pull on families seeking excellence in education.
At its best, the program achieved many of those goals. Top-notch teachers passionate about their subjects provided an academically rigorous option for students who thrived on the challenge. It even brought in some learners from outside the Trillium Lakelands board.
Inevitably, the shine started to wear off in places. Students who wanted to take a wider variety of subjects such as shop, music or other languages found their options severely limited by IB course requirements. And while there was financial help available, the substantial fees were a surprise to many and undoubtedly a deterrent to some.
As fewer and fewer students chose to follow the IB program to completion, it became harder and harder to justify the administrative and staff time required to run the program. The board’s decision to cut the program is understandable from a cost-benefit perspective, even if it means Kawartha Lakes is losing something that benefited a generation of inquisitive, hard-working students.
Those kinds of young people are the ones the board now needs to find other ways to serve and engage. There’s a tendency to assume that bright kids will always make out okay, but they can end up underachieving because they’re bored, becoming restless or rebellious without an adequate academic challenge.
Just as with important programs tailored to other groups of students, such as those with intellectual or developmental disabilities, or in career-oriented Specialist High Skills Majors, it’s critical to serve students seeking high-level academic stimulation. If the IB program wasn’t quite the right way to do that, Trillium Lakelands must continue exploring other options.
Two final, less well-known aspects of the IB program should also be retained and extended to all students. The first is an emphasis on informed critical thinking, a skill we desperately need in public life today.
The second, to quote Weldon’s IB web page, is a focus on developing “internationally minded people who, recognizing their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world.” The program may be gone, but its values are worth sustaining.
