Between Nations
Does the history of the International Baccalaureate reflect the history of the last half-century? And if so, how closely?
It's an interesting issue to think about. With the help of the dedicated Tristan Bunnell, a gentleman I have never met but whose reflections and research on the IB have informed my own, I have been drilling into the body of knowledge that exists.
It isn't a very large body of knowledge. I speculate that not more than 5000 pieces have been written in the scholarly literature about the IB, or at least, in a way that is useful to me in any sense.
It is interesting, as well, to read the blogs of people like George Walker, that eminent chemist who was once the IB's Director-General. This is because he had very interesting opinions and gave particularly visionary speeches. However, I have wondered to what extent his articulate(d) views represented the IB's 'official' perspective.
As for Jeffery Beard, the incumbent on that thorny throne? He has been less interesting, and in one case, somewhat repetitive with regard to re-packaging other people's views. I wish him well and hope he will speak more from his own heart.
Yet, for all the personalities associated with the IB and all the things they've said, there is little of substance that I can nail down regarding the deep philosophies and dreams of the IB. True, I can read all the stuff on their website and in the IB Learner Profile (and suchlike), but there is little meat.
What Bunnell and others have tried to do is flesh out the sparse architecture and hollow halls of the huge-looking IB corpus. So far, huge is something you think you see, but is not borne out by the susbtance. Fewer than 10,000 candidates take the November examinations each year; in fact, just one particular school has supplied about 5% of the candidature for that examination since 2007.
Likewise, about 100,000 candidates take the May examinations each year; more than half come from the USA, 10% come from Canada, and 5% come from the UK. It is a predominantly Anglophone examination. Another interesting fact: the average school candidature is about 30 students, and only about 75 schools in the world have an IB candidature of >200 students; for the November examinations, only 1 of these.
So the IB is international, as in 'spanning more than one nation and involving transactions across more than one nation'. But its presence is patchy, and that needs to be changed; in Africa, for example, the huge majority (I think 90% or more?) of IB schools are in Kenya. India and China together field only about 3000 candidates a year, while tiny Singapore sends about 1300.
I could go on. But I am not knocking the IB; rather, I am genuinely interested in its raison d'etre, how it is growing, whether it will achieve its stated goals while retaining its ideals, and how it will make itself more relevant in the less Anglo-dominant world milieu that is unfolding.
Can an educational organisation that broadly distributed have so few staff? It seems almost post-modern, to rely on schools and states to make up the deficit. That too is interesting to me. I am interested specifically in whether some day the IB will become something like an associated UN educational arm, since it is already affiliated with UNESCO. Will IB teachers be like UN peacekeepers in blue helmets?
There, I think, I am beginning to ramble. Or maybe fantasize. But universal education with the goal of making all mankind think critically and broadly is indeed some sort of dream worth dreaming, if not a fantasy.
It's an interesting issue to think about. With the help of the dedicated Tristan Bunnell, a gentleman I have never met but whose reflections and research on the IB have informed my own, I have been drilling into the body of knowledge that exists.
It isn't a very large body of knowledge. I speculate that not more than 5000 pieces have been written in the scholarly literature about the IB, or at least, in a way that is useful to me in any sense.
It is interesting, as well, to read the blogs of people like George Walker, that eminent chemist who was once the IB's Director-General. This is because he had very interesting opinions and gave particularly visionary speeches. However, I have wondered to what extent his articulate(d) views represented the IB's 'official' perspective.
As for Jeffery Beard, the incumbent on that thorny throne? He has been less interesting, and in one case, somewhat repetitive with regard to re-packaging other people's views. I wish him well and hope he will speak more from his own heart.
Yet, for all the personalities associated with the IB and all the things they've said, there is little of substance that I can nail down regarding the deep philosophies and dreams of the IB. True, I can read all the stuff on their website and in the IB Learner Profile (and suchlike), but there is little meat.
What Bunnell and others have tried to do is flesh out the sparse architecture and hollow halls of the huge-looking IB corpus. So far, huge is something you think you see, but is not borne out by the susbtance. Fewer than 10,000 candidates take the November examinations each year; in fact, just one particular school has supplied about 5% of the candidature for that examination since 2007.
Likewise, about 100,000 candidates take the May examinations each year; more than half come from the USA, 10% come from Canada, and 5% come from the UK. It is a predominantly Anglophone examination. Another interesting fact: the average school candidature is about 30 students, and only about 75 schools in the world have an IB candidature of >200 students; for the November examinations, only 1 of these.
So the IB is international, as in 'spanning more than one nation and involving transactions across more than one nation'. But its presence is patchy, and that needs to be changed; in Africa, for example, the huge majority (I think 90% or more?) of IB schools are in Kenya. India and China together field only about 3000 candidates a year, while tiny Singapore sends about 1300.
I could go on. But I am not knocking the IB; rather, I am genuinely interested in its raison d'etre, how it is growing, whether it will achieve its stated goals while retaining its ideals, and how it will make itself more relevant in the less Anglo-dominant world milieu that is unfolding.
Can an educational organisation that broadly distributed have so few staff? It seems almost post-modern, to rely on schools and states to make up the deficit. That too is interesting to me. I am interested specifically in whether some day the IB will become something like an associated UN educational arm, since it is already affiliated with UNESCO. Will IB teachers be like UN peacekeepers in blue helmets?
There, I think, I am beginning to ramble. Or maybe fantasize. But universal education with the goal of making all mankind think critically and broadly is indeed some sort of dream worth dreaming, if not a fantasy.
etched with acid at 8:40:00 pm
2 Comments:
So glad you fleshed that out.
I was really wondering about this whole IB phenomena and whether it was just my ignorance or whether the attention to it has exploded just over the last few years.
Still wondering.
Another thing, their site seemed to imply there is a measurable standard which ignores the general performance of a particular cohort. That a top grade is awarded where deserved regardless of relativity, whether for that yr or thru the years.
But hearsay, from Greg's friend's sister's Chinese school teacher who invigilates, .. so on and so forth .., is, that they do bell curve results. Any idea?
*grin* will reply in private.
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