Beginning 02/15/10, TAIB will feature in this section the most powerful and poignant letters and e-mails we have received from parents and students regarding their experiences with IB. While we encourage other sites to link to this page, we request that the letters published here remain exclusive to this site. Please do not reproduce without express permission from a TAIB administrator. Thank you.
An IB Cry for Help
by Lisa E. McLoughlin
To protect the identity of a minor, the names and locations in this story have been changed. This is the ultimate irony, because it was the signing of the student’s real name and location that enabled Truth About IB to contact school officials.
On March 22, 2012, TAIB received the following message:
Comments: Dear Lisa, My name is Julie, and I attend an IB school in XXXXXXX. I just thought I'd let you know a little about me. I hold socialistic values, I am bisexual, do not subscribe to any organized religion, am a feminist, and am proud of being a global citizen. Essentially, I am the embodiment of everything you seem to fear. I promise you that every single one of us in IB are like this. You really have a lot to worry about. Because we're coming for you.
I did not respond to the e-mail. As there are only two IB high schools in the state of XXXXXXX, I immediately sent off the following e-mail to the two IB Coordinators:
Dear XXXXXXX IB Coordinators,
Your attention is requested. I received the e-mail below from a student who claims to be an IB student from XXXXXXX. Since there are only two IBDP's in all of XXXXXXX, I would greatly appreciate it if you would check your student enrollment and see if this is one of your students.
I take threats seriously. This is not acceptable correspondence or representation of IB.
Your reply is requested.
Regards, Lisa E. McLoughlin
My first reply was an automated e-mail which said:
“I am involved with the AP interviews today and will not have access to e-mail as I usually do. Please be patient. Thanks.”
Great. I wonder if I had tried to inform the school that one of its students was planning on carrying out a massacre the next day if I would have gotten the same reply.
Next came a reply from the other school’s IB Coordinator:
Hello Lisa,
I have checked our school’s rolls and we have no student named Julie XXXXX among our 2,400 + students enrolled. I am sorry that you received such an e-mail. You are correct that it is not acceptable and does not represent IB. I will forward this to our IB MYP Coordinator and ask if such a student is enrolled in the district’s MYP middle school.
Sincerely,
XXXXXX XXXXXXXX
IB Coordinator
The IB Coordinator from school #2 is to be commended. Not only did he reply immediately, he expressed concern, researched the student enrollment and took further action to explore the younger grade levels.Unfortunately, Julie is a student at the IB high school where its IB Coordinator was on autopilot for AP (a rather odd automated reply for someone receiving a salary to serve as the IB Coordinator). One of TAIB’s most astute researchers not only tracked Julie down based on an Honor Roll listing from 2009-2010, but provided a link to an “Open Letter” Julie had posted on deviantart.com.
The letter was disturbing and depressing. It appeared to be non-fiction, as Julie described herself as the victim of an unspecified crime which had landed a man in jail. She described herself as bulimic, slacking off in school and working on improving relations with her mother.
In regards to the bulimia, the thing that has been the hardest is acquiring the self esteem to quiet the negative voices in my head. My nutritionist calls it "ED" (eating disorder), which I find strange, because it makes me feel like I'm either schizophrenic or I have a small, quite negative dwarf living in my skull. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, because I feel like people who are constantly thinking about how they look and such are wasting their time. But in reality I have been doing the exact same thing. But I'm working on focusing on the Moment, and getting caught up in it.
Julie expresses typical teenage anxiety about upcoming college admissions, yet her expectations regarding what a university experience will consist of are a bit unusual:
The anxiety of college admissions is already seeping into my consciousness. I'm worried about how my grades will look, but I think that if I have a good interview, I should be able to convince the people at XXXXXX College that I belong there. I really think that you would like XXXXXX. It's so interdisciplinary. And small! The student to professor ratio is 10:1, and the average class size is 14. But the best part is, is that it's weird. Not creepy weird, but different weird. More quirky than anything really…but whatever it is, I love it. It's a breath of fresh air, and all of the students that I've met are so academically minded. I just feel like I belong there.
Julie concluded her Open Letter:
I'm so excited to start TOK. The whole basis of the class is something that I can get behind. I truly want to know the meaning of knowledge (if that's even possible). But even if I don't find out, I think the journey will be glorious. I'm a bit sad that it's not all one class period…I do miss WEX. I feel like without it, a few people have gotten lost. Me included. But maybe that's just something that I need to do differently… In any case, I'm excited to start being pushed to examine things. I feel like that's what these past few months have been about, and I feel like TOK is going to somehow bring all of these things full circle.
Having ascertained the school in which Julie was enrolled and still having received no reply from the IB Coordinator, I decided to e-mail the school’s Principal. No reply. I waited until school had been in session for three hours before I decided to call the Principal’s office. The Principal’s perky and cheerful assistant, Jeffrey, told me they had been in and out of assemblies all morning, that the Principal’s mother had passed away that week, but that he would relay my message. Two hours later, I had still heard nothing. I called again. This time Jeffrey was not quite so perky, but I had “just caught” the Principal returning to the office and he put him on the phone.
The Principal listened obligingly. He knew this student had problems. I told him that now that I know more about this student, I am far more concerned about seeing her get help than I am worried about IB students coming to get me. When I suggested that some additional attention should be provided for this student in TOK, he dismissed it out of hand saying her problems had nothing to do with IB. He agreed she needed help and said he would “take care of it”.
The next day upon checking the link to the Open Letter, I found it had been taken down. This is the only confirmation I have that the Principal followed through in some manner to my concerns.
This story has no happy ending as Julie’s life is a work in progress. Who knows how many Julies there are in our country. However, the difference in the way these two IB schools handled the situation is dramatic. It proves that merely having the IB label on a school does not guarantee a caring, responsive, compassionate environment. What a shame that Julie does not attend the IB school where the IB Coordinator responded with genuine concern.
TAIB receives many nasty and threatening e-mails from alleged IB students. 99% of them are anonymous and sent via our feedback link without a return address. Julie wanted TAIB to know her identity. It was a clear cry for help. Our prayers go out to all the Julies who are searching to discover who they are and who they will become.
London, UK- Re: IBO's Authorization Process
The first letter comes to TAIB from concerned parents in London who made numerous efforts to receive a satisfactory response to their enquiry regarding IBO's authorization of the King Fahad Academy. Amazingly, they received a reply from IBO's Director General, Jeffrey Beard, which they found unsatisfactory and sought further explanation, which unfortunately, was replied to by a confused underling named Nelson. TAIB will provide you with the most comprehensive of the correspondence, followed by IBO's official reply. TAIB wishes to express our deepest gratitude to these brave UK parents for their concern and perseverance in demonstrating how IBO recklessly grants IB World School authorization to an Islamic school with a troublesome, fundamentalist history.
Sent: lundi, 20. juillet 2009 19:56 To: IB Ibaem Cc: Julie..Henry@telegraph.co.uk Subject: Re: Enquiry about IB World School
Dear Nelson
The link IS available - you just click on it.
However as several weeks have now passed with no action, I will include the whole text of the document: " A London school funded by the Saudi Arabian government is facing complaints from parents that it is teaching British children "fundamentalist" Islam while giving girls an inferior education. The King Fahd Academy in Acton, west London, named after the current Saudi ruler, devotes up to 50 per cent of lessons to religious education and teaches almost all classes in Arabic, with boys and girls following different curricula.
Former teachers and parents have come forward to criticise the academy's religious teachings for instilling "hostility to the outsider".They also claim that there is discrimination against female pupils. The school was opened 19 years ago for the offspring of Saudi diplomats in London. Since then, many children of British Muslims have joined the school. In 2002, only 37 per cent of the 738 pupils were of Saudi origin.
Among those who currently attend the academy are the children of Abu Hamza, the cleric from Finsbury Park mosque who was arrested last week after the United States applied for his extradition on terrorism charges.
Originally the British and the Saudi curricula were taught side by side. Five years ago, however, the Saudi Arabian government ordered the school to phase out British lessons and to teach Saudi-style classes.
The school is segregated and younger boys and girls are now taught different courses, to comply with Saudi education policy, which states that a girl's education should "enable her to be a successful housewife, an exemplary wife and a good mother" or prepare her for work which is "suitable to her disposition as a woman".
Girls at the academy do barely any physical education and the only type of technology they will learn is "home technology".
Dr Mai Yamani, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had two daughters at the school, but removed them when she became uncomfortable about the education they were receiving.
"I moved my eldest daughter at the age of seven. Her new school said that, in their opinion, she had been 'totally untaught' to that point. They had to put her in a class with much younger children, which was terrible for her.
"The books they taught the girls from kept going on about idolatry and sin and how to avoid it. It was about the fires of hell, torture in the grave and how to make sure that your ways are not those of the infidel.
"The school is trying to make sure that the Saudis who go there abide by the system of state control in Saudi Arabia. The method is 'loyalty to the system and hostility to the outsider'.
"Three years ago I interviewed some of the pupils for a book and some of them were talking as if they didn't live in London at all."
Dr Yamani, the daughter of the former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani, believes that girls at the school are given an inferior education to that provided to boys and that they are taught to "know their place".
She added: "They consider that the mind of a girl is less capable of absorbing education." Another parent who has two teenage girls at the school is unhappy with the direction the academy is taking.
"It used to be a wonderful school that taught the two traditions side by side. Now only one lesson in six is taken in English. The children would not have the standard to even read the paper by the time they reach A-level," he said.
"It has arrived at a situation where the school seems to be saying: 'This is the only correct version of Islam'. It's such a fundamentalist approach."
No information is given on the academy's website about the school curriculum. The school said it could not supply details in English about what children were taught.
A senior teacher at the school, who asked not to be named, admitted, however, that girls did not receive the full curriculum. "Girls will not have as much PE and they will be taught home technology, rather than any other type of technology.
"The Saudi-type teaching is more didactic, with a lot of rote learning and factual stuff. There is not much in the way of understanding and applied learning. At 18, pupils will probably be at the equivalent of GCSE level." He said that it was "very definitely true" that the Saudi education would not prepare pupils for life in Britain.
When asked if the school provided an inferior education to girls, he said: "It provides an inferior education to boys and girls." Dr Ali Alghamdi, the principal of the King Fahad Academy, defended the phasing out of the British curriculum. He claimed that because the school taught mostly Saudi children, the curriculum was appropriate.
"The school is mainly for the Saudi community and the children of Saudi diplomats working in London," he said. "We are no different to any foreign school in any foreign city." The school was visited by inspectors from the Government's Office for Standards in Education about four years ago, although a legal loophole means that reports for private schools produced before September 2003 are not published.
If inspectors had concerns about the school, they should have been passed to the Department for Education. Officials there said that they were not aware of any issues being raised following the inspection.
A spokesman said: "It is anticipated that King Fahad will next be inspected in 2006. Of course, if we are made aware of concerns about any independent school we would consider bringing forward an inspection."
In state schools, boys and girls must be taught the national curriculum. This does not apply in the independent sector, although private schools must maintain a "satisfactory standard" in the education provided and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. Any claim of discrimination would have to be brought under the Sex Discrimination Act.
The Act says that it is unlawful for a school or college to discriminate against a woman in admission and "in the way it affords her access to benefits, facilities and services". Complaints can be lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which would then investigate.
Dr Nasim Butt, a former teacher at the academy and an Ofsted inspector, said that the school's curriculum was no longer appropriate for British children. "As a teacher and an inspector of faith schools, I am interested in personal development and producing individuals who reflect deeply, self-evaluate and make a contribution to society.
"A Saudi education is not going to create individuals who make that kind of contribution in a free society."
Pupils in Saudi Arabia are obliged to spend half of the school timetable studying a rigid interpretation of Islam. A recent review of the curriculum by the Saudi government concluded that almost a fifth of lesson plans contained tracts preaching anti-Western and anti-Semitic views. The Saudi education department is now considering a redraft of the whole curriculum."
The Daily Telegraph 30 May 2004
"The infants-to-teens King Fahd Academy narrowly escaped closure last year after education officials discovered teachers were calling for a holy war against Christendom at school assemblies and the children spent more time in indoctrination than on the three Rs. Though reading, writing and arithmetic were well behind the standard at German state schools, hardline Islamists from around Germany were moving their families to Bonn to enrol children at the school."
http://www.expatica.com/de/news/local_news/bonn-koran-school-under-renewed-pressure-16475.html "Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday. Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."" http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021366.php "A former teacher at an Islamic school, who alleged that it taught an offensive and racist view of non-Muslims, has been awarded £70,000 by an employment tribunal after winning his case for unfair dismissal. Colin Cook told the tribunal in Watford that pupils were taught from Arabic books that likened Jews and Christians to “monkeys” and “pigs” at The King Fahad Academy, which is funded and run by the Saudi Arabian Government."The Times April 15th 2008: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3746920.ece "A prestigious Islamic school in London was forced to shred 2,000 textbooks used to poison pupils' minds with lessons of hate, a former teacher claimed yesterday. Colin Cook, who taught English at the King Fahad Academy for 18 years, told a tribunal how "incompetent" Ofsted inspectors reported that the school's teaching of Islamic studies was "mostly good". But their report was wildly inaccurate, he said, because pupils as young as five were being taught by rote from Arabic textbooks describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs"." Daily Mail 20 April 2008 : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-516703/Muslim-school-taught-pupils-race-hate-textbooks-photocopies-order-shred-them.html;jsessionid=A749A1A434DA5F950598FE780AF400ED There are many other instances. So, why is this school a World School? Does it not conflict with the aims of the IB? If you have any doubt about the links above or somehow they do not work, please let me know.The above covers 2004 - 8. So it is not just one instance in isolation. Thank you.
Assalamu Alikium Ayeesha Ali
Texas, U.S.A. - Re: IB Diploma Program This letter was sent to TAIB from a Mom in central Texas. Because the student will be finshing out this school year in the IBDP, names and the exact location of the school have been removed to protect their identities.
Hi there Lisa,
Wow, thanks for responding so quickly. I wish we could get such a rapid and efficient response in our concerns about our children's education from our school.
We have a very good high school right here in the town we live in that I wanted my daughter to attend this year and take AP classes instead of IB. But she wanted to stay with her friends...more than staying in IB. We have heard horror stories for years about what they actually do to these kids in IB once they reach their Junior and Senior years. This is my daughter's Freshman year and I have already seen enough from what they have done to her in one year at this school to know she needs to get out. What was so sad to me was that while those horror stories were being told to parents, the people who related them wore that horror like some badge of honor for accomplishment in academic achievement. It is just that messed up. They were not at all seeing the psychological pain and suffering these kids endure. Instead they were turning it into some messed up form of pride in academic accomplishment. With each story I was taking mental notes and I grew much more concerned. While a majority of the parents of IB kids didn't flinch after hearing these horror stories. I saw it as children who managed to survive what amounts to academic brutality that was condoned by the schools and paid for by our taxes. Not as any achievement. Good grief. But I was alone in that assessment.
I meant it when I said I teach our kids to work smarter and not harder. The metaphor I use to compare IB to AP is that IB gives these kids a toothbrush to paint a very large room with and no instruction after that. While AP gives them a broad roller brush, paint and the instructions on how to paint well. They both get the job done but one did it much faster and more efficiently because they were given the right tools and the emphasis was on the real skill of painting. In comparison, the IB was not truly interested in teaching that child the real skill of painting. They were much more concerned with modifying that child's beliefs and behavior using the toothbrush as the baited object. While the IB student is being told to contemplate what it "feels like to be the toothbrush", and to "think of the aspects of why the toothbrush exists", the AP student is being taught how to paint, and they are learning that using the right tool is very important if they want to work smarter and not harder.
The other ironic issue is that this school district has School of Choice based upon desegregation acts in the 60's. As you know the IB talks about "diversity" world acceptance. All of that indoctrination just turns what should have been "American citizens" into "Pro-UN Global citizens"...yet another very serious issue I stood against. Ask me what is the most segregating program in this high school? Yep...IB. The IB students are segregated into their own classes to continue through these IB schools with the same kids for years. Because of this it not only isolates them from the other students who are attending that school but it forms a sort of military indoctrinated bond between IB students as also seen in our enlisted who make it through bootcamp together. From Kindergarten on parents are led to believe their kids are getting the best of the best education. They water down the American made AP as extremely inferior. While I did not agree with acting like my child was better then another student..for too many years I was inane enough to believe it myself in regards to her education. Yet I did not verify actual "end results" of the IB student after graduation, in comparison to the AP student after graduation, to see just how many more opportunities they each gave the child after all those years. Shame on me. When you only have a minute fraction of these kids who actually gain the IB diploma then it means very little. If any business continued to throw money into such a business model, with those end results, they would lose investors who thought they were idiots who mismanaged funds and would see them as a high risk to invest in. After all these years of my child being in this program to see such dismal results they continue to reap I realized this is what parents are funding through their taxes for the IB program in our school.
The other joke is that IB boasts about going so in depth into materials. They claim this is another reason why IB students are so advanced and why IB will give them that edge over an AP student. Really? Do they go In-depth into the basics of math? You be the judge. In Middle School they skipped two whole grade levels of math all at once with no notice. How is skipping the fundamental building blocks of absolute math going to give these kids an advantage or help them excel? Thank God my husband is in finance and math is his forte because he was able to go back and teach our daughter those vital building blocks in math that they just skipped over in her school. Many other parents had to do the same thing and other straight A students who had two working parents started failing math at that time.
It's much worse for that so-called "indepth" training from IB at the high school level. They give these kids labs with NO direction at all. Just tell them to go do it. Hello? Even a kid who gets a job at McDonald's is given training and direction on how to do that job. When much of the materials are completely subjective on the "opinion" of the teachers grading them due to being in written form and the teacher refuses to outline what the project is requiring...then how the heck are these kids supposed to do well when they aren't even told what is expected from them to get a good grade? What the heck are we paying these teachers for? At this high school these teachers are so burnt out that the kids feel like they hate them. The growing consensus among the kids is they say it feels like a "school against student mentality" reeks in the air. That breaks my heart for all of them. This school has been given the brightest of our kids who seek their approval, want to do what is expected of them, who care about their education, and they are doing everything they can to insert roadblocks, animosity, and obstacles to break them instead of actually helping them succeed. Many of those kids hate school now. It's heart breaking.
Since I was opposed to my daughter going to this high school and opposed to her staying with IB I did not make it easy for her to do this. I told her she would have to do the work to make it happen. We delved into the pros and cons of taking AP classes in our local high school verses staying with IB in the one she was attending. The IB school is in a very bad area. That was another issue I had with all these so-called "gifted academy's". They are placed in the absolute worst areas and parents are made to choose between their kids safety, and many things they did not want their kids to be exposed to, and their education. It was bad enough at lower school levels. But when these kids are adult size and they can do real bodily harm due to that size it becomes a much greater factor in deciding if our kids safety is more important then their education. What good is it to a keep a child in the IB if they are subjected to drugs daily, gang threats, and all the added stresses that such an environment brings to their lives? That safety issue alone was the main reason why I was very concerned. The kids in this school all know it too and they themselves call their school "ghetto" as a joke. My husband and I have not been together for 24 years working ourselves to death just to place our kid in a school known for gangs, drugs, and violence. It was a huge decision. My husband was for keeping her in IB because he believed all the talking points of what the end results would be. I was against it because my list of actual end results were not matching what they failed to deliver on already via unsubstantiated promises. There's that great "global peace" IB is so well noted for eh? They cannot even instill peace in the families who have kids in their program much less any real world peace. Without a united front to represent our child in our home it left the appearance that more in this house were for IB verses those who objected to it. To my chagrin our daughter filled out the paper work, did the essay on her own, and turned it all in...she was readily accepted to continue with IB at the high school with the drugs, gangs etc. >sigh<
Since then "my precious child" who used to love school now dreads it. She has suffered from bouts of depression and crying spells. My beautiful girl with the sunniest of dispositions was becoming a shell of her former self. Her friends who have not fallen into depression have become more hardened and disconnected. For the ones just existing in the program they do not care what the teachers think about them or that they are being prepared for a much larger roadblock on up the road. They are completely desensitized and shut down emotionally.
For the parents...not all of them, but for a majority... being in the IB is really is about "them" and not their child. For the parents with kids in this school they would have to be blind not to see these changes in their kids. But to start to question it (after all these years) is out of the question for them. When it is not really about the "child"...parents will refuse to question it. Parents will refuse to see what a school indoctrination is doing to their kids and make excuses for it as trained by IB promoters through the years. They will say..."Well, we were warned this would be very hard. We knew what was coming. This is why IB is the best and these kids have to lose sleep, devote their lives to it." Etc etc. I highly suspect that not one parent who is pushing their kids to endure this academic boot camp would have ever made it as far as our kids have. But when the "parent" is not the one who has this Goliath load thrown on them it is far too easy for them to say.."Sure, throw it on the kids." The "parent" is not the one having to endure it.
Since more parents are finding out my daughter will be pulled from this program they have made up their own minds that it cannot be the horrible IB program...no, it must be because my daughter cannot cut it, or that her grades are suffering, and we as her parents will not admit this. I wish I could say I was kidding because it was insulting beyond belief to see these parents have the nerve to even insinuate such a thing..much less go much further to make this "educational" decision a very hurtful personal attack on my own child's abilities. Nonetheless, this is NOT the case at all. My daughter as of today is ranked number 48 in her entire school of over over 2000 kids. When they got their hands on her this ranking was even higher at 32. Her grade point average is over 4.0 in IB. I have then heard that "their kids" are doing fine. "Their kids" have no problem with IB. Really? "Their kids" are telling my daughter the opposite. They hate it too and they hate this "ghetto" school they are forced to go to in order to get this IB indoctrination.
What's really heart breaking is about the daughter of this friend who spearheads the pro-IB parents group. Her own daughter is now agnostic and she claims she also demands proof God even exist. There's that IB "critical thinking" revealed for what it really is and that would be teaching kids to develop a "herd thinking" mentality so the schools can indoctrinate the UN beliefs into our children over the beliefs of their own parents. Her own Mother is too busy serving the UN global agenda and doing her community service so much that she has little time to even be at home. Her kids are in so many activities they have little time together as a family. So how is this Mom to even know this serious life changing event about her own daughter? This kid has been taken to church every Sunday. She stills goes and her own family does not know that this dangerous indoctrination to worship the earth over God has reaped a serious toll on their own child against the very core beliefs her own parents wanted for her? Her child is also signed up for every pseudo fake earth charter extra curricular activity that her mother can throw her into. Camps, poster contests, writing contests, IB competitions etc. I have forbidden my daughter to participate in any of those projects because she is not in school to learn how to worship the earth. We value people first as well. When they make children accept population control as a necessity to save dirt something is seriously wrong with that picture. Do not get me wrong, I am all for cracking down on true pollution and preserving our water supply etc. But doesn't the Constitution already protect property rights of individuals to the point that should their neighbor contaminate their land with chemicals etc...their neighbor is accountable for restitution to restore that land or pay for the damages? Good grief. If we just follow what the Constitution already provides the "earth" for protection then every US citizen already living on tracks of land in the US has rights to make anyone else pay who has caused damage to their private property. Nonetheless, I will never endorse killing humans, or watering down the extreme value of human life, for an agenda that is willing to sacrifice a human for dirt.
It cannot get more serious then this for my family where God is concerned. While we do not belong to organized religion we do strongly believe in God and we keep God on the front burner in this home and in our lives. I am not sending my child to school to be indoctrinated to follow a blasphemous UN created and UNESCO developed false faith. I was sending her there for a REAL education on the real basics of what these schools were supposed to be teaching her. As I have outlined it all for you it is hard to deny that every step of the way they have made my job MUCH harder as her parent because for every untruth they fill her head with it takes double the time for me to undo those damages. They are not teaching real civics. They are not teaching true American pride. They are teaching these kids to be followers of the UN who will refuse to stand up to the total and complete annihilation that is happening to their own Constitutional rights as we speak. When they use materials that come from a threatening foreign power that has an agenda to usurp the US, and destroy our sovereignty, then the true "end results" go far beyond the walls of these indoctrinating schools. There are consequences for the "Anti-American" agenda..these are consequences for all citizens and not just our children. The stakes truly cannot get much higher then the sovereignty of an entire nation can they? Am I the insane one to see how serious this is?? Or are all these parents who are fighting to keep their kids IN IB also a huge part of the problem here?
Meanwhile the personal insults and attacks continue. I have been insulted by hearing insinuations that my kid is lazy because she wants to go to AP now. Give me a break. It is not a matter of "can" my child complete this insane program..it is a question of "should" she even stay in it due to the serious implications to her mental well being and the true dismal results this program supplies in the end after enduring their academic brutality. When I started digging up actual results that revealed AP students were getting many, MANY more college credits in comparison to IB students..guess what parents tell me now? "College credits" are not why their kids are in IB. I about fell out of my chair when I heard this because it is the complete opposite of what they were all saying for years. "Now", they claim they want their kids to get that "well rounded" IB experience to better prepare them for college. Can they even hear themselves? Once again, this is NOT working smarter. It is working much harder for even less end results then what their child should have gained for their efforts. This is not even teaching good life skills. When I ask my kids to do a chore...I show them what I expect. If they do not know how to do it..I show them how to do it. Then I want to see my child get to it and do it in the most efficient way and in the most efficient time. I do not want to see them wasting hours contemplating on how the mop feels, what it feels like to be a mop...or doing worse by convincing themselves that the mop doesn't even exist...good grief. I just want the floor mopped. I just want my kids to know how to mop a floor. Is that asking too much? Apparently so for IB. They take pride in making kids work 10 times harder for the same results as the AP kid gets in a fraction of that time. IB is the anti of all those good work ethics that these kids are going to be expected to have when entering the work force.
These are MY kids. I want to spend as much time with them when they are "kids." When the IB program dominates ALL their waking hours into the late hours I resent it. They will only be kids once. We cannot go back and redo a stolen childhood. These are the most impressionable years of their lives. Right now their core values and beliefs are forming. I do not want my kid to have the beliefs of the state or the UN. I do not want my kid to be loyal to the UN over her own family or her country. They are MY children. I home school my son and he is night and day to all of his peers in our neighborhood. I now hope that by allowing my daughter to be placed in a so-called "accelerated gifted program" it has not caused her disadvantages that her brother will not have. Thus far she is rising above it and through all the nightmare confusion of what she is learning in school, and what she is learning at home, she is fairing well. But it is taking a toll on her for every assignment she has to give answers that she herself knows are not true...but to make the grade she has to compromise the truth for what she knows the program expects in an answer. This is NOT free thinking. Absolutely every subject they do a project on is selected by IB. They hide this behind free thinking because they give them a LIST of topics to choose from. When IB selects that list...what happens to the real "free thinking" of the child who wants to do a project on a subject not on that list? It is NOT allowed. So much for the real entrepreneurial student of the past who forged new roads and paths never traveled. They are making parents think they are teaching "independent skills" when it is nothing more then forcing their kids into the "herd type" of thinking that everyone else is forced to believe to make the grade.
Parents need to think looooong and hard about the real "end results" of IB because for some of these kids...once the damage is done...it's done. There is no amount of work on the part of the parent that will undo it once a child is fully indoctrinated. That is what the UN is counting on. They want our children to turn against their own country and think of themselves as intellectually deep for taking on this Anti-American treasonous agenda- over their own parents objections if needed. Just as long as they become the "follower of the UN" to provide the worker bees they need for their global agenda. Ask any parent with a child in this program if they placed their kid in it to just become another follower do-nothing citizen? None of them will say yes. But that is the end result I continue to see from IB. As our rights are stripped from us via massive pieces of unconstitutional legislation we have entire generations of citizens who have done nothing to truly fight against it. Instead they have dared to fight against true patriots who have tried to stand against this. This reveals to us that many adults have also been indoctrinated to the global UN agenda. From my experiences I can attest that 98% of the parents out there have NO clue what our Constitution really means, much less the vital rights it was protecting for them "before" they gutted it in legislation. Their children do not stand a chance if the schools pick up this Anti-American agenda where the parents are failing them at home.
As parents of kids already in IB we need to swallow our pride and admit it that we were duped by nothing more then extremely deceptive marketing. Admit it that we bought the lies because "everyone" was saying the same thing (...by the way that is called mass brainwashing...) and we can put our kids FIRST and tell the schools, and the UN, hands off our kids while there is still time to save them from this "behavior modifying" program. The schools need to get back to educating our children. They need to stop playing psychologist without a license. They need to stop playing doctor without a license. They need to stop inserting psychology tools used to control our kids minds where an education used to be. They need to stop medicated children in their efforts to compensate for kids they are failing. They need to stop hiding kids they are failing behind advanced students who raise state testing scores. All of these children deserve a real education and they are not getting one after the tax payer is bilked out of billions of dollars. We do not need more money thrown at a failing system. Homeschoolers consistently test higher then public educated children. This year they tested higher nationally by 37 points. To homeschool one child the average cost is $500.00 a year compared to national averages that reveal our taxes pay $11,000 for one child. Money is not the issue. Throwing more money into a bad system will not fix it. We do not see these "achievement gaps" in homeschooled children. Regardless of race, demographics, or salary, they test equally. Thus another lesson in the Constitution that all these legislators who are approving educational programs geared to give advantages, handouts, and opportunities to "only minority children" need to learn. The Constitution protects ALL our rights to be treated equally based on us as individuals. Not because of our race, our sex, our faith, our demographics, or any of these areas that the school system and our legislative branches have (without constitutional authority) brought into our tax system to make millions of Americans pay for what they should have never been allowed to go into. We need to look at the "system" itself.
Ok Lisa, I am sorry. I have talked your leg off. Like I said your site was so incredibly valued to me because I truly feel like I have been cast into the deep pit of the IB twilight zone. For years I have been telling parents NO...the sky is blue...see it with your own eyes. If the IB says the sky is purple, they believe it is purple, even though their own eyes do indeed see blue. This program does not just infect the kids...it requires the full indoctrination of the parents for it to be successful or the complete removal of the parent so they have full access to the kid. The latter is usually more of the end result. After these IB kids get to school very early, leave late...have hours of homework...then serve community service...how much time does that leave those parents with them? Indeed... I want them out of my child's life forever! I do not want to see another child being dragged into it with false grandiose promises on my tax dollar either. You are correct...if parents want their children to get a UN indoctrination in US schools (of all places) then let them go to a private school that has IB and let them foot that bill.
I thank you so much for your ears! I have a lot to contemplate on how to best proceed from here. I have already seen what I thought were friends in other parents that have turn into my enemy because I dared to look outside of the box after seeing serious detrimental effects of this program on my child. It's heart breaking and it will not help one child out there if these parents refuse to even "look" at the facts. For right now I am focusing on my daughter first. Supporting and helping her to finish this year as she is determined to do. After that, I cannot wait to get her out of there. On that note I am very concerned about the backlash she would receive if I took this further while she is still in this school. The peer pressure is absolutely insane. I do not want her to pay if I started public efforts to fight what they are using my tax dollars for via IB..."before" I get her out of there. That is another issue all together...but let me tell you they do have ways of targeting the KID and she has enough on her shoulders right now. She doesn't need another ounce of stress. I share that because I could see your excitement and zeal...I have that too...but I have to think in terms of how this will effect my own kid while she is still there.
-Texas Mom
Texas, U.S.A. - Re: IB PYP
The following letter is from the Dad of a 2nd Grader to the Principal of his daughter's IB school in a Houston suburb. As with the above letter, names and the exact location have been removed to protect the student's identity.
To Catholic Bishops and Principals
TAIB was CC'd on this letter which was issued in April, 2010, to Catholic Bishops and Principals of Catholic IB schools by a New Hampshire Mom.
Dear Bishops and Principals,
I'm writing to you today in reference to the International Baccalaureate Program that is in some of our Catholic schools.
As a Catholic mother who has devoted a great deal of time to researching this program, I'm deeply disturbed that some of the Catholic schools are offering this program to their students. There is a great deal of criticism that I believe you should familiarize yourself with.
The IBO is affiliated with the United Nations. This organization itself comes with a great deal of scandal. From supporting population control measures and abortion the list is long.
(page 12) You will note that "population" is among the topics listed.
On top of all of these issues, the IB program uses a Constructivist method in the classroom. However you will find from these studies that this type of method actually puts students behind their peers in a similar "direct instruction" classroom. www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf(Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching)
Finally I'm attaching a file that really does a wonderful job of critiquing this program.
As a mother of children who've only attended Catholic schools, I would be outraged if I discovered my child participated in an IB program now that I have additional information. I think it's only fair that parents have a solid understanding that there are controversial issues that surround the curriculum and the organization.
This is a program that says it seeks to teach children to think "critically". I believe parents have the right to have full access to information when they enroll their students at an IB Catholic school. I urge you to analyze the information I've sent and share it with the parents.
Transparency is a must for any school and diocese. Parents like myself would be extremely disappointed if this information was withheld and only biased information was presented.
I posted on here several months ago, complaining about IB and all of the ridiculous things I had to put up with while in it. Well, I put up with all of that for a while. And then, quite recently, I got to thinking about the fact that my SL courses and exams would not count for college credits at nearly every college. I was so stressed all the time, getting about 3-4 hours of sleep each night, and really starting to hate school when I used to love it. And I was going to suffer through three SL classes, with all of their IAs and exams, and not even receive credit for them?
So I finally decided to leave. And, of course, I had a lot of trouble doing so. The IB coordinator gave me a really hard time about it. And nearly all of my teachers frowned upon my decision and told me that I was "taking the easy way out" of high school.
Let me clarify for any IB-supporters who may read this: I haven't dropped out of IB to take an easier course load. I am now going to take AP Physics C next year, instead IB Envi Sci, the joke of a class that I was going to be forced into taking. AP Physics C is regarded throughout my high school as the hardest class the school offers. All of my other classes will also be AP/IB classes as well (since my high school stupidly combines AP and IB classes so that we are basically prepared for neither test by the end of the year). I read in another post by someone who supported IB that those who left IB simply couldn't "handle the work load." Believe me, I can "handle" IB just fine, I am just sick of putting up with its crap. My work load will be even heavier next year, when I am a senior, but I will not be dealing with all of IB's nonsense.
My friends who are in IB were equally disapproving; their responses ranged from telling me that they felt sorry for me and that I would regret, to telling me that I was pathetic and that no college would accept me now. All of this is, of course, ridiculous. My advice to any student who is currently considering entering the IB program is to AVOID IT at all costs. You will be forced into irrelevant classes rather than those that genuinely interest you, you will be forced to complete stupid assignments like the IAs, and you will come to regret your choice in the end, as I did. I'm just glad I got out when I did.
Luckily, my former Extended Essay mentor was very supportive of my decision. Somehow, he was not brainwashed like most teachers at my school have been. He understood that a student does not need to take part in the IB diploma program in order to be considered intelligent. I just wish the students and the other teachers at my school could see this as well. The dominating attitude in my school is that if you aren't in IB, you cannot possibly be intelligent.
If anyone has any questions for me about the IB program or my experience in it, I would be glad to answer. I'm here to help expose the truth about IB. :)
