After finishing their IB exams, now-completed IB classes lapse into some combination of stupor, laptops and movies. Those teachers who try to continue teaching in their previous style are met with massive resistance. However, as IB exams wrap up, seniors and some juniors still have a full six weeks of school left. Why let this time go to waste?
One productive way to use this time would be to allow teachers and students to design week-long seminars on topics of personal interest. A student from our Cybersecurity team could teach on modern internet warfare. Or, an IB senior who creates digital music could teach his classmates how to make music with their own technology.
How about an IB Physics teacher lecture on the history of the universe for non-physics students? English teachers could teach on spoken word poetry or a book of interest. The proposed seminar classes would be modeled after the freshman seminars that so many colleges now run, which feature small classes and engaging topics. What better time than just before seniors leave for college to try this style of class out?
An essential element of this project would be the ability of students to travel to other classrooms to learn about topics outside the curriculum of their scheduled class. Granted, organizing this fluidly may be challenging.
These last weeks could allow for exploration, not torpor. Many IB students have been restricted to a specific course load in order to satisfy their IB and FCPS requirements. They have perhaps sidelined less-prominent interests in favor of pursuing things relevant to their prospective major.
Always wanted to try theater? Go spend a week in the new Black Box trying out your improv skills. Meanwhile, those with a curiosity for chemistry could go learn on a topic and do a lab. It’s exciting what could come out of this time of unbridled creativity.
Besides, teachers who feel restrained by the FCPS and IB curriculum could use this opportunity to teach on whatever they like. They too could cultivate projects that suit their interests.
Free time is the IB student’s dream. For two years they cram through seemingly endless assignments. At the end of their career, IB schedulers grant them a full six weeks of free time. Yet are card games, movies and playing on their phones what IB students want to do with it?