Schools

Brighton Area Schools Exploring International Baccalaureate Program

A group of administrators and teachers are exploring the possibility of implementing the philosophy in Brighton.

When it comes to the International Baccalaureate, Dr. Laura Surrey likens it to eating your vegetables and getting enough sleep: It's just good, basic teaching.

The IB program is best described as a teaching philosophy that drastically changes the way both students learn and teachers teach. The IB builds children up to what they consider the ideal person, incorporating knowledge, skills and character attributes. Teachers are challenged in the IB to collaborate better with each other, a practice that isn't always common among teachers.

Surrey, the assistant superintendent of instruction at Brighton Area Schools, is leading a group of teachers and administrators who are examining the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) for the district's elementary schools. 

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The IB is a non-profit international education foundation based in Switzerland. It offers professional development and guidelines for three levels of learning: elementary, middle school and high school.

"The IB approach is, what does the ideal third grader look like?" Surrey said. "What are attitudes, skills, knowledge do we want them to have? It's not just knowledge, it's those attributes."

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The IB assembled a profile of character attributes of what they want to see in a student, including being principled, open-minded, a risk-taker, balanced and reflective.

"That's the ideal international person, or well-learned person, or schooled person who can make a change in society," Surrey said about the IB qualities. "So they start with that person, and then they say, 'What learning experiences and knowledge should that person have to in order to get them there?'"

Surrey said a January 2010 survey showed support from parents who wanted to see the IB program instituted at the elementary school level. Near the end of the year a committee comprised of the best and most experienced teachers in Brighton were assigned to study the program. They visited a few Michigan schools that have implemented the program, including the Fenton Area Public Schools (The IB was implemented K-12 there) and Lone Pine Elementary in West Bloomfield.

The committee made a presentation of their findings at the June 13 Board of Education . Surrey said the board has not given her an official go-ahead for proceeding, but she figures the group's next job will be to see if the IB is a good fit for Brighton. Surrey said that beginning the three-year process of becoming an IB school is still a ways off, and that will include time to invite parents to the study committee.

 A major portion of the program is having teachers collaborate more extensively with each other on planning curriculum, which is a drastic shift from how many teachers approach their jobs.

"Teachers, culturally, are accustomed to being independent contractors," said Mary Hillberry, principal of Lone Pine Elementary. "Teaching them to be effective collaborators is more of the problem than seeing it as a barrier, because I think they want to collaborate, and I think they see the value in it, but it just typically has not been part of the culture of schools."

The professional development portion of the IB is the biggest financial obstacle. Superintendent Gregory Gray said grant funds already budgeted toward professional development could offset the cost, but Surrey said the general fund might be used toward IB professional development too. The cost is part of the reason why the school district could take its time in deciding on the IB.

However, Hillberry said it's money well spent, her school now in its seventh year of being IB.

"The kids have really developed much more refined critical thinking skills," she said. "Even at the young age of our students, they're asking more intelligent questions, more complex questions.

"The character education component of it has really been impactful, and that the general citizenship of the kids has really been markedly improved, that the children coming out of this building are just very gracious, well-behaved, kind kids toward each other."

Whether the Board of Education takes action in its upcoming meetings has yet to be seen. The committee could have an ally in Superintendent Gray, who implemented the IB program when he was a principal at the middle school level in the Owosso school district. 

For now, Surrey will be prodding the board for the go-ahead on the program, a program that she and her associates have really come to see as common sense.

"Let's know where we want to take kids, and give them the best world class education we can give them," she said. "To be great thinkers, and great individuals, and wanting to change the world. And you know what, that's what we hope all kids turn out to be like, but I think we think that it just happens to some and doesn't happen to others, but what if we made elementary education intentionally directed towards that?"


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