From the Society for Quality Education, here is an excellent article on why the IB is a failure, especially for boys and the less able children, since ‘child centered’ and ‘inquiry’ methods are inferior and incomplete compared to direct instruction by a teacher.

“My own child, who was part of this system for a year in grade 3, is extremely well versed in building structures out of Popsicle sticks. Furthermore, she understands the lives of pioneers and she is good at making puppets and making them act. However, she cannot understand word problems, subtract three-digit numbers with zeroes as place holders, or string a sentence together grammatically or with proper spelling. Happily, my daughter is now being home-schooled – and all of a sudden all these things have started to make sense to her.

The bottom line: if your school is thinking about adopting the primary IB, tell them to forget it. It doesn’t work!”

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