001In the middle school setting IB is really about helping kids understand how to be inquisitive learners on their own. How to be able to collaborate communication, research, and social skills. But really the biggest impact that you see on MYP for middle schoolers is teaching them to be inquierers. Everything is about inquiry. Everything is about learning how to ask questions, learning how to break down what you need to know to answer those questions. An IB learning environment is really collaborative. You're always seeing kids work together and its not just, "hey, talk to your partner..." It's more of a learning how to speak to each other. The communication aspects of IB really come into the collaboration that you see in the classrooms. My favorite thing about IB is it absolutely challenges me as a teacher in the
002best ways possible. It is about rigor and its about challenging conventions, making you think about the way that you have been doing things and maybe new ways that you can approach it. It gives us the freedom to think outside the box without thinking that it's going to limit what we put in the box. You give them the tools and suddenly the box doesn't exist anymore. They just go completely outside of it. They give you work that you never expected they would give you, just because you have the freedom to be that creative. Math teachers are not going to approach it the same way that a science teacher does, and a social studies teacher is not necessarily going to approach it the same way a language arts teacher does. It kind of gives you that freedom
003as a teacher to teach the curriculum, teach the subject, teach the information, but teach it in a different way. In an IB program, I think students learn how to learn constructively and how to reflect back on that learning process. Basically different ways to work together as a team. We get to learn more about the world and understand it better. How to try new things and go out of their comfort zone. My favorite thing about Meadows... its the community. I grew up as a student in Madison, I went to Rose Lane and I went to Madison No. 1. And this whole area, Madison in general is such a strong, tight community. When you can step outside your door and every kid knows who you are, and they know that the expectations are high and then they
004try to meet them and they try to beat them... its as if they just want to make us proud. We want to do the best for them. And every teacher works together to make sure that happens, so we're collaborating as much as the kids are collaborating. And we really just become a unit that works toward a goal that's beyond what all of us think we can do. Well, I kind of wanna be an archeologist. But at the same time I love playing soccer. If I want to follow my sports dreams, that's either gonna be NBA or PGA. But if I don't do that I want to do something with animals, like an animal veterinarian. I kinda wanna be a photographer, like taking pictures, and editing them, and everyone getting to see everything that I can
005see.