Posts tagged with canada.

Why more schools should offer the IB

Kathy Dobson, May 8, 2009 at 4:18 PM

Imagine if there was a fast-track to university that not only offered your child bigger scholarships, advanced standing in universities around the world, and an enriched academic experience, but was also offered within the publicly funded school system.

With the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, you don't have to imagine.

The program is a pre-university educational program that doesn't just set your child up for future academic success. According to the IB Organization, it also fosters critical thinking skills and encourages young people to "help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect."

The only problem: you might not live anywhere near a school that offers the IB program.

There are just 284 IB schools spread across Canada, with at least one in every province. But the vast majority are in just a handful, with 123 in Quebec, 60 in Ontario, 40 in Alberta, and 29 in British Columbia.

The program was started in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation by a group of teachers at the International School of Geneva. Although the first IB schools were predominantly private international schools, today over half of all IB programs are offered in publically funded schools.

The IB diploma is often touted as a "passport" to higher education. IB students routinely gain admission to some of the most famous and respected universities in the world, including Harvard and Oxford.

Closer to home, most Canadian universities offer special recognition of the IB Diploma Program. Dalhousie, UBC, and the University of Waterloo all have additional scholarships for IB grads, just to name a few.

Students with the IB Diploma can also attain early admissions, and/or university credit for their first year from their advanced IB classes. In other words, the International Baccalaureate program sends your child to the front of the university acceptance line.

Of course, assuming you can overcome the largest and most critical hurdle - finding an IB school in your area- budging ahead of that line will cost you.

According to the IB Program website, the 2008-09 fees for the Diploma Programme (for students at the high school level) include a $154 student registration fee, plus a $105 subject fee.

But those fees might actually be a pretty solid investment. A student can apply their IB classes to their undergraduate degree, potentially saving a year's worth or more of university tuition.

Quite a hefty savings.

However, that savings doesn't come easily. IB students really earn those credits.

The IB program is an ambitious curriculum of academics, community service, and physical activity. Students are required to complete a 4,000-word thesis paper, 50 hours of community service, and 50 hours of physical activity before graduation.

The program emphasizes a liberal arts education, offering courses with advanced material in the humanities, math, computers, the arts, experimental sciences, a second language, and English. Students are able to pursue their interests while also learning how to assess information critically for bias and perspectives.

Students take three courses at a higher level, representing 240 classroom hours, and three others at a standard level of 150 classroom hours.

Yes, it's a demanding program that pushes students to levels of academic excellence far beyond most- if not all- publically funded secondary school diploma standards.

According to its mission statement, the IB program endeavors to create a better world through education.

"These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. We encourage a positive attitude to learning by encouraging students to ask challenging questions, to critically reflect, to develop research skills, to learn how to learn and to participate in community service."

If my son David, currently a grade seven student, decides he wants to apply to an IB school, he's in luck. We live within the boundaries of Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute, the only school in Kitchener/Waterloo that offers the IB Diploma Programme.

As long as David maintains a minimum 75% average, he can apply at the end of next year to be admitted into the program. I have no idea right now whether or not that will be a viable choice for my son.

Is the IB program always a good fit and appropriate for every student?

Of course not.

But what about those students, ready to take the plunge right now, willing and able to make the sacrifices necessary to take on the challenge? Those who want to gain such a huge advantage in their academic future?

And don't have the right postal code.

(Ed. note: For more information, here's a previous GlobeCampus story on the IB)

Tagged with school, canada, pre-university, baccalaureate, enriched, international, ib | Comments (44) |

Is hazing a serious problem in Canadian universities?

Kathy Dobson, March 6, 2009 at 10:00 AM

You see it portrayed in movies. You read about it happening in the States. But how often does hazing actually happen here in Canada?

As a parent of two first-year university students, the possibility of hazing definitely crossed my mind. Although it doesn't appear to happen as often in Canada as it seems to in the U.S., that doesn't mean it never happens.

It's difficult to pinpoint an exact number of injuries related to hazing rituals in Canada or the U.S. The practice is usually secretive. But we do know that many students each year are injured, and some even killed, as a result of hazing.

According to the website StopHazing.org, in addition to an enormous amount of injuries each year, hazing related deaths have occurred every year on campuses in the U.S. since 1970. Most States have now passed legislation that define hazing as a crime.

Although it's hard to find reliable statistics on how much hazing goes on in universities across Canada, according to a couple of studies, and research on hazing at Cornell University, females were more likely to be involved in alcohol-related hazing than any other form of hazing.

Football players were at the highest risk for dangerous and potentially illegal hazing.

I still remember the shocking story I read in the Globe and Mail four years ago, about a freshman on the football team at McGill who was hazed. According to the article, the 18-year-old, along with a small group of other first years, was ordered to remove his underwear and then drop to his hands and knees.

Six senior students, veteran members of the football team, jeered as the rookie was told to bite down on a dog chew toy. Then they held out a broom handle, nicknamed, "Dr. Broom."

"They were poking me on either side of my buttocks cheeks," he said.

"Then, they made contact with my rectum with it. They were kind of pushing back and forth and applying pressure."

Although he wasn't "penetrated with the broomstick," the student said it hurt, and he got up and left.

Feeling humiliated and betrayed, the student dropped out of McGill and returned home. After the incident was reported to the school, McGill cancelled the football program for the rest of the playing season.

St. Francis Xavier University had an incident of hazing which involved freshmen last fall. According to an article in The Chronicle Herald in Nova Scotia, some first-year students were blindfolded, taken to a wooded area, then told to lie down on their stomachs.

The students were hit with branches, and had their faces smeared with what they were told was human feces, though it was apparently just mud.

Some reports allege that the students were told to smear Rub A535 on their testicles.

None of the allegations were ever proven in court. The legal battle between the school and the accused students ended after eight of the disciplined students filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. They claimed the sanctions were punitive. According to news reports, the father of one of the students facing sanctions is a lawyer, and represented the students in court.

The case ended with an out-of-court settlement, which included removing the sanctions against the students accused of leading the hazing. Those sanctions had included a ban from the campus bar and participation in students clubs, along with being ordered to take bullying and harassment counseling, as well as complete 50 hours of community service. And a $50 fine.

As far as I can tell from published reports, none of the students were held at gun point and ordered to perform or forced to participate in those degrading rituals. Apparently none of the alleged victims even filed a complaint. And there was no police investigation into the matter.

But just because a victim doesn't come forward, doesn't mean they weren't victimized. There are lots of crimes, including victims of rape and domestic violence, where the victim feels shamed into silence after being bullied and coerced into accepting their abuse.

Whenever I hear about something like what happened at McGill or St. Francis Xavier University, I wonder about those silent victims, and worry whether they're just a tiny tip of the iceberg.

I have no doubt there are lots of young people, even in high school, who have lived through similar horror stories. But for a variety of reasons stay silent.

I can't help but wonder about those students who order a teenager to pull down their underwear, wanting them to fear they're about to have a broom stick rammed up their butt.

I also wonder about those students who get something out of having their victims believe they've just had feces rubbed all over their faces.

Maybe we don't have a death every year in Canada like they do in the U.S., thanks to some degrading hazing ritual gone wrong. Maybe. Or perhaps the Americans are better at tracking and documenting their more serious cases?

But as long as students continue to be put in physical danger, robbed of their dignity, and intimidated into silence, we have a serious problem.

Tagged with canadian, hazing, campus, canada, united, st., states, mcgill, xavier, francis, university | Comments (16) |