I’m Not Doing It.
We have been thinking about IB classes for Dylan since he was in 7th grade. He’s an abstract, high-level thinker, but he’s a hands-on learner. So we decided to put him into the IBCP program – which is perfect for him.
For the IBCP program, Dylan needs to take one two-year IB class, and one one-year IB class. In addition, he needs to take the “pathway” classes, which he’s taken since 9th grade. Dylan chose the computer science pathway, so he’s already taking an AP class in computer science.
For one-year classes, he wanted to take IB music, IB psychology and IB theater. He was very excited about these.
But his two-year classes were less enthralling: IB History, IB Biology, IB Math and IB English. He took biology already and hated it. He’s struggled in math more than anything. So we tossed out those two – which left us with two years of IB History and two years of IB English.
We were still struggling with Dylan’s ability to keep up with the work in a “regular” (Honors) English class. I asked a friend about the History class, and she said it was substantially more homework than the IB English class.
So I sat down to talk to Dylan about it. I showed him the email from my friend, detailing the differences between the two classes. He read it, then stood up.
“I’m not doing it,” he said. “I’m not doing IB.”
And that was it.
Four years of planning, two years of cramming in classes, and all of my IB research – for naught.
In case it helped, I took Dylan’s list of colleges – the ones he picked from our various road trips – and crossed off the ones that would no longer accept him. I showed it to Dylan.
“Really?” he asked. “All of these?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can still apply, but if you don’t take IB or AP classes, they won’t even look at you.”
“Okay,” he said.
And off he went, into his non-IB world.
Surprisingly, the relief I felt was immediate and spectacular.