Philadelphia faculty works to get Worldwide Baccalaureate designation

Corinne Scioli remembers the second she was bought on the Worldwide Baccalaureate program.

She was the assistant principal at Northeast Philadelphia’s Mayfair Elementary College, which educates virtually 2,000 college students and is the most important elementary faculty within the metropolis. Its households come from greater than 60 nations. 

A number of years in the past, a primary grader from Brazil “who spoke not a lick of English” confirmed up at Mayfair. Scioli, whose native language is Spanish and was as soon as an English language learner within the U.S. herself, may make do in Brazilian Portuguese. So she communicated with the boy about his class homework project to make an object from recycled supplies. 

The project was a quintessential instance of Worldwide Baccalaureate, often known as IB, a curriculum program that depends on a method of “studying by doing” whereas selling cultural understanding and international consciousness amongst college students. In 2018, Mayfair grew to become the primary elementary faculty within the metropolis to undertake the IB curriculum. 

The boy got here within the subsequent day carrying a robotic he had comprised of plastic water bottles and a shoebox. The boy had instantly engaged and was in a position to take part at school, regardless of the language barrier and the novelty of his environment. For Scioli, “It was affirmation that the strategy works.” 

Scioli, 50, is now the principal of J.S. Jenks Academy of the Arts and Sciences, which is on monitor to turn into the second elementary faculty within the metropolis to undertake the IB program and its demanding, project-based curriculum. Jenks acquired approval in April to be an IB candidate faculty for grades Ok-5, which implies it has a yr to discover its targets and refine its practices earlier than looking for full IB authorization. Adopting IB additionally matches Superintendent Tony Watlington’s purpose to speed up tutorial achievement, and it’s one of many packages that he included in his five-year strategic plan, which was lately accredited by town Board of Schooling.

In an announcement to Chalkbeat, district spokesperson Marissa Orbanek emphasised the IB program’s emphasis on “analysis and significant considering expertise, information acquisition, and international consciousness.” The assertion additionally identified the strategic plan’s purpose to supply college students with “equitable entry” to course choices which are “extra aligned with their pursuits, are related to their lives, and put together them for his or her future.” 

Though situated in predominantly white and well-off Chestnut Hill, Jenks’ scholar physique at this time is 81% Black, and most college students come from low-income backgrounds. Just a 3rd of the scholar physique lives throughout the Jenks catchment. 

Jenks, a Ok-8 faculty which enrolls about 420 college students, is transitioning to the IB program on its one centesimal anniversary; it was in-built 1923 on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill and has served college students ever since.

The IB curriculum is organized round six interdisciplinary themes: who we’re, how we manage ourselves, how we categorical ourselves, the place we’re in place and time, how the world works, and sharing the planet. Jenks mentioned this system additionally promotes social-emotional studying along with teachers. And thru this system, college students will be capable to take courses in a international language. 

The IB program “follows a scholar inquiry cycle,” Scioli mentioned. “They’re invited to suppose deeper and to be advocates for social and environmental justice. It places that on the forefront.” In brief, Scioli mentioned IB’s framework “promotes every thing I imagine in.”

For elementary faculty college students, “we wish to encourage them to be hands-on learners and constructors of their very own information,” she mentioned. Lecturers will endure in depth coaching to allow them to help this mission. 

“This takes us to the subsequent degree,” she mentioned.

Scioli recollects instructing her grandfather to write down his title

This system’s international outlook resonates with Scioli for private in addition to skilled causes. 

Though she was born on an Air Power base in Omaha, Nebraska, Scioli spent first and second grades in Panama, the place her father was from. When she returned to the U.S. on the finish of second grade, she had bother with studying and writing English at grade degree. 

“In these days, as an alternative of viewing bilingualism as an asset, many colleges put international college students who had been studying English in particular schooling courses,” Scioli recalled. However her father insisted that Scioli wouldn’t go to particular schooling courses. Thanks partially to tutoring, her love of studying advanced from “Charlotte’s Net” to Shakespeare, all the best way to an undergraduate diploma in ladies’s research and a grasp’s diploma in schooling from the College of Pennsylvania. 

Scioli additionally traces her path to changing into an educator to a time when she traced letters within the floor throughout a go to to the Dominican Republic to see her maternal grandfather, who was illiterate. Utilizing a stick, she spelled out his title within the soil on the household farm. He then adopted swimsuit, and referred to as the second he discovered how one can write his title “unimaginable.” 

“It was my introduction to being an educator, and it caught,” she mentioned.  

She hopes to ultimately obtain approval for IB’s Center Years Program for grades 6-8. In accordance with the district eight colleges presently provide IB packages: six excessive colleges, two center colleges in addition to Mayfair. Thurgood Marshall Center faculty can be within the candidacy course of.

“I wish to create the identical degree of cultural consciousness” that now exists at Mayfair, she mentioned, “and assist college students to suppose critically, work with their palms in addition to their minds, and assist us all perceive how one can join.” 

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior author for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, the place she covers Ok-12 colleges and early childhood schooling in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.