(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring Bexley Middle School, appeared in The Columbus Dispatch on February 5, 2006)  2/14/06

Bexley school aims to broaden scope of offerings
‘Middle years’ kids learn global awareness 

Sunday, February 05, 2006
Charlie Roduta
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The changes have been small, but Mashhood Salahuddin has noticed a difference in his teachers and classes at Bexley Middle School.

"Teachers are more interested in what students are interested in learning instead of what they want you to learn," said Salahuddin, 14, an eighth-grader.

For the past year, Bexley Middle School teachers have been weaving components of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program into classroom lessons and school philosophies.

The school is halfway through its three-year plan to implement the program. Its first application, to become a candidate for the IB middle-years program, was approved in August. Now, the staff is mapping plans for its final application by June 2007.

If accepted, Bexley would be the first IB middle school in Ohio and one of only 150 in the country.

The International Baccalaureate organization, which was started in 1968, offers three programs: one for primary years, ages 3 to 12; one for middle years, ages 11 to 16; and a diploma program for juniors and seniors in high school.

All programs involve community service, provide opportunities for individual or group learning and emphasize foreign language development and international awareness. About 1,700 schools in 122 countries offer IB programs to more than 200,000 students ages 3 to 19, according to the organization’s Web site.

Cassingham Elementary in Bexley has applied to become an IB primary-years school. Bexley High School does not have an IB program.

The middle-years program helps students become independent learners, relate school subjects to the community and world and apply practical and social intelligence to real-life situations.

IB middle schools are required to offer foreign language, art, physical education and technology courses as well as English, math, science and social studies.

The IB program is in tune with the one already in place at Bexley, Principal Harley Williams said. "It didn’t require us to overhaul everything.

"We didn’t have to stop teaching what is already a pretty good practice. (The IB program) provided a framework we could work under. We could still tap into the creative genius of our teachers."

The school has had a strong international focus, Williams said. Every other summer, some students spend two weeks in Costa Rica on an environmental-study trip. Every other spring, students studying French spend three weeks in France, and French students visit Bexley.

Students also have swapped letters and mementos in "cultural exchange boxes" with students in Japan and Africa.

Seventh- and eighth-graders already spend one day each quarter doing community service.

New this year is a personal project in which students are encouraged to study subjects they are passionate about. Research starts in the seventh grade; by the eighth, students reflect on their progress through journals and papers.

Also this year, all students are required to take Spanish or French. And teachers have been taking baby steps to incorporate IB concepts into all studies.

For example, a lesson on the environment has turned into a discussion of development along Big Darby Creek and might lead to a field trip there, said eighth-grade science teacher Dan Jax.

The IB concept "has a lot to do about what the world is like around us and how do humans affect the environment," said Jax, one of the leaders in the school’s middle-years program.

Establishing an IB program does not involve instant change, said Gary Arthur, a former principal from Colorado who works with middle schools interested in the concept. "It’s a process that’s pretty involved."

Last month, Arthur met with Bexley teachers, students and staff members about their progress.

In the meantime, Salahuddin has been working on a childhood passion for his personal project: airplanes.

He has spent last summer, weekends and vacations designing a solar-powered aircraft that would fly "faster than the Concorde." Once he finishes the design, his older brother will help him develop a 3-D graphic, the final phase of his project.

His brother works in Grand Rapids, Mich., at Smiths Aerospace, an aircraft equipment and systems company. Salahuddin hopes to submit his design to Smiths, where it could be built into an actual plane.

He likes the independence of the project. "You’re doing it on your own," he said. "It’s expressing yourself and doing it your own way."

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