Millard elementary schools are taking on a teaching method from a program often used in high schools.
One school specializes in getting students ready for the real world at a young age. Reporter Lindsey Theis takes us in the classroom.
To get in the classroom atAldrich Eelementary, it's high competitive. The school maxes out at 440 students, and each year they've turned away about 75-100 students. Why the desire to get into this one school?
It's one of a few schools in the metro that offer IB for elementary school students. IB, or International Baccalaureate boasts itself as series of programs of international education that develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.
Many of us have heard of IB classes at the high school level. But in Millard, the focus at Aldrich starts younger. "We teach them how from kindergarten on and we use a lot of different vocabulary words to teach them how to go, ok what do I want to learn about? From a certain topic like air and weather and what do I want to know about then what questions do I want to ask about?"
The program takes the Millard curriculum, taught at all Millard schools and puts the IB program by ways of teaching method. It is much more student driven, just to pace things it might be tricky at time a unit or a topic, then you want to foster that love of learning.
But how do you get elementary students, at the youngest level to get problem solving?
"If you will, kindergarten, 5 and 6 year olds don't know what a question is, they know how to tell stories but to ask question....so it begins with that ground level of how to as a question."
IB is growing in Millard schools. Black Elk Elementary school rolls out half of IB program next year. They plan to roll out the rest in the 2018 school year.
