The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (MYP) is designed for students age 11-16 in grades 6 through 10. The program is designed to foster relationships between school subjects, the student as an independent learner, and the community. Students are encouraged to consider multiple perspectives with the aim of promoting global awareness. Communication is also fundamentally stressed as it supports inquiry, reflection, and expression.
The Areas of Interaction (AOI) provide a system of educational dynamics that extend the learning and make critical connections that foster problem-solving and interrelated concepts. Teachers use AOI to focus lessons in ways that require the information and skills to be viewed through different lens with the results being an expansion of the material or skills and an infusion into the long-term knowledge base of the student.
The Areas of Interaction are as follows:
-
Approaches to Learning: Students are encouraged to understand how they learn and how intellectual strategies can improve their understanding.
-
Community and Service: Students learn community service awareness, skills, attitudes and responsibility.
-
Human Ingenuity: Students learn to appreciate the creative and inventive genius and the impact on society and the human mind.
-
Environment: Students are encouraged to be aware of their interdependence with their environment and global issues.
-
Heath and Social Education: Students learn what is needed for physical, mental and social health.
Students who earn the MYP Certificate have been engaged in a program guided by the International Baccalaureate Organization’s (IBO) mission to guide young people “to become critical and compassionate thinkers, lifelong learners and informed participants in local and world affairs” (from the IBO Mission Statement). The mission statement is further supported by the “IB Learner Profile,” the mission statement in action.