IB Justice

We did a mock trial of the Rosenberg case in History class today. Here’s how things go down in court with IB kids at the wheel.

The bailiff, dressed in combat boots, a leather jacket, mirrored aviators and a cowboy hat, opened up and, we all rose for Honorable Judge Roi. She looked quite judge-like in a black robe HT had in his closet (which, contrary to her pre-trial anxiety, did not appear to be crawling with lice). The effect was lost when she got to the podium and proceeded to announce that she could not find “her paper”. The court reporter located it on the floor.

Prosecution called their first witness, who was sworn in on a copy of The Communist Manifesto that he would “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Mr. History Teacher.” A short recess was called when said witness refused to take the stand because there was “something funky on the seat” and a jury member came down to replace the offending chair. Judge Roi restored order by banging a - ball-peen hammer? what was that thing? – on HT’s Far Side daily calendar. She then threw out a perfectly legitimate hearsay objection (haha no bitterness here!)

I was a lawyer for the defense. My co-counselor Rubix and I prepared so well for some objections that we wowed (read: annoyed) the crowd with synchronized objections. My other co-counselor, Duckie’s Friend (he needs a new nickname) in Stealth’s shirt (two sizes too big), black basketball shorts, and a leg brace, was instrumental in, well, in distracting my clients from the fact that they’ve already been sentenced to death. But then he didn’t really have anything to do today.

Monday: Defense presents their case! DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Things I Learned In IB

Despite its best effort, IB is really educational! Here are a few things I have learned:

1.) Hindu = religion. Hindi = language.

2.) There is no Hindi birthday song.

3.) Most Hindus are vegetarians.

4.) If you offer a vegetarian chicken, they will not eat it.

5.) When trying to distinguish between American and Asian Indians, the clarification is not best made by saying "Indians with dots or Indians with feathers?" while pointing to your head.

6.) If you are male, it is less "gay" to have a Bollywood male movie star as your phone wallpaper than a Hollywood male movie star.

7.) "INDIA is in ASIA, people! Why is this so hard?"

8.) You WISH you were invited to wild Indian-only parties.

9.) You tried to copy something in the Hindi alphabet? You did it all wrong.

10.) Indians do not consider the Kama Sutra to be their greatest contribution to global stability.

11.) You cannot imitate an Indian accent. Don't even try.

IB Word Games

I'm not entirely sure how I should go about explaining these. The short version is: We were bored.
Long version: My calc class is combined into AB and BC. Two classes, one teacher. IB kids find creative enough ways to get into trouble when the teacher is constantly paying attention - now imagine what it's like when you put together juniors and seniors who've know each other for years now, into a last-hour class, and add one overworked and distracted teacher. The lassiez-faire classroom management means that, well, lots of "stuff" goes down in calc class. It's the red-light district of IB classes. (Last year there was penny melting, mace spraying, hand-sanitizer burning, and general mischief and mayhem.) Now I don't mean for this blog to get Calc Teacher in trouble. It's not that she condones any of this or that she sucks at keeping us under control. We're just all nuts and she can only deal with one class for about 1/3 of the time (the other 2/3 spent with the other class or at her desk doing teacher stuff). And, to her credit, HS has really high math scores and to my knowledge there have been no fatalities as a direct result of her class.

Anyway, if the class is that self-determined when she's around, we're a million times worse when we have a sub. (I have a suspicion that her sub notes said something like "pass out worksheet, then duck and cover"). On the last sub day, we got bored translating words into as many languages as possible (I think our record was "water" - we got it in 17 different languages just from one classroom of IB kids) and noticed someone had already messed with the Objectives board. Every day CT writes "Obj.: I will" and then whatever we're doing. The board said:

Obj: I will do well on the test. We changed this to "I will do sucky. Welcome to the test." (the idea was to change as little as possible about the original sentence but change the meaning completely - here all we changed was the "l on" to "come to"). I like the ominous sound of it.

Obj: I will graph f, f' and f" We changed this to "I will graph fluffy fish". Then it was whimsically illustrated but my only photos of that have people's faces in them.
Obj: I i t t ti tit ti ...some comedian erased all the Calc AB objective to be nonsensical and presumably sexual (this was the origin of the "let's mess with the objectives board" because my friends and I felt it needed to be fixed). We managed to change it to "Objects will not rest until" but couldn't figure out a word that had "tit_ti". Frenchie commented that he was "pretty sure that some objects do rest until titti" and offered an example; we declined. Goa walked by (she was off doing her worksheet or something dumb) and said it was "substitution". We all felt dumb, then finished the sentenced with "institutionalization of sock".
The head and hand in the second photo belong to Rubix.

Blog Action Day

http://www.blogactionday.org/

Happy Blog Action Day!

This year's topic is the environment. I'm not going to try and relate this to IB by poking fun at how much paper our teachers use or anything like that. All I can really say about this issue is:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, PEOPLE?

Why is the environment even an "issue" we're raising awareness for? It should not be, and I will tell you why.

IT SHOULD MATTER TO YOU ALREADY.

It's a travesty that they had to choose this as the topic for BAD. There are plenty of issues out there that do need attention from the public, but this should not be one.

Guess what?

YOU LIVE ON EARTH.

You drink water, you need medicine, you breathe air, you live in a house. There is no possible way you can twist this issue to be selfish and not care about it. But I want to drive an SUV! Would you like to be able to breathe in a year?

Here are a list of semi-understandable (not justified, per se, but that make sense) reasons not to be a huge activist for many causes:

You are not an orphan in Africa.

You are not a political prisoner.

You are not a member of a religion persecuted by your government.

You do not have cancer or AIDS.

You are not serving in Iraq.

You are not gay.

You are not mentally ill.

You are not a drug addict.

You are not a chicken, pig, or cow that somebody plans to eat.

Etc.

It's altruistic to be an activist for a cause that does not "directly" involve you. Now, I believe that as children of one God and members of the human race, we have a responsibility to take care of each other, and that every single one of us should be doing as much as they can to help every cause I listed and more. But I'm not here to be idealistic or judgmental. I'm here to say that if you don't care about the environment, you're an idiot in denial. It's not even selfish to not recycle or to litter or do other things that hurt the environment. True, it's selfish to buy Starbucks with money that could have gone to an African school, but in our humanity and our culture, nobody's saying it's wrong. What I cannot fathom, absolutely cannot fathom, is people not caring about the Earth.

There's activism in what's seen as the WWJD-hippy-love-protest-altruistic sense - and there's activism in the SAVE YOUR OWN BUTT sense. Don't shy away from being an environmentalist just because other forms of activism seem like too much effort. Running away from a fire is a good idea, even if most people who run all the time do a lot of training work. It's not that hard, really, and it's going to help you a lot more in the long run.

I'm not going to hit you with warnings or statistics. We all know the Earth is in trouble. Step up and do something.

People need to stop being pseudo-selfish idiots, and then maybe next year we can get to a cause that should be the source of an awareness day, like, oh, I don't know, advocacy for the mentally ill, or helping the lost and discouraged, or Ugandan children.

DO SOMETHING:

Greenpeace International

The Nature Conservancy

National Wildlife Federation

The Sierra Club

The Conservation Fund

IB Arts & Crafts

Remember this post about the Psych in-class project? Well Roi and I teamed up again for a stunningly apathetic and mediocre take on a Spanish origami assignment. We're learning imperatives (commands), so Spanish Teacher had us get with partners and give each other directions for origami penguins and fish. Our penguin came out relatively alright considering it's the lamest origami design ever (it's really only recognizable because we decorated it); except that we did it backwards so it doesn't have wings. The fish, on the other hand, is totally wrong. We gave up on the Spanish instructions (which Rubix later pointed out were the same as the penguin with one variation) and improvised our own idea of an origami fish, then drew on it so it looked kinda-sorta-maybe-a-little-bit like a fish. I should have taken a photo of Meg and Geo's perfectly done one. We were supposed to write something about the imperative tense on ours. On the fish I wrote "El imperativo es en la tercera persona" ("the imperative is in the third person" - that's what ST said but I learned that in English Lit, saying "you..." is second person. Whatever. Feel free to comment and explain.) On the penguin Roi wrote "Mi nombre es Margarita." ("My name is Margarita." Has nothing to do with the imperative.) I don't think they were graded. Haha.

Margarita the penguin, chilling with my waterbottle and ST's boombox that she uses to play "Gasolina" for us.

IB Bored

The above is a comic Roi and I were collaborating on during class. (I won't say which one in case any teachers read this. heh.) The hangman games at the top are unfinished because we guessed them correctly after only a few letters. Hangman isn't as much fun with someone you share a brain with. (They say "something wonderful", "on sprocken", and "origami penguin". Yes - I guessed "on sprocken" after just one letter. It's scary.)

We (Roi and I) were discussing a movie we watched in TOK called The Power Of Nightmares, about the rise of NeoCons in America and Islamic Fundamentalists in the Middle East. I commented that it would be a ridiculously awesome wake-up call to the White House if they woke up one morning and all of America's citizens had just gotten fed up and bailed and gone to Canda/Europe/etc. We were laughing at the image of a collective America saying "We're sick of this!" and just walking out, like a sexy girlfriend slamming the door on an irresponsible boyfriend. Unfortunately, Roi noted, most of the South would insist that our government really doesn't mean it, and that they really do love us, and they'd stay.

So I illustrated the conversation with a sketch of the White House and a thought bubble that says "WTF where'd everyone go" and a stick person holding aloft a Confederate flag yelling "AH'M STILL HURR". That was all it took.

In case you can't read it:

The Candadian flag is thinking "When did we become the new America? Eff! Eh?"

Mexican flag: "Still not happy..." "Oh, the irony."

Confederate flag: "You can't make me leave!"

Hammer & Sickle: "PWNED."

Union Jack: "We knew they'd be back. Private healthcare too much for ya?"

Chinese flag: "GO COMMIES!"

Australian flag: "WTF mate? ^^" (if you don't get this joke, you're a failure at the internet.)

Libyan flag: "Can we have a cooler flag please?" (in-joke from Psych last year)

Oh, and don't even think you know what's with the turtle.

Just try and imagine... two high schoolers get bored in class and start passing a note. Is it about a cute guy? The boring factor of the lesson? Plans for the weekend?

No.


It's political cartoons.

Welcome to IB.

IB Victim Support

Today they (the proverbial They, of “The System") handed out a flyer for an IB parent support group. Now, something has to be pretty rough when they have a support group for “parents of…”

But, uh, where’s our support group? Seriously, folks.

It would be more like an addiction meeting than a cancer support group – after all, as victimized as we make ourselves out to be, we did this to ourselves. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and now we hate it - but we’re in so deep it’d be equally painful to quit.
Here’s how it would go:

Hi, I’m Sal.
Hi, Sal.
I first heard about IB as a kid, in elementary school. I started slow, you know, Pre-IB in middle school. Nobody thinks it’s such a big deal – I mean lots of middle schoolers do honors classes, and it’s not much extra work. It was actually kinda fun when I first started.
Then in high school I started hitting the harder stuff. It was just a natural step from Pre-IB, I guess. They told me I could quit anytime; it would always be a choice. It doesn’t feel like a daily choice anymore.
Understanding nods.
I knew it would be hard, and you’d always be at risk for losing your diploma. I’d seen kids get into that stuff and lose their boyfriends, their families, their social lives, their jobs, everything. All they did was IB. I knew what it did, how it made you lose sleep and everything. I knew, I knew! I don’t understand what made me decide to start it. Maybe it was the pressure – all my friends were doing it - even the teachers made it sound so awesome.
I don’t know why I started. It’s just so hard to quit! It’s eaten up my life… if I left, where would I go? All my friends and all my classes are IB. I still like the high, I do… the TOK class, the kids, the teachers, the feeling of accomplishment… I’m just sick of the crashes. The times I wonder if it’s really all worth it in the end, or when the work gets to be too much. I don’t know how much more I can take.
Muted clapping.

Wow. That was a moving story. Thanks for sharing. Stay strong, sister! We believe in you.
Amen!

Next meeting is Thursday at 3am – no whining, you’ll all be up anyway.
Begrudging nods.
Remember to tell your parents about the support group for them. Topics will include “Calculus and Cold Chicken: When They Just Can’t Come Down To Dinner”, “Clarifying Condoned CAS: What Counts, What’s Copulation” and “Computer Time: They Have An EE To Do, So Shut Up And Live Without It Or Buy Another One, Cheapskates”. [Note: The second talk topic has been canceled due to lack of interest. Apparently parents of IB kids don’t worry too much about their kids having sex.]

Disclaimer: Okay, so IB is slightly more enjoyable than a meth addiction. And we do have a pretty solid support system in our fellow students and teachers. This bitter nature of this post is brought to you by sponsors Extended Essay, CAS, TOK Perception Essay, and Bio Lab. Blaargh.

IB Mature?

I’ve mentioned before how IB kids are in a lot of ways more immature than our peers, or at least more creative and enthusiastic about our immaturity. A lot of us are younger than we ought to be for seniors (skipped grades), and a lot of us kind of missed out on the experience of being stupid little kids because – you may be familiar with this concept from various sitcoms – oftentimes advanced intellects come with less competent social skills. The government says some of us can vote/join the army and most of us can drive; the school system says we are now responsible for choosing and applying to the perfect college as well as saving the world with our bio labs; many of us have jobs – and yet we’re all essentially just seven year olds who can differentiate functions, as illustrated by the Homecoming assembly.

Yesterday Roi and I were at our job (tutoring first graders in reading) and we had to do things a little differently because we needed to give our kids a pre-test to measure their progress through the year. However, because we have such little ones, we needed to take them out of our groups and test them one at a time over reading sight words. We came up with a brilliant plan – combine our groups so one of us can teach all the kids (about 12, since another tutor was gone that day) and one of us can take their kids out individually to test them. When I say “brilliant plan”, I mean that in a “Let’s spy on the Democrats!” way.
Yesterday, Roi and I learned a very important lesson. If you disrupt the routine of first graders by introducing a new situation, person, game, etc. – they become as manageable as rabid gophers. The testing took less than ten minutes, but we spent the remainder of the hour chasing after the kids, yelling over them, pulling them out from under bookshelves, confiscating toys, breaking up brawls, and getting tackled. Geo and another first-grade tutor combined their groups to do the same thing, with the same effects. It didn’t help that Roi and I found the antics exceedingly hilarious and so we were yelling at them to stop while laughing. Fun fact – if you laugh at something a kid does, s/he will continue the behavior, no matter how many times you punctuate your laughter with “quiet mouths please! Let’s all sit down!”

Tonight is the Homecoming game so this morning we had a pep assembly (I have a separate blog about that) between second and third hours. That meant that all the classes today began and ended at weird times. That routine disruption, coupled with leftover “pep” from the assembly, made us about as manageable as, well, rabid gophers. We spent History class playing Cold War jeopardy on the computer. Usually History jeopardy games are slightly tense (IBers are competitive about everything) and mostly just an opportunity to sleep/do other homework when it’s not your turn to stand at the front and not know the answer. Today, on the other hand, we spent the hour banging on desks, cheering, yelling, Middle-Eastern war whooping (Nahidface, help me out here, what’s it called?), and generally reacting to the Jeopardy game with passion rivaling Superbowl fans. We got into TOK and found a giant pile of Play-Doh containers and insisted on getting to play with them (even though they weren’t meant for our class). Rubix made a supercool dinosaur, unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me. TOK Teacher tried to teach but we mutinied and demanded a “free period”, so she surrendered to the insanity and gave us a little kinesiology demonstration and let us loose. It was boffo!
Lesson for today? IB kids are just as bad as first graders. Throw off our routine, and we jump from zombies to Chihuahuas on crack and make it impossible for anything to get accomplished. We like Play-Doh, dinosaurs, and yelling.

Oh, and speaking of obnoxious immaturity, this has to be shared:
The Speech team has a sort of rivalry with the team we were playing, so even though I know nothing about football, I was being as annoyingly spirited as possible at the game. Then I got bored with football and carried that annoying energy over into entertaining myself. For the homecoming game, everyone dressed up in “crazy black and gold” to be supportive, and I had a gold sash tied around my waist. I wrapped it around my hand and shouted “hey everybody look – sash knuckles!”

IB, therefore I BS

Announcement: Updating schedule is now Mondays and Thursdays. EXCITING!!!

Ok, readers, here’s your assignment for today.
1.) Design an experiment you can carry out with materials and knowledge accessible to a high school student.
2.) Come up with a way that your experiment affects the world.
3.) Work that “global impact” into the “purpose statement” of your baking-soda-volcano lab write-up.

That’s what we’re expected to do from now on with all our labs. There’s a saying among us IBers that says “IB, therefore I BS.” It’s true that we get pretty good at coming up with pretentiously intelligent-sounding nonsense, or at re-wording lowbrow concepts so that they sound higher-level. But that’s usually the result of our own desire to take shortcuts and not the absurdly impossible nature of the assignment.

This requirement is essentially a command to BS something. You’ll note it does not say “design an experiment that affects the world.” It says “figure out a way to spin some aspect of your experiment so that it may possibly be written to hypothetically affect the world.”
Think about the labs we’re doing. If you could cure cancer, end terrorism, or bring about world peace by looking at pond scum under microscopes, don’t you think the IB class of 06 (1806, that is) would have figured it out? Maybe the secret to a stable economy can be found right under an eggshell – just dissolve it in vinegar! It just hasn’t been noticed for centuries because we’re all too busy playing with the shell-less squishy bouncy eggs (which, by the way, is insanely fun).

But instead of writing up that lab and getting the lesson on osmosis that it was designed for, I’m too busy thinking up what it has to do with bird flu in Asia. Nothing. It has nothing to do with tea in China or bird flu in Asia or any other “global impact”! It’s an egg that was soaked in vinegar!
Lately I’ve had a hard time distinguishing between when I actually know something, and when I’m writing a bunch of buzzwords that sound nice. Maybe that’s all “knowledge” is – making easy stuff sound important.

My bio paper: “the theory of evolution has met with resistance from some groups who believe that the story of Creation found in the first book of the Judeo-Christian Bible is literal fact.”
What I really said: “some religious people don’t think evolution is real.” Now that’s not really higher-level IB thinking, now is it? Lots of people know that. Consider also that it had very little to do with the question I was answering about the influences on Darwin’s theories (those beliefs influenced his publicizing of his theories but not really his theories). But, I got points for it.

I do that all the time in just about every class except possibly Spanish. I’m not saying all of my work is lame ideas dressed up in fancy words, just that it’s a really easy fallback.
The thing about IB is it teaches you how to do that really well – first by piling on so much work that you don’t have time to craft higher-level theories, and then by asking you to come up with things that are impossible without an extremely high BS content.

I wonder, if we all stopped and thought about how much of our work really means something compared to how much just sounds like it does – we’d reconsider a lot of what we think we’ve “learned”. But then again, maybe this skill is just as vital as being able to actually say something of importance. What does that say about the world that IB is preparing us for?
Ah. There’s the “impact on society.” Dang I’m good.