<p>I'm the mom of a busy IB student who is also a serious music student (which is not part of her school at all). This is her first year in the school and the program, which is in Italy. We are relatively new to the country. </p>
<p>My daughter has started to get her holiday break assignments, and they seem heavy to me. She's just got math and English so far, and she already has to read an extremely violent and depressing book (I read some of them out of curiosity) and do 30 pages of math. But I think she will have similar amounts in all seven subjects, including two sciences. It's as though she will be in school full time during the break, plus her usual music practice (which she would do anyway). This seems inappropriate to me because we're going to the US for two weeks to visit family, with whom we are close but have limited time to see. Also I think a young person just needs a little time to process what they've been doing for the past four months. And then there's the small matter of taking six textbooks and a violin on a plane...</p>
<p>My reason for posting here is get some perspective: How much homework are IB students in the US assigned over winter break? </p>
<p>I suspect, from talking to other parents of Italian high schoolers, that this is partly a cultural thing. There seems to be a bit of a vicious cycle between kids who cheat and slack off and teachers who try to keep them loaded down and under their thumbs. My daughter isn't this kind of student, but she seems to be caught in the crossfire. So knowing what is typical in the US would help me to make a fairer comparison so that I can at least let the school politely know how I feel.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to change anyone's mind, but at least the director is Italian-American and has experience with another system. This being Italy, it's possible that they might even take off a page or two here and there. Stranger things have happened!</p>
<p>It seems excessive but is typical in many parts of the world. Not sure about the US - we’re in the Middle East. My girls (1st & 2nd year DP) have had at least a novel to read, plus some math problem sets & art projects (IB Visual Arts). Their sciences didn’t have any homework, though, so it was manageable.</p>
<p>This year, my 2nd-year child has Mock IB exams that begin the 2nd week of January. Although she has no official “homework,” she has warned us that she’ll be studying pretty much full-time during the break.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, KSAMom, and kudos to your 2nd-year child for being self-disciplined. </p>
<p>I think it’s the combination of all this work with traveling and music practice that’s bothering me. Trips to see extended family are important. But now she’s gotten assignments for another couple of additional classes and they aren’t as bad as the math and English. </p>
<p>And she says she’s not going to ask for a break on the math: She’s scared of the teacher! It’s really interesting experiencing another culture, given how over the top “self-esteem” can be in the US.</p>
<p>About carrying books on the plane… Try to use technology if possible. Is there an ebook version of the novel? A CD for the math book? The less to carry, the better. Since you have long flights (and layovers?), encourage her to get the reading out of the way then. Every minute counts for an IB student!</p>
<p>I’ve been really surprised by the workload in IB. My girls are hard-working & self-disciplined, but they are up working past 1am on a regular basis. Every weekend, every vacation, they’ve got hours upon hours of work. It’s all challenging & interesting, but it’s just so much! I value your comment about the importance of down-time for reflection - I think this is lacking in IB or at least at our school. Yet reflection is part of the IB Learner Profile!</p>
<p>I’m an 12th grade IB student and, honestly, it seems like you are not looking at the math homework the right way. I recommend you do not judge the homework by how many “pages” it is, as many times this varies in subjects such as mathematics. I’m in mathematics HL and just last week we had a 4 page assignment which consisted of over 60 calculus questions and that took me much longer than other, more-paged assignments. I recommend you ask your daughter to calculate how many hours the entire work will take her, as she is the only judge of that.</p>
<p>The workload of the IB should not have anyone working more than 3 hours (and I mean nonstop work) per day. Anyone staying up till the early morning hours has not organized themselves well. Of all the times I’ve stayed up late working on assignments, it was always at my fault of not working on it at other times.</p>
<p>All in all, if I were you I wouldn’t be worried about the workload. Even if it is excessive, which in the IB I can assure you it is not, your daughter will come out of it knowing all the material extremely well.</p>
<p>KSAmom, you are right that the math book is on CD. And she’s going to copy chapters out of some of the other books, so we’ll do everything we can to minimize the cargo load. The laptop will definitely be in use. It’s a two-stop flight, because they’re so expensive this year! </p>
<p>Stanlee, you sound like a self-disciplined and conscientious student, and I agree with your comment that the number of pages don’t necessarily reflect the amount of work. But for now, it’s all I have to go on. My daughter does not yet have that skill of knowing exactly how long an assignment will take. </p>
<p>And thankfully, she doesn’t regularly stay up until 1 a.m., even with violin practice. I do think this school is probably more international than most here and I can tell they’re really trying to run it according to standards, but still, it has a very Italian feel. That is, assignments can be a little hard to anticipate.</p>
<p>Also, I’m factoring in the instrument practice and the fact that we’re visiting a lot of different people. Distractions will occur. It’s Christmas.</p>
<p>It’s pretty typical from my experience, I’m a second year IB student and I have to do internals, read Walden, mocks and several other assignments as well as traveling/finishing college applications. We can only hope it pays off in the long run! (:
The best thing you can do for her is make sure everyone is understanding–I get a lot of nagging from relatives about not spending enough time with them and my mom doesn’t really help to explain the work that the IB involves, so everyone spends the break yelling at me to stop working all the time (as if I wanted to be!).
Good luck and Merry Christmas to you and your daughter!! :D</p>
<p>I have to write a composition for music, finish EE, do historical investigation, read Pride and Prejudice, type up lab design for Biology, write first draft of TOK essay, prepare for English IOC, and (most importantly) finish college apps. Kinda defeats the purpose of a “break”.</p>
<p>“The workload of the IB should not have anyone working more than 3 hours (and I mean nonstop work) per day. Anyone staying up till the early morning hours has not organized themselves well. Of all the times I’ve stayed up late working on assignments, it was always at my fault of not working on it at other times.”</p>
<p>That may be true for you, but it’s rather judgmental and presumptuous to assume the same for others. Students vary in their IB coursework, native languages, co-curricular activities, family commitments, and work experiences.</p>
<p>I believe your student’s workload will vary upon how efficient she is at time management, how kind the teacher is and/or how fast/brutally the teacher works the class. </p>
<p>I, for one, have a fairly light workload, with only 1 chapter of APUSH + relatively fun extra credit, 1 physics lab, math, HI research, chamber music and solo work, EC chinese, and a demand from the rest of my teachers to have fun.</p>
<p>I will probably not do most of it until the night before we return from break or the night before the work is due and expect to ***** and moan about it. To be very frank.</p>
<p>Some of my friends, though, also have a 60 page math portfolio, chem or bio labs, and English papers to write, which is comparatively more than my own work. </p>
<p>They too will end up whingeing. </p>
<p>It is reasonable, though, to expect approximately 48 total hours of work.</p>
<p>Forgot how to have fun while doing the Gifted IB.</p>
<p>I’m a senior IB student, and strangely enough, I don’t have much homework over the break (other than finishing CAS reflections and college apps). Though I’m not in US, I go to an IB school in Taiwan that follows an American education system. Good luck to your daughter!</p>