Only Connect

Our school is an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme school. One of the things that distinguishes the MYP from the PYP (Primary Years Programme) or the Degree Programme is the organizing principal of the Areas of Interactions: five perspectives or "lenses" that help the students uncover the connections between the disciplines, so that they will learn to see knowledge as an interrelated, coherent whole. The IB MYP AoI are approaches to learning, health and social education, human ingenuity, environment, and community and service.

This afternoon when I picked up Treat and Josh from their photography class, I asked them what they had learned today.

"We learned you can't stare into the eyes of a giant python without blinking," answered Treat, by way of blowing off my genuine interest.

"Did you try looking through your camera lens, Colin Creevy?" I asked with a bit of irritation, at which point Treat, who is a regular reader of this blog, accused me of being obsessed with Harry Potter. "Well," I confessed, "the series is definitely on my mind at the moment, what with the movie marathon and all, and I am good at making connections."

We were stopped at a traffic light on the way to Treat's house and Josh glanced out the window. "How about street lights?" he challenged me. "Connect those to Harry Potter."

Treat and I laughed. "Easy," I said. "In the first book, Dumbledore uses that thing--"

"The deluminator," Treat supplied.

"Yeah, that," I continued, "to put out the street lights on Privet Drive, and then... doesn't Ron get it, or something?"

"Yes," Treat said. "Ron inherits it in the seventh book and it becomes pretty important."

"Yeah," I said. "So there!"

Josh was impressed, and I turned to Treat, who is a graduate of our school and quite well-versed in things IB MYP. "See? Harry Potter could totally be the sixth area of interaction!"