It’s that time of year again. What time of year, you ask? That time of year where the IB, once again, fills me with furious rage.

For those of you who don’t know, the IB stands for the International Baccalaureate organization. It’s a British organization that creates an international curriculum that provides a singular set of standards for schools around the world.

On a basic level, I like the IB curriculum, but only to a certain extent. I have been lucky enough to teach IB courses whose curriculum works well; Language & Literature, Theory of Knowledge, and Film (the subject I currently teach). Basically, what the IB does is teach students how to think, which is in direct opposition to Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which teach you how to be rote learners, focused solely on memorization and regurgitation. IB is a European framework. AP is American. That should speak to the differences between the two.