Grade 10 students at Katoh Gakuen celebrating 10 years as an MYP school. GAY-ANN BAGOTCHAY
Katoh Gakuen Gyoshu High School celebrated its 10th year as an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (MYP) school in real style. Early last month, MYP students in the bilingual program displayed their work in an exhibition that was considered to be an enormous success.
The hardworking grade 10 students displayed their personal projects, which included remaking a kimono as a formal dress, writing an enthralling novel entitled Galaxy Spirits, raising funds for Peace for Animals around the World (PAW), and making a shimmering glass painting to donate to a hospital.
In science, students displayed their ingenuity by improving and inventing various products to make their school or home lives easier. These included adding LED to an umbrella so that you can read on dark and rainy days, improvising different types of hand glove to prevent your hands from getting dirty when writing, and making an onion cutter called “onion cut-tear” that prevents crying when cutting onions.
Recycling was emphasized in the exhibit. Students used cardboard boxes to design and make life-sized chairs in technology class and to make science display boards. Art paintings, mandala tessellation projects, maths survey results and poems where on display too.
In English, students demonstrated their skills of persuasion through speeches and debates. Students debated topics such as “That the Japanese Government Should Allow More Immigrants into Japan” and “That Reading Books is Better than Watching Movies.”
The MYP is all about inquiry, ingenuity, communication, and critical thinking, and their application across different subjects. What better way then, for Katoh Gakuen Gyoshu to celebrate its 10th year of MYP than with an exhibition of students’ work that demonstrates these exact qualities?
— GAY-ANN BAGOTCHAY AND DAVID ALGIE
