Shared knowledge: a moment of “Wow!”

August 1, 2014

You HAVE to watch this video from Discovery Channel! Watch it, and then rotate your screen for the view at the end. First, just enjoy it. And then we can link it to TOK.   Mount Everest in 3D: Experience the Trek to the Summit. For me, there are moments of wordless...

opinions on the child: raising knowledge questions through literature

July 28, 2014

On a day when TOK students seem hard to rouse to even a mild level of vehement engagement, they will almost certainly perk up when asked questions like the following: 1. If a parent coddles a child every time it cries will the child become manipulative, crying to get...

TOK classification: the jerk

July 19, 2014

After my last post on classification (July 7, “Nazi poster child was Jewish”), I thought you deserved a lighter one. (After all, for many of us, summer holiday has begun!) I’m picking out the same central topic – classification of people – but this time...

Bolivia reverses congress clock: symbolic representation and (disputed) meaning

July 12, 2014

I love plenty of knowledge questions – but sometimes I delight even more in the answers, especially when they jolt me for a refreshing moment into someone else’s way of seeing the world. Did you see that Bolivia has reversed the direction in which the hands on the...

TOK and Classification: Nazi poster child was Jewish

July 7, 2014

Here’s a great story for TOK: “Nazi perfect Aryan poster child was Jewish.” We certainly don’t need additional evidence to debunk racist and nationalist classifications of humanity, but the bitter ironies of this particular story do make it hit home. How we classify –...

TOK and mathematics: how not to be wrong?

July 2, 2014

“As it develops, mathematics moves both towards the abstractions of the mind, and also towards the connection with the world.”  Thus begins the section on “Pure and Applied Mathematics” in the ToK Course Companion.  (p. 357).  The nature of the...