Theory of Knowledge: The Verdict

[Wanda(Not Alvin)]

Haha we watched The Matrix.

It's not bad, it's all down to the teacher I think.

I agree. In our school there are two teachers taking the ToK classes. I have Mr. Capier, and a friend of mine has Ms. Pohn. Pohn seems to give everyone textbooks, waffle around and never check that anyone is actually learning anything. Mr. Capier teaches properly, but seldom gives tests, only small assignments to check understanding, no more than is necessary. He makes the class interesting and fun, showing us random movies from Youtube sometimes when we're stresssed, and generally taking the piss out of IB.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Wanda(Not Alvin)

[roma_k13]

tok puts me to sleep. Maybe because it is on a Thursday afternoon, when the non-IBers are gone home and there is a pack of 50 IB kids half aslleep for three hours

[diabolicalangle]

tOk is kinda fun... our teacher is amazing. He makes the calss so intersting and shows random clips and doesn't assign that much while still teaching.... Great

[davshere]

TOK is a good course and I like it but the essay is worth way to much. That one essay can destroy the aspirations of anyone looking to get those three points. Especially if you're relying on those three points.

[KFC]

Watching a monkey groom itself < TOK < Monster trucks! Monster trucks for the win!!!111

I like it as a course to do nothing and eat through. The stuff we're learning is all kind of repetitive ... and the truely deep questions a lot of us have already thought through while showering (yayy shower thinking!) prior to ToK.

oh well, at least we learn what we "didn't know we didn't know" .

[niceperson91]

Yay we watched star trek too!

We watched "The Matrix." I was actually shocked to see how much this movie was connected to TOK. Eventhough i had watched it before, I found it to be more interesting when i watched it in our TOK class. However, we had to write reflections, articles etc about the movie.

[__inthemaking]

I loved TOK. I think a lot of it has to do with your teacher, and my teacher was certainly kick ass .

[cataclysm1c]

I hate to say it, but in my school , TOK so far has been a "nay" for me in the first year. Our teacher isn't really qualified to teach, she just sits around and talk about her personal experiences, and as we students know, half of what she says is complete BS. I think TOK would be an interesting and thoughtful subject if you have the right teacher to guide you. In our class, we just simply get the rubric on the course and write essays on "how we feel" about an ethical situation, I wouldn't think that's TOK, do you?

[jofijk]

i hate tok with a passion...

when, during the first class, the teacher tried to relate every single comment made (relating to the class or not) to tok, i knew that i would not like it at all

[Tyro]

We have TOK at 7:30 in the morning and half the class is asleep but other than that it's pretty cool. We talk about random things all the time, but the extra work kinda hurts cause we still have our other 8 classes on top of TOK.

[CdnIBer]

nay, my teacher knows so much that he tends to talk and talk about unrelated subjects that just confuse me. I feel that we try to go so indepth into things that it seems to defeat the whole purpose and over analyze even the simplest things.

[iby1]

Our TOK teacher doesn't teach! She just gives out readings, and one class we even watched startrek! Do any of you have similar teachers?

Yes!!! our teacher hands out packages that no one does and we just end up talking about pointless stuff in his class, it was pretty fun until i have to do my tok essay

[jiggapunch]

TOK sucks!! Seriously a waste of 60 hours of my life. I don't understand why we have to write an essay on something like "if 200,000 people think something is true, is it true?" i mean writing 1000 words on this topic is so stupid when i could answer it completely in 100 words and would prove myself right! All this class is, is to help you make analogies and connections between everyday situations and philosophical questions. I don't have to go to class to learn that even though 200,000 Germans thought Hitler was great, it doesn't mean he was great. The only good thing about this class is that it provides me with about an hour and a half of shuteye 3 times a cycle. We watched star trek in class for ****s sake!! Spock is not a respected philosopher.

[~Lc~]

TOK sucks!! Seriously a waste of 60 hours of my life. I don't understand why we have to write an essay on something like "if 200,000 people think something is true, is it true?" i mean writing 1000 words on this topic is so stupid when i could answer it completely in 100 words and would prove myself right! All this class is, is to help you make analogies and connections between everyday situations and philosophical questions. I don't have to go to class to learn that even though 200,000 Germans thought Hitler was great, it doesn't mean he was great. The only good thing about this class is that it provides me with about an hour and a half of shuteye 3 times a cycle. We watched star trek in class for ****s sake!! Spock is not a respected philosopher.

clearly you've misunderstood the point of the IBO wanting to teach us brainless zombies tok! it's not because they want us to learn about philosophy or implement it in our everyday life! it's to make us think about information presented to us before we consider it to be true. This is why I'm having such a hard time in my lectures now, because I assume there is a mistake or some form of problem of knowledge in each lecture I take! so it takes me ages until I take a piece of information to be credible.

Don't blame the subject if your teacher didn't introduce you to it correctly

[crazian]

clearly you've misunderstood the point of the IBO wanting to teach us brainless zombies tok! it's not because they want us to learn about philosophy or implement it in our everyday life! it's to make us think about information presented to us before we consider it to be true. This is why I'm having such a hard time in my lectures now, because I assume there is a mistake or some form of problem of knowledge in each lecture I take! so it takes me ages until I take a piece of information to be credible.

Don't blame the subject if your teacher didn't introduce you to it correctly

Dude it seems like you got the shaft. If you have a hard time listening in lectures because of the stuff you learned in TOK, it's going to affect your grades and your future life. It doesn't matter if you think its true or not, it's what the teacher is going to put on the test.

[Ruan Chun Xian]

Yes, Lc is a bit extreme. but the point is that through TOK you learn to think critically which is something I hear repeated in every other assignment briefing here at uni. what lecturers say in class is the bare minimum of the stuff, it's up to you to make sense of it and realise what the gibberish they say mean and its significance.

[homeroom]

I loved the subject matter, did not like the teacher at all! I find philosophy so interesting - makes you look at life from a different perspective. Unfortunately, our teacher tended to stress that HER perspective was the only one that was right - if you disagreed, your marks would be cut by 10%. *sigh*...

[IBMan9000]

I didn't like it because everything we 'debated' were things that you think about when you're 6 and have already solidified an answer.

Too many people were closed-minded and didn't want to look it the subject any other way.

Not to mention that if two people argue an entire class the rest of the class would lose points.

Edited April 30, 2008 by IBMan9000

[Mr. Shiver]

I like the concept of the course a lot, but I can see how the enjoyment of it is completely dependent on how good the teacher is and how interested the students around you are. I personally enjoy it. That doesn't mean I don't sometimes wish it was better, but overall it's a win. Definitely a relaxing break from all the other course work.

[vkfng]

Somewhere between "lame" and "hell on Earth".

Personally, I blame my teacher. Who explains things in the most boring way possible and kills any possibility of discussion. So TOK for me is a total snorefest.

On a related note...it seems like a total waste of time to question all sources of information as TOK says you should.

It's like a boring version of philosophy.

Edited May 26, 2008 by vkfng