Theory of Knowledge: The Verdict

[IEKnight]

TOK: the concept is good, but our teacher isn't.

TOK for me: Is sitting through almost two hours of our teacher complaining about how far behind we are, how uncommitted we are, and insisting that if we want to discuss our essays, we would have to track her down sometime out of lesson, despite the fact that she's always impossible to find.

TOK Ideally: Is having laid back class discussions about current (not OBSCURE) issues, which re-inforce he basic concepts, while introducing the subject matter, AND THUS GIVING US THE USEFUL BACKGROUND TO WRITE THE ESSAY.

Well that's just me, but I think I'm onto something.

_______________________

001878006

November 2008

[auron]

TOK: the concept is good, but our teacher isn't.

TOK for me: Is sitting through almost two hours of our teacher complaining about how far behind we are, how uncommitted we are, and insisting that if we want to discuss our essays, we would have to track her down sometime out of lesson, despite the fact that she's always impossible to find.

TOK Ideally: Is having laid back class discussions about current (not OBSCURE) issues, which re-inforce he basic concepts, while introducing the subject matter, AND THUS GIVING US THE USEFUL BACKGROUND TO WRITE THE ESSAY.

Well that's just me, but I think I'm onto something.

_______________________

001878006

November 2008

I agree for TOK Ideally. Our teacher ain't too bad, and TOK is pretty interesting cause it dwells on philosophical issues, though most of my friends (ESL) find it superbly hard. They think it's hell on earth =P. If I was in their shoes though, I would have to agree.

Imagine, learning philosophy in........Hungarian!

AURON

[Ib_slave]

Coming from a person who prefers facts over feelings, TOK really irked me and tested my patience. There really isn't a concrete answer for any of the bloody questions and our class pretty much went in circles. After a while, I wanted to tear out my hair, sell my liver on Ebay and throw what's left of my sanity down the drain. But that's just me.

Edited June 26, 2008 by freelancer_girl

[MarianaHP]

I think it all depends on the teacher because TOK can be really interesting, but if it's not tought properly its really boring. I like TOK, becuase you really think about other points of view and it hepls you to keep and open mind and not get sutck on your own ideas

[kinfiel]

I really enjoyed TOK, which I will be officially finished once I resubmit my TOK essay tonight.

My teacher had not taught the course before so it was a new experience for everyone. She did a pretty amazing job considering, and our class really enjoyed the course.

[robertomx]

the concept of ToK is good, imo. The thing is, it really depends on everything: your classmates, your teacher, your will, your patience, your class.... I mean, in my case half of my classmates are idiots, the teacher is pathetic (she really doesn't teach ANYTHING), and the class is so boring that i'd rather lick the bathroom's floor than going into that damn classroom twice a week. Honestly, a pain in the A. Nevertheless, in ideal conditions it should work wonderfully, i think.

[cokesandcokes]

I often don't appreciate my teacher's methodology regarding ToK content, but what's making the class interesting is the discussion, only because my classmates are awesome haha. Besides that, I don't find myself learning much from his assignments and projects. The textbook's been my backbone in that class so far. He tries too hard to emphasize the relationship between ToK and our other IB classes, and fails miserably.

:]

[Rentle]

For me it's sugar on strawberries. Love and hate stands near when studying TOK, but when you get it, it appears to be no big deal. ;]

[TeeBlake]

I just wanted to see what the general consensus around here was regarding the IB's 6 and a halfth subject - Theory of Knowledge. I know it has some fans, while others would rather stab themselves repeatedly in the foot 1600 times than write a 1600 word essay about how the Ways of Knowing tell them that the aforementioned activity would be very painful.

So - tell us what you think, TOK: yay or nay?

Well...I don't mind it, other than the fact that my class is at 7am in the morning...

Overall, the essays are a bit hassle, but TOK is interesting...I did a TOK presentation on TOK, basically we questioned the purpose of it...we received quite a trash from our teacher because we trashed TOK a bit...but it really makes you think about different events that happens around the world...

[Referos]

I think TOK is very important; it makes perfectly sense to study epistemology at school. However, the subject is, by far, the most abstract, and thus is highly dependent on the teacher. I enjoy TOK, but my teacher is a bit lame, so people generally find TOK useless at my school.

[IB Prodigy]

Let me begin by saying that I love the poll options...

Ahem. Now for something that's actually on topic:

I'm not really a big fan of TOK, but I don't truly hate it either. Personally, I think the whole idea of the class... learning how you know what you know... is somewhat unnecessary to understand. As long as you know something, does it really matter whether you used reason, emotion, language, perception, or some combination thereof in order to learn it?

The one thing that partially redeems TOK in my eyes is the fact that at my school, TOK is not so much a serious philosophy course as a support program for full-IB students. Generally, during a 45-minute class period, we will spend 15-20 minutes discussing some profound TOK subject (the last one we discussed was the difference between true science and pseudoscience). The rest of the class period then just consists of us being reassured by each other and by our TOK teacher that we'll do OK in the IB Programme. And of course, my school has an IB "Resource Center" (i.e. study hall area) where we can go and drink coffee after we're done with our work for the day in TOK .

[AxeluteZero]

The idea, is awesome.

But like Prodigy said, we do...nothing in that class.

[IB Prodigy]

The idea, is awesome.

But like Prodigy said, we do...nothing in that class.

Though it should be noted that my school's TOK teacher tries to force Axelute and I and the rest of the full-IB students to take the class seriously. But when we complain a bit about it, the teacher doesn't try to enforce that... or of course, the teacher CAN'T enforce that during the times that Axelute schedules an appointment for the TOK class period to discuss college applications with a counselor!

[AxeluteZero]

YEP.

Hey, it's basically free time anyway. Why not when you work a job immediately after school? Anyway, whatever works for the teacher, if you ask me.

[Cubz]

TOK at our school is anywhere from 2 to 3 hours on a thursday arvo, when EVERYONE......and I mean not just everyone else at our school, but also every other college in the state, is off going out to lunch etc.

So thats strike 1

Strike 2 is that the first half is just lectures, the 3 teachers take it in turn to talk at us while we're supposed to take notes, 1 is a TERRIBLE public speaker, the others have these awful whiney voices........YUK!

Usually i take my ipod in and play games on it.......am getting very good at tetris:D

Strike 3 is that in the second half we're all supposed to sit around and discuss whatever the lecture was on. Problems being that nobody listens and nobody gives a crap so we just sit and stare at the teacher, or just talk to the people around us until she gives up and throws a hissy fit and walks out of the room. We have learnt NOTHING this year, despite the fact that they constantly tell us how important everything they teach is!

So I guess thats three strikes and your out.

TOK is not just hell on earth, it is, if at all possible, SO MUCH WORSE THAN THAT

I go about half the time really, just enough so that the teachers know I still exist

I'm sure it could be good, but let's just say that my school has screwed TOK up badly, not unlike the way they've handled everything else relating to iB!

Cannot wait till this is over and I can travel the world, and go to some awesome overseas uni

[HPIBruinedmylife]

I'm in my second year of TOK and we haven't read the book everyone's talking about. We don't know anything about our TOK papers. All we covered was the Areas/Ways of knowing and we had a class discussion on "can a machine think." In our TOK journals our teacher writes the most remedial comments, like "why it gotta be white?" or "how do you know what's red and what's not?" WTF. She asks us the same questions we ask her and we all got As for showing up. I hate this class so much. I thought it'd be fun, you know?

How do you know what you think you know?

Not so much. All year last year we talked about shoes, coffee and how scandalously brilliant The Hills are. Everyday I just kept saying, "Shoot me."

[3!sha]

Its a Yay for me,

although we didnt do any essays or presentations yet..

There are only 2 students taking TOK so it has a very relaxed atmosphere.

We just sit around in bean bags the teacher asks us some mindboggling questions and we practice our B.S-ing skillz.

[Sandwich]

I find it very boring. The questions it poses are only posed for the sake of us eventually deciding that there's no answer. I don't find this particularly satisfying, or mentally stimulating as it's sort-of like watching a football match if you know which side wins. 90 minutes, plus the interval, and you've not done, achieved or gained knowledge of anything you didn't know at the start. Unless you get a kick out of watching things being played out (which some people do, some people don't), it's just frustrating.

Writing the essay feels very much like running repeatedly into a brick wall, because you're never saying anything new which isn't obvious. It's like a subject mired in time and irrelevance. You're narrating the 90-minutes of play from the football match only to come out and state the result at the end. Although one part where that analogy fails is that football matches have definitive ends, whereas TOK essays are just about how many proofs and disproofs you can stuff into 1,600 words before you run out of space, and then hope that you put the right ones in there.

It's just meaningless and obvious. If it were one or the other (obvious but with meaning, or meaningless but interesting as it's not obvious) it would be much more tolerable.

[SharkSpider]

I really really liked TOK, partially because I had a great TOK teacher, and partially because philosophy is probably one of the most important things you can learn in school.

First off, it teaches you that some questions don't have hard set answers. Is social welfare justified? Are abortions justified? Do governments function better on Authority or Liberty? Are all humans equal? Is there a god? Where do we go when we die? Does life even matter? Are the mind and body separate, or is existence confined to that which is material? Most people either don't care, or already have an answer to these questions, with no proof or logic to back up their potentially flawed answer. Without asking these questions, you basically agree to retain your misconceptions and to become apathetic about real problems. Something seems rather wrong about doing that.

Second, it ideally addresses real world problems. How harsh should sentencing be on youth criminals? Should the US have gone to war in Iraq? What is California going to do about gay marriage? To what extent is a fundamentalist religion justified in indoctrinating children before they have the capacity to make their own choices? Are men and women equal, are they different, and if they are different, does different treatment mean they are unequal? Are gender equality laws that favor women actually sexist against men? What about racial equality laws that favor minorities, are they racist against white people? Should the minimum wage be raised from 8 dollars to 10 dollars per hour? Should criminal systems favor rehabilitation or the protection of society? Would it be moral to vote if you hadn't considered these questions? Anyways, we get to live in a democracy, so that means it's our responsibility to know these things, and to form rational opinions on them. And guess what, if you go through a debate on one of these questions, there's a good chance one side will be able to win over the other side.

Third, studying philosophy shows you that people have always discussed these issues. Sometimes philosophers from a long time ago can give insight on to current issues, sometimes they can't. In any case, in my opinion, the most important thing that should be addressed in every TOK paper, discussion, essay, class presentation, and lecture should be the question "why does this matter?" And, never fear, if TOK sucks hard in your school, there's always the possibility of discussing philosophy with your English teacher or pretty much any other teacher in any other subject, because TOK is relevant in all subjects. What philosophies are expressed by the authors of books and do you agree? In history, you can compare moral decisions and discuss them briefly in essays, that can kick up your marks and make an otherwise dull research project quite interesting.

Anyways, TOK's value is proportional to the thought you put in to it. Good teachers inspire you to care more, bad teachers usually do the opposite.

[sariaru]

Contrary to what seems like a lot of people on this thread, I adore ToK.

My teacher is absolutley wonderful, and I was kind of an epistimology freak before I even got in the class.

Really, I'm a cynic who questions everything, so ToK is the perfect class for me.

My only fault with ToK is the fact that I only get to take it for one year because of some stupid school thing.

-hate-