Presentation TOK presentation - help with Knowledge Issue and real life situation

[Sceptyczka]

Hi.

 

I'm doing an outline of my TOK presentation and I'm facing some problems. I would greatly appreciate if anybody could answer my questions.

 

I have already chosen one real life situation which I find very interesting and complex enough to take 10-15 minutes of speech. I don't really think I will be able to find a RLS which is as complex and interesting and deals with the same Knowledge Issue. In fact, I have been searching for a while and this is the only one I've got. Due to this I was wondering whether it's possible to discuss only one real life situation. Will I get a very bad mark if I discuss only one real life situation but thoroughly? Is it even possible? Or is it neccessary to analyse more than one RLS?

 

This is my real life situation:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/12/yhttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/12/yahya-hassan-poet-denmark-muslim-rowahya-hassan-poet-denmark-muslim-row

 

The article tells about an 18-year-old Danish Palestinian (Islamic) poet who lives in Denmark. He has published a book of poetry which attracted international attention and is now considered a literary talent. However, in his poems he has criticized Islam and told about the physical violence he has experienced from his father in his childhood. Due to this he has been criticized (and even threatened to death by Islamic extremists). They have told that he should not condemn his parents publicly because he should remain "loyal" to his family and to Islamic religion.

 

I have some problems with formulating the Knowledge Issue for this RLS. I decided to concentrate on the sake of losing loyalty for the sake of freedom of speech. How can I formulate the KI to make it sound more "TOK-like", broader and seem to concetrate on different areas of knowledge (instead of concentrating only on Ethics)?

 

I guess the KI I have right now is a bit too narrow and seems to be a bit too much based only on Ethics:

 

Is it justified to suppress freedom of speech in the name of loyalty?

 

Moreover, I would like to ask if this structure of presentation would be OK:

 

1. Introduction to the Knowledge Issue

2. Introduction to RLS no. 1 and showing connection between RLS no. 1 and Knowledge Issue

3. Refering to RLS no. 1 in terms of different WoKs and adding sub-Knowledge Issues

4. Refering to RLS no. 1 in terms of different AoKs and adding sub-Knowledge Issues

5. Eventually repeating the process from points 1-4 but with RLS no. 2 (plus showing connection between RLS no. 1 and RLS no. 2)

6. Conclusion?

 

Wouldn't it be too analytical?

 

Also, if anybody has an idea of a RLS which connects with the one I've given and more importantly with my KI I would be more than grateful to hear it. I will probably have to look after as I doubt that discussing only one Real life situation is allowed.

 

Thanks in advance! It would be a great help as I'm kinda stuck.

 

Also, sorry for my English. I know it's far from literary. 

 

 ~~~~~~~~

 

Sceptyczka

Edited June 23, 2014 by Sceptyczka

[whatislife]

Hi, there's just a lot to read for your post and my brain is ....very lazy. However, somehow I did end up reading through it.

 

1. Introduce you RLS first!! very important, start off with that and then stem your KI off this base.

the rest is ok, except leave a section for implications, as well as counter-arguments!

 

Unfortunately, I can't help you with ethics as an AOK because it was only introduced this year into the TOK course I believe. Sorry! But based on my limited knowledge, I still think the latter half of your KI is difficult to grasp, however, it is integral to keep that latter half, but just change it because freedom of speech is extremely broad.

[Sceptyczka]

Thanks a lot and thank you for reading this! Your answer was very helpful as I didn't have a clue how to begin.  

[Sandwich]

So where are you going to talk about Language, Sense/Perception, Reason and Emotion in the presentation?

 

Those are the 4 main themes of TOK and at least 2 of them should form the core of your presentation. Forget the areas of knowledge or all these knowledge issues, sub-knowledge issues, sub-sub-knowledge issues and whatever else - concentrating on those (unless it is to contrast their different uses of the ways of knowing) is not going to make your presentation TOK-like any more than picking words out of a dictionary at random is going to make your writing into a novel. They're irrelevant to TOK unless analysed via the ways of knowing. Ethics is a particularly difficult area re: including the 4 ways of knowing and it's very easy to start talking about ethical issues instead. Which is why I usually suggest people avoid it like the plague. You can either take said advice, or work hard to make sure you stick to a ways-of-knowing based presentation.

 

Certainly things like emotion and reason would be relevant to your RLS, but personally I don't see how you can really say much about them other than to say "loyalty is emotional, free speech is reason"... and a single statement is insufficient material to make a presentation out of! Unless you can come up with more material that is TOK-related (not ethics related).

 

Discussing a single RLS is fine, but talking about the ethics of free speech =/= TOK. It's an interesting situation from a personal point of view, but I'm not sure it'll help you score top marks.

[Sceptyczka]

Thank you for your answer!

 

As for Language, Sense perception, Reason and Emotions: I was thinking about connecting these WoKs with the RLS I described.

 

For example:

 

Sense perception: physical pain experienced by Yahya Hassan in his childhood (because he was beaten by his father).

 

Emotions: pain, feeling humiliated, anger (due to having been beaten).

 

Language: using suggestive language while describing physical violence in poetry and thus changing common (society's? reader's?) attitude to Islam.

 

And so on...

 

Then I did something similar with AoKs.

 

I don't know if it makes sense and qualifies for TOK presentation, though. 

 

I guess I'll just put my outline in here:

 

IB TOK Presentation – outline

 

Topic: Freedom of speech

Real life situation:

Yahya Hassan:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/12/yahya-hassan-poet-denmark-muslim-row

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/books/young-immigrant-in-denmark-lashes-out-in-verse.html?_r=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HE6ZsH8ldU

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yahya-Hassan-Ved-ikke-noget-om-Islam/228993253789009?fref=ts

Yahya Hassan is an 18-year-old Danish Palestinian poet who has attracted international attention and stirred debate about Islam’s place in Denmark based on his debut of poetry which was critical of Islam. The poem that brought biggest protest tells about physical violence from his father he experienced in childhood. His poetry provoked death threats, physical assaults and racism from extremist Islamists. He was told that he should not condemn Islam and his family for the sake of “loyalty to Islam” and “good relationship with family”.

He is considered a great literary talent.

Knowledge issues:

Is it justified to suppress freedom of speech in the name of loyalty?

Ways of Knowing:

 Sense perception:

-          Physical pain experienced in childhood

 Memory:

-          Memories from the childhood

 Emotions:

-          Pain, humiliation, anger

 Faith:

-          Yahya Hassan believes in Allah and criticizes only hypocrisy of Islamic culture

 Intuition:

-          Instinct of self-preservation (Yahya Hassan wants to get out of the Islamic world)

 

Areas of Knowing:

 The Arts:

-          Yahya Hassan expresses his emotions and opinions through emotions.

-          He is seen as a very talented poet and his poetry is considered great (Should it be preserved despite being “unloyal”?)

Connect this to KI!

 Ethics:

-          Loyalty (Should Yahya Hassan be “loyal” to his family and to Islam instead of condemning them in his poetry to express his emotions?)

-          Other side of spectrum: Is it ethical to condemn an individual for being “unloyal” and suppress his freedom of speech?

 Human Sciences:

-          Psychology: Did the pain and feel of humiliation from childhood affect Yahya Hassan’s attitude to Islam? How?

 Religious Knowledge:

-          Is it justified to suppress freedom of speech or human dignity in the name of religion?

-          What is the impact of Islam’s “concept of honour” on the criticism of Yahya Hassan? What is the impact of Islam’s “concept of honour” on Yahya Hassan’s actions?

 

Remember about RLS no. 2!

 

As for the Ethics: I have already heard that it's best to avoid Ethics-based topics in TOK presentation. However, I was hoping that I will somehow manage to connect this ethical issue to different Ways of Knowing. Having read my outline, would you still say that it looks rather too much like an ethical issue? 

 

I guess what you say it's true. While I find this RLS interesting and I would love to talk about it, I'm not sure I will be able to score high even if I insistently try to make various RLS-WoK connections. I will probably have to look fo another RLS (or rather two of them because my TOK teacher told me today that one RLS won't be enough). 

 

Once again: thanks a lot! 

Edited June 24, 2014 by Sceptyczka