Flow4421 Posted January 15, 2015 Report Share Posted January 15, 2015 I don't know if the teacher is bad , if I naturally don't like TOK , or if it's just because I don't understand why we have to take this course.. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia. Posted January 15, 2015 Report Share Posted January 15, 2015 Writing my essay at the moment, and I definitely share your hatred hehe. I have got to say, though, that I also like that it's much more intellectually challenging than any of my other subjects. At least in theory Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBfreakingout! Posted January 16, 2015 Report Share Posted January 16, 2015 Don't worry, you're definately not the only one. Although I quite liked TOK (some aspects of it and defs not the writing essays part), it is easy to see why it may seem unnecessary. However, no matter what subject you do, you're bound to think the same at some point (eg - what do we have to learn calculus? do we have to study shakespeare? am I ever going to use these diagrams in real life?! etc etc) Yet we still study those right? So think of TOK as the same. I guess only a minority of us liked TOK at school and we were the ones always arguing with the teacher about what something meant etc. To be honest, sometimes its just fun arguing and u can do a lot of that in TOK. Try making it as fun as you can, either by challenging the teacher or challenging ur subject teacher about stuff relating to TOK (eg ask maths teacher if pi is really a number or concept or what? or ask your science teacher to explain why ur learning stuff that isn't necessarily 'true' for all cases and stuff like that. Otherwise, treat it as a bludge lesson but learn the basics and trust me, I worked on ALL assignments SUPER late but still managed an A... u just gotta know the jargon and methadology used in TOK. Don't question it, just do it because you have to...kinda like swallowing medicine. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrishi98 Posted January 16, 2015 Report Share Posted January 16, 2015 I like the the subject, so probably on the other side of TOK. Cause it enables us to challenge the worlds conventions and to think independently and differently. There is no right or wrong answer and this is the merit and a demerit of the subject. But in the end its your attitude towards the subject that decides your liking. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
saudade Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 I used to like ToK so much. Then I chose title #1 on the prescribed title list (2015). And stuck in 900 words (and it is not finished...., yet). Due is Tuesday, 20 Jan 2015. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sushichan*-* Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 I like how TOK sometimes can be quite enlightening but at the same time it makes me extremely depressed. 3 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 I hate TOK and in our school there is only 1 TOK lesson per week. It is not enough !!!!! How many tok lessons do u have in your school? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia. Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 I used to like ToK so much. Then I chose title #1 on the prescribed title list (2015). And stuck in 900 words (and it is not finished...., yet). Due is Tuesday, 20 Jan 2015. Me too! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sceptyczka Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 I hate TOK and in our school there is only 1 TOK lesson per week. It is not enough !!!!! How many tok lessons do u have in your school? I have two 45 minutes long TOK lessons per week and I think it's more than enough because we don't do anything productive during the lessons anyway 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sceptyczka Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 (edited) Also, I think that the quality of TOK lessons depends almost entirely on teacher. It can be either enlighting or boring/confusing. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of TOK because I sometimes suspect that our TOK teacher does not really "get" TOK (though I may be a bit arrogant thinking that, I admit ). We spend more time discussing contemporary issues than actually learning epistemology which may be interesting for some people in my class but (having read the subject description) I dare think it is not what TOK should be all about. Do you also mostly discuss contemporary issues during your TOK classes? Is it normal? Edited January 17, 2015 by Sceptyczka Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted January 17, 2015 Report Share Posted January 17, 2015 If it makes you feel any better, my cynical explanation of why we have to take TOK in the IB is because it allows the IB a USP when trying to persuade schools to part with loads of £££ to offer the programme. If the IB didn't have TOK, it would lose a lot of its propaganda points! Everything besides TOK can be achieved in most other educational systems. TOK is also used by the IBO to prop up some of the mysterious "IB learner profile" points that they occasionally like to set to music and stick on Youtube to persuade parents to stick their offspring in the programme. Global reflective brave principled balanced inquiring thinkers with an international mind is hard to sell when we just study the same stuff as everybody else. Why else would my chemistry lesson make me a better person than somebody else's chemistry lesson?? Throw in the wild card of 'TOK' and it's like that scene out of Toy Story where the aliens go "OooOOOooooOOO", people lap up that stuff. As I said, cynical! But not without some truth, I think. 6 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
saudade Posted January 18, 2015 Report Share Posted January 18, 2015 I hate TOK and in our school there is only 1 TOK lesson per week. It is not enough !!!!! How many tok lessons do u have in your school? I have 5 periods of TOK class, each class is 45 minutes long. Imagine that. IMAGINE THAT. I love it though, because it makes me think. I think I am a stoic person, but I don't know. I am not so sure. When I'm stuck writing the essay, I got depressed and stressed easily, and I suddenly hate TOK to it's very core. (and now I need to stop procrastinating). 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluecharge300 Posted October 3, 2016 Report Share Posted October 3, 2016 I originally liked TOK at first, but my teacher is so biased when it comes to students. I hate his class. Knowing he openly shows favoritism makes me unmotivated. If he wasn't so biased, I might actually like it Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zachary. Posted October 9, 2016 Report Share Posted October 9, 2016 You're not, TOK is a boring class. If you ever need a good laugh, go and read the urban dictionary definition. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
steph237107 Posted August 15, 2018 Report Share Posted August 15, 2018 On 1/17/2015 at 9:45 PM, Sceptyczka said: I have two 45 minutes long TOK lessons per week and I think it's more than enough because we don't do anything productive during the lessons anyway LUCKKKKYYYYYYY u dont do anything (much) I tok????? luckyyyyy Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xx_Henry_xX Posted August 26, 2018 Report Share Posted August 26, 2018 TOK is basically the philosophy class in the DP core, and the philosophy class is really 'Further TOK' like the Further Maths Or at least what I believe TOK is Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snek Posted October 6, 2018 Report Share Posted October 6, 2018 I hate TOK because the epistemology is explained in an incredibly simplistic way. Our teachers opened the class by asking "Is it really a chair? How do you know it's a chair?" A friend of mine responded "I hate TOK because it challenges societal definitions!" TOK is the exact sort of class that should have equiped him with the thoughts of people like Wittgenstein, and he might've realized that yes, we have constructed the object in front of us to be a chair, but if we then ask "is it a chair," that is equally valid-- the meaning of words is dependant on how they are used. Instead, students just sat through the lecture and began to think that all questions about how we know what we know are equally pointless. Following this, we had to rank the ways of knowing based on what we trusted most. The class is constructed in such a way that there's a reason/emotion dichotomy, and everyone answers reason. However, we're never introduced to the limitations of reason, or confronted with the ways in which we're actually thinking irrationally. We're never introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or the works of David Hume or Karl Popper. A student brought a recent article entitled "Does Language Change the Way We Think?" to class, and it likely seemed like a groundbreaking knowledge question to them, only because they had never been introduced to the Safir-Whorf hypothesis. I admire what TOK tries to do in encouraging students to question their beliefs and how they came by them, but it actually ends up being incredibly innefective and making a mockery of epistemic skepticism. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zofia Posted January 11, 2019 Report Share Posted January 11, 2019 Someone please save me.... THIS IS TORTURE Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaysun Posted January 15, 2019 Report Share Posted January 15, 2019 My school had TOK every second day starting at 7AM for both years of IB. Keep in mind the prescribed teaching time for TOK is something like 50 hours. And yes, attendance is mandatory, you can't sleep in class, you get docked marks for being late. Fond memories Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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