TOK, class or no?

[icecoldstar]

I go to a US school, and we have NO class period for this TOK thing

so, i was wondering if people around the world have a class, or is it just stupid americans who do not realise that a class for a core subject would be really helpful?? :innocent:

[Ruan Chun Xian]

We had 2 periods a week = 1h20 minutes contact class. The teacher was pushing for 3 periods at the end of my year but I don't know if they implemented that.

Its a fun class, where we laze around on cushions, eating sweets (lollies, candy whatever) and talk about fun stuff that somehow has things to do with TOK.

If you don't have class how do you learn the stuff needed to do all your assessment?

[icecoldstar]

personally, i think the entire TOK thing is kinda BS...

once in a while, we all would gather in the school auditorium for a day and do some stupid activities... i.e. why is the sky blue and some dumb stuff like that

for TOK essay, i made them up... it's pretty easy actually... but in terms of quality? i dont know

b/c i did my TOK draft in less than 80 minutes..

[~Lc~]

u have to have 2 periods a week! it's the minimum required by IBO! I mean u don't have to take it ever week but you'll have to cover a certain amount of hours (frgt how much now, can't be assed to look it up I'm at Uni for God's sake lol)

this is the bad thing about schools not taking TOK seriously, I mean sitting under the sky writing essay? TOK is not aout inspiration there actually is a material to be studied or at least understood (don't mean studied as in put in 100 hours a week memorizing ****, just being taught it)

[Bandev]

We have 3 classes per 2 weeks. Our classes we learn stuff like induction and deduction and scientific method and normalative claims and all that wet epistmological stuff.

[Guest AmeHoshi]

Wow... In my school, we have a period a day (which means 1 hr per day and, you do the math, 5 hrs a week.) Our teacher's new to this subject, so we're his experiment. xP A lot of it is repetitive, though I'm not quite sure about whether it's because of the teacher or because of the subject.

Personally, I do think it has value and it does foster a lot of thought about yourself and the world.The class just, or at least in my case, hasn't found much of a focus yet?

It's fun, though, because we can see what everybody clearly believes in (pragmatism, coherency, correspondence, etc.)

[winter]

A school near me (a BIG one) just has a "TOK CAMP" ... they literally leave the campus for a few days, do something apparently TOKish, and can forget about it for the rest of the year. This takes place over the Ist/2nd year holidays. We do one 80min and one 45min every two weeks, and the teachers tried to get us to go to lunchtime sessions too. Now that the assessment is done, though, we don't have class anymore.

[icecoldstar]

^^

its pretty similar here in my school

and ironically, my school has being ranked as the 10th best IB school in the world

[~Lc~]

A school near me (a BIG one) just has a "TOK CAMP" ... they literally leave the campus for a few days, do something apparently TOKish, and can forget about it for the rest of the year. This takes place over the Ist/2nd year holidays. We do one 80min and one 45min every two weeks, and the teachers tried to get us to go to lunchtime sessions too. Now that the assessment is done, though, we don't have class anymore.

well you could say I did something similar I went to the TOK conference in Istanbul, which was basically 3 days of none stop TOKish talk if it weren't for partying after that I would've had some serious head ache

but we didn't realy forget about TOK after that so yea not really the same thing

bI like that idea, but I think if you don't keep practicing throughout the year you'll probably forget a lot of the principles in TOK and would need to go back to books...

[Caitlin]

We had 1.5 hours of TOK a week, but only in IB1.

A school near me (a BIG one) just has a "TOK CAMP" ... they literally leave the campus for a few days, do something apparently TOKish, and can forget about it for the rest of the year. This takes place over the Ist/2nd year holidays. We do one 80min and one 45min every two weeks, and the teachers tried to get us to go to lunchtime sessions too. Now that the assessment is done, though, we don't have class anymore.

Did you go to the IB revision courses at Melbourne Uni? Because my school has TOK camp, as does one of the other schools that had students at the lectures, and I remember talking about it with some MLC girls.

Yeah, we pretty much go away for a week and talk about TOK stuff, do our presentations and go home. Best week of my entire IB education.

Edited October 6, 2007 by Caitlin

[spaceisland]

Wow, I'm jealous. TOK camp? Haha.

At our school the TOK course runs every second year, so depending on your grade, you'll take it in either IB 1 or IB2 for one semester, five days a week.

[winter]

... Caitlin, I think you know some of my friends! (Yes, I am a non-blond MLCer... a rarity!) But no, I didn't go, two of my friends did - both to the Math Studies, and one each to Biology and Chemistry.

And if you don't mind me asking, is your uniform purple and 'gold'?

[Caitlin]

... Caitlin, I think you know some of my friends! (Yes, I am a non-blond MLCer... a rarity!) But no, I didn't go, two of my friends did - both to the Math Studies, and one each to Biology and Chemistry.

And if you don't mind me asking, is your uniform purple and 'gold'?

No, it's not. Green and blue. And I only did Physics and Maths SL, so it must have got around in conversation... I think I only talked about it with people who were in my classes.

[cixelsyD]

Wow.. ToK takes up 1 block of my timetable (averages to around 3h a week)

I know some other schools here offer the course as a manditory morning block. Sucks to be them =P

[Lil]

we have 2 h per week

[Soy]

gah i love and hate my TOK class. We spend 75 minutes in that class, so its basically an extended period, and that forces us to add on 25 more minutes to our history class on Tues and Thurs, because we miss the class entirely for TOK. What really sucks is that the rest of the school gets a huge 50 minute lunch break, while we only get 25, on Tues, Weds, and Thurs, and it really interfere with the club meetings that happen during that lunch break too.

[Guest wiped_out]

yeah i have three 40 minute periods a week

[Survivor Rob]

Do you guys have to fill in a journal for TOK??

My school makes us fill it in EVERY week after the lesson (we have 3 periods of TOK a week, 35 mins each)

In theory it should get people to 'reflect' on their work, but it just ends up with most people frantically copying from those of us *cough* who actually fill them in when the teachers say they want to see them.

[Ashika]

TOK is fabulous... only if you have a good teacher.

Our teacher is extremely entertaining but somehow we learn as well haha.

It's a great discussion based class and I cannot imagine doing this on my own.

It's too abstract to pick through on your own time without having a teacher and a class to help process everything being thrown at you.

[snowday]

Hey, we had TOK for 6 hours and 15 minutes a week (5 days at 75 minutes per day) and we did do quite a bit of work studying the different AOK and WOK. I think the main problem with TOK is that the only assessment is really the essay (there are the presentations too, but those are internally assessed and are pretty subjective, even for TOK). Since the assessment doesn't force you to have to know everything (all the WOK, AOK) and there is no TOK syllabus (as far as I know, may be wrong there), I think teachers don't necessarily see it as a full-on class. On the final assessment, I personally had no trouble studying the AOKs and WOKs I needed to know independently of what we did in class, and I think I managed to pull together a pretty solid essay. If the final assessment was some sort of exam, I doubt I would have been able to study all I would need to know independently of class, and I also think that TOK teachers would be a bit more serious about the class.

I'm not saying there should be a TOK exam, but I think that based on the way the class is structured it makes it easier for teachers to become a bit lax with their teaching style.