TOK, class or no?

[BBiswatching]

at my school (CO, USA) TOK is a 'zero hour' -- all the IB diploma candidates in the year take the class together on Thursday after school from 5pm to 8pm. We take it second semester of IB1 and first semester of IB2. Love and hate that class... I love the discussions we have, especially since all the IB seniors are there together, but I don't like that we have to stay after school until 8pm (our school recruits IB students from all over the entire district, so a good majority of us live too far for it to make sense to drive home and drive back to school a half hour later). Overall though, I really do enjoy TOK... we really don't have much structure with our class. We have 4 teachers, no textbooks... and I don't think we've even ever discussed WOK or AOK explicitly. Yet somehow, I think I've come away with a lot... but that could just be what they want us to perceive

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.

ahaha, yaay Journals... We have to do 2 journals per week, since we only meet once a week. They collect journals every six weeks; you can always tell when Journals are due because that entire day, kids are frantically scribbling down entries in their journals during every class period before TOK. Of course, those sort of entries are rather lacking in terms of quality...

Edited November 11, 2007 by BBiswatching

[winter]

Journals, ey? I remember being told to do those.. .TOK twice a week (one 50min, the other 75min) and we were *supposed* to do one per lesson. I think the most anyone handed in that year was five. They didn't bother the next!

[Guest Sykoelf]

Hmm..

I go to an US school also, we have 1 block of TOK every other day. It ends somewhere around 3-4.5 hours a week, depending on how the block schedule works out.

I love my TOK class, it's alot of fun. We talk about random things and relate it to TOK, and the class size is TINY (for my school at least, 13 kids) so we get some great discussions going on.

[Guest Mr Canada]

Journal??? Whaat??? We have a 85 minute lesson of TOK every week and that's it... Journal???

[Guest whatever]

What ?? you don't have a class!!!

We take TOK 2 hours a week ..

and basically we read and answer questions on topics from the IB TOK book ..that was the first year

and then the 2nd year we did our formal presentations and wrote our essays in class . I just submitted my 1st draft essay last week

[chileanbob]

I believe that TOK is somewhat fun... It's really worth learning about the different theories; plus, it's not that hard...well atleast at my school at least...

[eylin]

2 hours a week

[diabolicalangle]

yep we have it... i think its around 5-6 hours per week

[Agneisse]

In my school district in the US we have a block schedule where everyone has to take seven classes. You either take TOK as one of your seven and have it for 3-4.5 hours/week like Sykoelf's, but there's the option to take it on Thursday evenings for three hours as an 'eighth period class'. That's what the overachievers do, although it gets difficult because there's less curriculum time and if there's a snow day or 'cancellation of after-school activities' on Thursday you lose a whole week's worth of instruction time.

[CdnIBer]

we have a class a week, but the teacher just goes off on random tangents so i don't know wht we're talking about

[master135]

I have TOK for half a sem in IB1 and half a sem in IB2. We do journals too..

[__inthemaking]

I had TOK for one semester in IB1. We had it as a regular class..so 5 times a week for 1 h 15 min.

[pinkxlove]

agh we don't have a set time block for tok. apparently it's integrated into our history class..O_O

[aliix21]

I have TOK every other day for 90 minutes. We talk about the Ways of Knowledge and Areas of Knowledge and how they connect to eachother. I've only had one semester and a half of the class, but I'm afraid that it's already getting very repetitive.

I'm not gonna lie, it's some of the worst 90 minutes of my life. My teacher takes TOK very seriously, and so each class we either have a 90 minute lecture, or some heated conversation about different scientific theories. Second semester senior year, the class turns into a study hall, so hopefully I can put up with it until then.

[Tyro]

At my school they add it on to our regular schedule by making it before school (we have to be there at 7:15 in the morning ) leaving most students with 9 classes instead of the normal 8. We have it the 2nd half of our 1st year of IB and the 1st half the 2nd year for about 4 hours a week.

[andrew12891]

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:

[/quote

no i go to a school here in the US and we have a 75 minute class period for TOK

[hellogoodbye]

hm thats strange.

i go to school in the states and we have the option of taking tok either during the school day or at night during the week.

i've heard its pointless though so maybe its a good thing you dont have it.

[Wanda(Not Alvin)]

I have two or three classes per week, but that's going to end after we do our Tok orals early next school year.

[youcantstopthebeat]

We have a TOK class twice a week where our teacher waffles on about the different topics and we have class discussions. We have to write a TOK journal every week, but usually everyone just writes 5 hurried entries the day before have to hand it in.

[robertomx]

omg how can you NOT have a tok class!

i could only understand if your teacher was like mine, that doesnt explain that much and only has us writing essays every month... but at least its something. i mean, by writing those essays i research and read and that's how i learn to write for tok haha. but its just not right not to have a class for tok. mine are two days a week, an hour and a half each.