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I HATE TOK. its so pointless.


User001

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I think it could help you a considerable amount. It is structured horribly and is plagued by the inherent problems of our school system, but included is the rudimentary knowledge that simply stating your point is not a compelling point. On the other hand, most classes teach this, so I'm not really making a good argument either.

In short, explain.

Edit: Of course if logical discourse does not entertain you and you'd rather just have a big whine fest, then forget I said anything (most people prefer this).

Edited by Grumps
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I don't like it all that much either. It's a very interesting and thought-provoking class but it's marking is just too objective for such a subjective subject. Even though I got an A for it (my presentation; I haven't done my essay yet), I still don't think the marking is fair.

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I think a lot of people can empathise :S

Alas it's something we all have to deal with, even if it does seem a lot like dressing common sense in mysterious wishy-washy terminology... okay, maybe it is.

However it's very important you concentrate on it. I know plenty of people who actually missed out on their bonus points thanks to TOK -- even if they had amazing grades otherwise and an awesome EE! There's nothing more gutting than falling down where you don't have to, so hateful as TOK is, it's important that you put a decent amount of effort into BSing your way through it. If it helps to think of it as pointless BS, please do so. However I personally found that wallowing in my own misery just made the lessons drag on longer!

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That's not a bad thing. Just because there is an infinite amount of "rights" doesn't mean there aren't any wrongs.

He follows up with "... and I'm right." He's chastised students for their own opinions and interpretations, as well as considering his own opinion to be the only correct one.

He was hired in a rush when the TOK teacher last year (who was amazing) got fired. It wasn't really about the quality of the teacher at a time, but finding anyone willing to fill the position.

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I found TOK very enjoyable when I first started, but now I realize how everything must fit into IB's little boxes; for example, the TOK textbook and documents strongly support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and the teachers are instructed to indoctrinate the classes with it, as it were, despite the fact that many modern scientists and epistemologists now overwhelmingly agree that although there is a point to the hypothesis that one's mother tongue can can shape one's perception of life, it is exaggerated and flawed to say that experience is completely defined by language, because it makes the assumption that people can't comprehend concepts that are absent from their languages.

I'm also annoyed by the use of terms which are exclusive to TOK, such as 'knowledge issue', which is defined by a worksheet as "questions that directly refer to our understanding of the world, ourselves and others, in connection with the acquisition, search for, production, shaping and acceptance of knowledge". (Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Richard van de Lagemaat TOK textbook neglects to define it at all, despite it being an important defining concept of the TOK presentation and essay and having criteria centered around it.) Yet, I've seen people get top marks for TOK presentations, focused on ethical or other issues, without once mentioning anything to do with how we know. It confuses me a bit, especially since my teacher forgot to teach my class about knowledge issues until he realized a while later that he hadn't.

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Guest IMBATMAN

WOW YOU JUST FIGURED THAT OUT

Like seriously TOK is so important, I mean it's so gonna help us in the future, and its so not a waste of time.

Yeah...Right

Edited by Jphu8414
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Well some people do enjoy it, I had friends who enjoyed TOK so much they actually READ TOK books for fun.

I personally hated TOK, it's pure bull****, the lessons, the essays..especially the essays! They were painful painful times of BSing none sense.

Our teacher always went off topic, and always wanted to provoke us by using statement we all didn't like to hear. In fact he was too offensive we told on him, well our parents did and he got fired from teaching TOK ever again, and he was the IBC and he was fired from that too, now he's just a biology teacher. All that, and he still thinks TOK is the reason we should all get into IB..I mean...seriously?!

The only thing I liked about TOK are the presentations, they were so much fun to do and we got to choose whatever topic we wanted as long as we put in some BS. :S

So yeah, I agree TOK..so pointless. Having said this, I do understand why others might see it enjoyable. :) So yeah, I get you people. :P

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I don't know, I think it's a bit irrelevant to say that TOK won't help us in the future because we're learning a lot of things that won't be useful to us in the future as well. To some extent you could say that taking six subjects is a waste of time since our careers will likely only focus on one or two. That doesn't mean that the courses don't have merits of their own or aren't "good". Isn't there a "point" simply in educating us? I think it's very admirable to try and teach students to use critical thinking more often and to question knowledge - epistemology is something that relates to every other type of learning. But then again it's also very admirable to aim to "create a better and more peaceful world" (as stated in the IB's mission statement) through an educational system, but it doesn't necessarily mean that this has been achieved effectively.

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I don't like ToK at all.

Not only it starts at 6 AM (well for me it does), but the way the class is ran is kinda unfair. I guess it depends on the teacher. I certainly do not like mines. He's kinda mean, saying that we don't know anything, always witching at us (honestly, it's too early to do that), but whatever. Plus, I don't see how thinking "why the grass is green" will help us in the future. :\ Meh. I agree with izzygomes. It is overrated.

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