TOK lessons = War

[Delione]

I dun know if im the only one who feels like this, me and some of my friends thinks TOK lessons as a war field.

Everyone know what TOK is, teacher bring up a wierd topic and then the rest of the class comes up with their opinion.

But since everyone have their own opinion, when they listen to other peoples they thinks its wrong and a war of talkning will start.

I still remeber that time I had my practics of TOK presentation in front of my class.

I had the topic:

"Can porn be called art? Are porn art?"

That time i had 3 pics with me. one from playboy, one from a random artist and a piece of art from some artist(dun remember the name)

And this topic become a discussion for 1 week... pretty scary was it actually since everyone was mad and during the whole lesson people where yelling and screaming at each other...I

just stood there silence and I couldnt say anything to stop it with my TOK teacher

So TOK lessons are like war...in my TOK classes anyway

So how does your TOK lessons looks like?

[Mribakov]

Our ToK class is usually half asleep, though during one of the philosophical round robin type exercises the discussion can become quite heated, depending upon the topic being discussed. For example, today we were asked to list ten words of the english language, any ten words. Then he suprised us with the fact that he had already emailed our other IB teachers that we werent allowed to use anythign but those ten through the day. I personally had to revise my list as it had no verbs on it.

All in all, i feel ToK can become quite like a warzone had our class not been in the morning.

[KFC]

The actual class isn't a warzone other than when we have preorganized debates, but after them we are okay again.

But outside of class it sparks many discussions between our group of friends. We actually had an email topic with over 100 replies about whether we should like ToK or not, it was so pathetic .

[Frei]

My classmates are a bit humble, which results in maybe 3 or 4 people discussing, if the class is allowed to discuss at all. Usually, the teacher takes both sides himself instead, which is amusing and nice. I like our ToK lessons ^^

(and btw, the discussions we actually have, we have in a nice way. All of us seem to have realized that all people have, and are allowed to have, their own opinion... Which is so damn swedish... I don't understand how your class can be so... non-swedish about it )

[diabolicalangle]

while its not how you described a warzone, we do have heated debates on almost every single point...

[cataclysm1c]

In my classes, the students just sit around and type essays while the teacher rambles on about her life experiences (which mostly are made up or exaggerated). I sometimes use it as a diploma period to do my other homework since our teacher is absent a lot. I'm actually quite jealous of people who go do in-depth discussions because I believe it is the real way that people handle knowledge issues: by conversing and debate.

[__inthemaking]

Our debates get pretty heated up but everything is fine once class is over. Nothing totally over the line or below the belt.

[Guest syrianstar]

Sample of TOK lessons at my school:

Awkward silence as four (yes FOUR) IB students await their doom in the form of a complicated TOK worksheet from a what seems to be a 1989 book;

Teacher hands out mentioned worksheet, collective groan only heard to IB student's ears;

Casual 'ahem ahem' as everyone reads the questions and raise their eyebrows one by one;

Teacher discusses questions for most of the lesson, mostly to herself since IB students have dirfted off from the first minute....occasional nod to pretend that IB students are listening;

Sigh of releif as Teacher leaves IB students to answer questions themselves - attempt to answer questions, fail, do not attempt again;

Bell rings, worksheet packed away never seen again.

LOL seriously that's what its like - occasionally its a debate or presentation, but still we don't think TOK is as fun as it should be.

[deedoz]

heey

our TOK class is th emost boring boring boring boring class ever, we do nothing but stupid worksheets and sit around doing nothing!!

our teacher is unexperienced and doesnt know what shes doing (like most of our teachers)

and i said this a lot (ps for syrianstar: i will never let this go:P) our TOK teacher gave us the essay titles for May 2008 instead of 2009 and if i didnt find it out we could have down the 2008 ones!!

to some up our TOK class: we dread it!!

[cmfrenchiecm]

If your not somewhat at least a little cautious with religion in TOK, then that War in a TOK class may last outside the 2 hours a week of class with other students unfortunately.

[yazzie]

That time i had 3 pics with me. one from playboy, one from a random artist and a piece of art from some artist(dun remember the name)

And this topic become a discussion for 1 week... pretty scary was it actually since everyone was mad and during the whole lesson people where yelling and screaming at each other...I

just stood there silence and I couldnt say anything to stop it with my TOK teacher

So TOK lessons are like war...in my TOK classes anyway

lol if your classes are like that, i think youve achieved their goal of wanting the students to debate and discuss and understand different views, and i highly doubt this can ever be done in calm, rational and civilized way =P but thats the fun of it =P

[Guest iber2468]

Haha that's an amazing TOK class, totally achieved the aim.

We sometimes have heated debates, but we keep it civil b/c our TOK teacher is slightly scary. Genius, but scary.

[Guus]

I'm jealous of some of you. My TOK class if far from what I want it to be. Even though there's almost 20 people in my class, only 4 or 5 regularly contribute to a discussion. Very annoying, I enjoy debating but if it's always with the same few people it gets boring.

I think TOK has the potential of being amazing as long as all the contributing students are put in one class. I only have a few in mine and it kills the whole TOK experience and makes me dislike the class.

[Mr. Shiver]

Our lessons were often just group work. Our teacher would put us in groups and give us a piece of text and we'd have to make a presentation about the knowledge issues involved at the end of the period or during the next class. No debates. To be honest, our class wouldn't really have been able to handle them. But we did have discussions every now and then, although our teacher never really let us have them for too long because she always seemed to want to avoid debates.

We watched a fair bit of movies as well.

Edited May 25, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[Silviana]

AHAHAHA this is soooo funny.

Well... in my Tok class, no one is particularly intelligent yet we all want to impress the teacher, so imagine this scenario:

20 people talking on top of each other, pretty much saying the same mediocre things.

LoL

But then the teacher gets sick of our pretenses and shoves a worksheet in our face.

[schouston1991]

oh wow, it sounds like you're tok lessons are really interesting!!

so is TOK class a war??? well yes and no

No in that when we do have open discusion it only ever goes for one or two lessons and our teachers are very carefull to make sure that only one person speaks at a time and that we respect each others opinions.

Also most of our classes are pretty structured and dont leave much room for discusison

Yes in that when a contraversal topic does come up there are a lot of different opinions that contradict each other and sometimes the discussions go past the class and onto the playground... particularly on topics like religion or abortion.

[Guest heartarcade]

that would have to be both frustrating and a bit good, but having been in a few philosophy classes where everyone debates and nothing gets accomplished I can see where you're coming from. My TOK class doesn't actually have that much discussion.. its odd. hmm, maybe next year will be better. Did anyone else's grade 11 Tok experience seem kind of blah?

[cokesandcokes]

there's this one kid in our class whom we can always rely on to say something completely absurd and bigoted- this usually does the trick in terms of causing complete turmoil. he does it to piss the teacher off, but it leads to heated (more like frenzied) debate. i totally recommend it

[Oryxy]

We got few people like that in our class too!

During normal times, only the usually active people would talk and discuss. But when the teacher takes out the marking sheet, everybody, well... almost everybody would raise their hands so then the teacher had to call across the room from left to right etc. So sad... Desperate for marks.

[3!sha]

Not at all! Actually our tok classes have a very relaxed atmosphere.

We sit around in bean bags and have some pretty cool discussions.

We also read from texts that are really interesting and voice our views about them.

PLus, the teacher is just really cool!

We were studying the unit on language and she got us the board game Taboo and we just played the whole time!