By the time students enroll in the IB Diploma Programme they have amassed a great deal of knowledge. My job, as their Theory of Knowledge teacher, is to make them forget it.
Alec Peterson, the first Director General of the IB and a TOK teacher, wrote that the aim of this course, and the reason it rests at the heart of the IB, is to address two weaknesses common to most upper secondary schools: the failure to make explicit in the minds of the students the different forms that academic learning and knowledge take; and the tendency for students to study their different subjects in discrete, insular compartments.
In other words, I need to help these girls recognize their developing powers of the mind and the ways these methods of thinking can be applied to new situations in any context.
Their powers of scientific deduction can reveal much about the structure of a concerto. The implication of a word problem in calculus demands the close reading skills learned in studying poetry. All of this makes sense, indeed its value to the invested, active participant in life and learning is undeniable. But how to teach this? I thought the girls would probably do a better job than I could.
I asked them first to do some talking and writing about what they mean when they say “I know.” They took this in some wonderful directions, with answers ranging from investigations of empirical knowledge versus faith, to dismissive appeasements of parents and siblings. No need to worry about honest self-assessment with this group. What I did not expect was how quickly this metacognition would pervade their lives.
The heart of their homework for the week was to identify a moment in another class that required them to decode connotation. By lunch the next day, reports were coming in from other teachers of TOK students’ demands and accusations. Higher Level IB Math became a discussion of ways that we decode. In Spanish, a simple request to translate a word brought talk of everything that “what does it mean” can mean. Students began to suspect (correctly, I might add) that their other teachers were in on this plot.
And that’s another part of what I get to do: help these girls forge and map the connections between their disciplines. One of the great strengths of SBS, one that makes the IB a natural fit, is the faculty’s eagerness to make connections. There is an infectious enthusiasm for understanding and synthesis, and as these girls and I work to integrate their tools of learning we find that everywhere we look this approach is being modeled. The bubbles around disciplines are bursting. But that’s how this conversation with Bill started.
-Alex Bogel, TOK and IB English Teacher