As we begin to look at Ways of Knowing and the Knowledge Issues that influence each, answer the following question...
When should we trust our senses to give us the truth?
Analyze one example from your content area where the senses are used to give the knower truth and one example where sense perception limits what we can know.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
What is reality?
Question #1 for this week...
Does knowledge come from the inside or outside? Do we construct reality or do we recognize it?
Provide academic/personal examples to support your claim.
Does knowledge come from the inside or outside? Do we construct reality or do we recognize it?
Provide academic/personal examples to support your claim.
Knowledge and Culture
Question #2 for this week...
Do knowledge claims transcend different communities or cultures? To what extent might the distinction between private knowledge and public knowledge be culturally dependent?
Provide academic/personal examples to help support your claim.
Do knowledge claims transcend different communities or cultures? To what extent might the distinction between private knowledge and public knowledge be culturally dependent?
Provide academic/personal examples to help support your claim.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Spirituality and Knowledge
What is your spiritual world view? How do you think following a particular religion, or not doing so, affects your knowledge?
At this moment in my life I find myself confronting my spiritual/religious beliefs, and trying to determine what I really do believe, without influence from any past experience or bias. This is a rather difficult task as I was raised Catholic, but only until I was seven. Is there really a God? I find myself rather cynical in this area, especially about the Catholic Church. I imagine my knowledge, or lack thereof, is heavily influenced by my negative experiences with the Church and it impacts my interaction with people of faith. So, cynicism, bias, experiences, both positive and negative, impact my knowledge and the connotation I apply to various spiritual beliefs, terms, practices, etc. I would like to be more open-minded in this area, and find a way to carefully evaluate my beliefs so that I understand why I believe or don’t believe, and more importantly, what I believe! I would like to be able to have a coherent, intelligent conversation on this topic without emotion and without rancor. I know there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to matters of faith – but it is difficult to excise emotion from the equation.
At this moment in my life I find myself confronting my spiritual/religious beliefs, and trying to determine what I really do believe, without influence from any past experience or bias. This is a rather difficult task as I was raised Catholic, but only until I was seven. Is there really a God? I find myself rather cynical in this area, especially about the Catholic Church. I imagine my knowledge, or lack thereof, is heavily influenced by my negative experiences with the Church and it impacts my interaction with people of faith. So, cynicism, bias, experiences, both positive and negative, impact my knowledge and the connotation I apply to various spiritual beliefs, terms, practices, etc. I would like to be more open-minded in this area, and find a way to carefully evaluate my beliefs so that I understand why I believe or don’t believe, and more importantly, what I believe! I would like to be able to have a coherent, intelligent conversation on this topic without emotion and without rancor. I know there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to matters of faith – but it is difficult to excise emotion from the equation.
What I Know (or Don't)
I have been experiencing a strange phenomenon the past few years regarding how I view myself and the world, so the timing of this class feels particularly poetic for me. I am in my eighth year of teaching, my fourth year of motherhood, and, having recently celebrated my thirtieth birthday, I am embarking on my fourth decade of life. I guess my age, motherhood, and teaching experience have gained me the credibility I longed for as a teenager and young teacher, yet I feel less qualified than ever to speak as an authority about anything.
When I was thirteen, I knew everything. Seriously. I had already worked for two years as the bookkeeper for a small business, and when they were audited my records were shown to be flawless. People--teachers, my parents, my parents' friends--were always remarking how mature I was, and I felt it. I offered advice freely, not just to friends, but to relatives, or any adult who would listen to me. I wrote poetry, and a three-part novel. I was published for the first time and, thanks to my family's internet access--in 1992, back before we all used the world wide web--I posted my work and responded to others' on Prodigy's bulletin boards (which, appropriately, were quite similar to today's blogs). I was confident in who I was and ready to share it with the world.
What I know now, though, as a thirty-year-old mother and teacher, is that, unlike my internet service, I was not ahead of my time. Anyone with basic math skills can keep records and pay taxes. I may have written a three-part novel, but without realizing the significance and history of all the term implies. The publications that paid me for my work were so obscure that I don't even remember their names. And, though I didn't know it at the time, the advice I offered others was usually unsolicited and often unappreciated.
I thought I knew who I was as a teenager, even as I was questioning my religious upbringing (much to the chagrin of my father, a minister). I thought I knew who I was when I chose my major (over and over) in college. When I chose to get married. When I began teaching. When I washed and hung the tiny clothes in the closet of the room we painted purple and green in anticipation of our first child. But at thirty, I have begun realizing how much I don't know. About being married. About parenting children. About teaching literature, when students ask contextual questions about history that I don't know how to answer, or when I have to account for the many different ways of knowing in literature and explain what IB values and whether it is "right." About politics, when I am asked to make a decision that embodies moral questions alongside issues of health care, education, and economics, only one of which I feel qualified to say anything about. About the Bible, which I ostensibly "studied" every Sunday my entire childhood.
In short, over the last five years I have begun to realize how much I don't know. I once thought my superior ACT and SAT scores, my high GPAs that I only sometimes had to work for, and my ability to out-argue most of my friends and family all pointed to my great intelligence. Only in the past five years have I swallowed my pride enough to acknowledge that my intellectual capacity does not relate to what I actually know (or retain), and that wisdom is another thing altogether. All pretty embarrassing to admit to my colleagues, and to publish online. I am clearly not there yet on the wisdom bit.
When I was thirteen, I knew everything. Seriously. I had already worked for two years as the bookkeeper for a small business, and when they were audited my records were shown to be flawless. People--teachers, my parents, my parents' friends--were always remarking how mature I was, and I felt it. I offered advice freely, not just to friends, but to relatives, or any adult who would listen to me. I wrote poetry, and a three-part novel. I was published for the first time and, thanks to my family's internet access--in 1992, back before we all used the world wide web--I posted my work and responded to others' on Prodigy's bulletin boards (which, appropriately, were quite similar to today's blogs). I was confident in who I was and ready to share it with the world.
What I know now, though, as a thirty-year-old mother and teacher, is that, unlike my internet service, I was not ahead of my time. Anyone with basic math skills can keep records and pay taxes. I may have written a three-part novel, but without realizing the significance and history of all the term implies. The publications that paid me for my work were so obscure that I don't even remember their names. And, though I didn't know it at the time, the advice I offered others was usually unsolicited and often unappreciated.
I thought I knew who I was as a teenager, even as I was questioning my religious upbringing (much to the chagrin of my father, a minister). I thought I knew who I was when I chose my major (over and over) in college. When I chose to get married. When I began teaching. When I washed and hung the tiny clothes in the closet of the room we painted purple and green in anticipation of our first child. But at thirty, I have begun realizing how much I don't know. About being married. About parenting children. About teaching literature, when students ask contextual questions about history that I don't know how to answer, or when I have to account for the many different ways of knowing in literature and explain what IB values and whether it is "right." About politics, when I am asked to make a decision that embodies moral questions alongside issues of health care, education, and economics, only one of which I feel qualified to say anything about. About the Bible, which I ostensibly "studied" every Sunday my entire childhood.
In short, over the last five years I have begun to realize how much I don't know. I once thought my superior ACT and SAT scores, my high GPAs that I only sometimes had to work for, and my ability to out-argue most of my friends and family all pointed to my great intelligence. Only in the past five years have I swallowed my pride enough to acknowledge that my intellectual capacity does not relate to what I actually know (or retain), and that wisdom is another thing altogether. All pretty embarrassing to admit to my colleagues, and to publish online. I am clearly not there yet on the wisdom bit.
My Goals for this class
To be able to interact with other teachers in this class and be more connected to things that are being taught in the school. I am always interested in the curriculum in the regular education and want to keep up in the other classes. It also helps me support students that take classes other than my own.
Response to Issues of Knowledge in English from ToK for Teachers
This post is in response to the ToK for Teachers homework that asked “What knowledge issues do academics and students in your content area face when attempting to acquire knowledge and/or find truth? What are the implications? Some of the knowledge issues that students and teachers face in English is holding on too dearly to their beliefs without due consideration of alternate, contrasting, or different beliefs. There is a sense of egoacademics that oftentimes runs through the brightest of students and teachers. Overcoming one’s ego is one of the central issues for acquiring new knowledge; indeed, it is central to most things in life. Specifically, students in English often come to it with an empirical sense, and as a result, seek to find THE answer in a text. This is a narrow approach to acquiring knowledge in English. Instead, I hope that they think of acquiring knowledge as that which is based on their own abilities to think critically and analyze text, thereby creating meaning or knowledge for themselves, as opposed to discovering it in the text. Oftentimes, this aspect is met with resistance and viewed as BS-ing through English. Academics also have issues with acquiring knowledge in English, ironically, in a similar way as students. Academics oftentimes limit their scope of context. For example, one can have multiple interpretations of a text if different critical lenses are applied. Issues arise when academics fail to see the validity or consider those differing critical lenses, which might be counter to the one held by the academic. Again, this is ego driven.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Why are we here?
Hi,
I'm Ron Lynam. I thought I would just share some of my answers from the questionnaire we received in class as a way of introducing myself to people who mostly already know me.
I am 54 years old (54, born in ‘54!). As someone who grew up in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s I probably acquire knowledge in a more archaic way than many of my colleagues. I am definitely not very tuned into getting knowledge digitally - I much prefer reading "hardcopy" and have an innate suspicion of anything generated on the internet, although I do use it more all the time. This is probably fairly limiting to my acquisition of new information since much of that is generated digitally and takes a while to reach the print media. I’m probably behind the curve a lot of the time! I have been teaching for 22 years now. I have taught most of the Social Studies, primarily U.S. History, American Government and Economics. Knowledge in history has changed greatly over time as most historians have come to the perspective that history is far from an exact science and can be interpreted many different ways. The focus of history has change a lot, too, as social history has and continues to emerge as an important historical study, although political, economic and intellectual history continues to be important. As I teach it I learn every day and most of the time I learn that what I thought I knew is wrong. I try to pass that perspective on to my students, many of whom are certainly smarter than I am but think they know more than they do. The humility of history is what I really try to teach.
I am a very casual student of science and nature and, since I have a couple of college degrees in it, anthropology. As these are environmental studies in many ways I guess you could say I’m interested in the world around me, although I don’t have the discipline to be a scientist. I do think my interests affect my teaching of history in my attempt to communicate the importance of environmental considerations in historical events.
Another major influence on me is music. I have been a professional musician a lot longer than I have been a teacher and that is really at the core of who I am. It is a very non-empirical "way of knowing" (I’m probably misusing that term) and, though I probably don’t seem very emotional, is a lot of the emotional side of who I am.
I'm Ron Lynam. I thought I would just share some of my answers from the questionnaire we received in class as a way of introducing myself to people who mostly already know me.
I am 54 years old (54, born in ‘54!). As someone who grew up in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s I probably acquire knowledge in a more archaic way than many of my colleagues. I am definitely not very tuned into getting knowledge digitally - I much prefer reading "hardcopy" and have an innate suspicion of anything generated on the internet, although I do use it more all the time. This is probably fairly limiting to my acquisition of new information since much of that is generated digitally and takes a while to reach the print media. I’m probably behind the curve a lot of the time! I have been teaching for 22 years now. I have taught most of the Social Studies, primarily U.S. History, American Government and Economics. Knowledge in history has changed greatly over time as most historians have come to the perspective that history is far from an exact science and can be interpreted many different ways. The focus of history has change a lot, too, as social history has and continues to emerge as an important historical study, although political, economic and intellectual history continues to be important. As I teach it I learn every day and most of the time I learn that what I thought I knew is wrong. I try to pass that perspective on to my students, many of whom are certainly smarter than I am but think they know more than they do. The humility of history is what I really try to teach.
I am a very casual student of science and nature and, since I have a couple of college degrees in it, anthropology. As these are environmental studies in many ways I guess you could say I’m interested in the world around me, although I don’t have the discipline to be a scientist. I do think my interests affect my teaching of history in my attempt to communicate the importance of environmental considerations in historical events.
Another major influence on me is music. I have been a professional musician a lot longer than I have been a teacher and that is really at the core of who I am. It is a very non-empirical "way of knowing" (I’m probably misusing that term) and, though I probably don’t seem very emotional, is a lot of the emotional side of who I am.
Education
My first job in education was as a paraprofessional. I worked each day with an 8-year-old girl with Down Syndrome, as well as with 5 other students with "severe and profound" disabilities. This job challenged many of my previous assumptions about education and addressed many issues I had previously had the luxury of ignoring. I am now in my 2nd year of "official" teaching. My content area is science, but the truth is that I enjoy teaching kids and science was the area I was endorsable in. If I could invent my own class to teach, it would probably in environmental ethics. I have always loved learning, and I need to feel as though I am making a difference…"being the change I wish to see in the world", to borrow a quote from Gandhi. Teaching allows me to do both. I consider myself a student of many things and an expert on none. My undergrad. degree was very interdisciplinary, and while specialization seems to be what pays, I still hold that there is great value in being able to connect subjects, people, and ideas. This has led me to teach science from a variety of subjects and perspectives. Being that I have very general knowledge in many subjects, my knowledge in my content area has had to grow very quickly by necessity, as I am now the supposed authority on Zoology, Genetics, Botany, Biology, and Critical Skills. I, myself, have relied on other authorities, usually the text, to impart knowledge in all of these areas, but teaching reminds me daily that I still know very little compared to the vast curiosities of my students.
Friday, November 14, 2008
How we communicate
If I had to do it over again, I would study linguistics rather than a particular foreign language. I am fascinated by the myriad ways that people express themselves, among them: with specific words, sign language, facial expressions, voice tone. For kicks I will occasionally read a book on the history of the English Language or how languages evolve. I love reading weird authors that nobody (except for English majors) reads anymore like John Galsworthy or Boothe Tarkington, just so I can appreciate how much our language has changed. I am in awe of the statistics about how many words there are in English in comparison to other languages.....how thick can an English dictionary be? And this in turn brings me to my concentration on German and Spanish - not just as a subject but as a gateway to the peoples that speak those languages. And then on to a deep concern about globalization......as it leads to a slow obliteration of a defintion between cultures. I witness this on a daily basis in the classroom when considering cultural topics such as things as simple as the disappearance of mom and pop restaurants in Germany in favor of American "chain style" restaurants, or other seemingly non controversial topics. As to how this affects my view of what I teach - Sometimes I wonder- Why continue to teach German? Every year the German government spends millions of dollars promoting its language! If it is truly worthwhile, it should be able to sustain itself. Languages blend and evolve, or die out totally. Bring back Esperanto?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The 2000 Presidential Election: A Success for US Democracy
One of the items that impacts how I view the world is my academic background. I have been trained as a historian (my degree is in history) and view the world much differently than most of my colleagues. Even many of my department colleagues (especially those whose degrees are in one or more of the social sciences) don't see the world the same that I do.
Case in point is the Presidential Election of 2000. Most Americans view it as a "black eye" for US democracy but this is due to their lack of understanding of historical processes. I viewed the election as a success fro the following reasons:
a) the army did not overthrow the government;
b) the president did not declare a state of emergency and extend the length of his term in violation of the Constitution;
c) there were no legal restrictions on the press to avoid reporting on the situation (allowing the citizens of the US and the world to see the process unfold);
d) while there was violence at some demonstrations, widespread civil war did not erupt;
e) the Constitutional process (outlined in Article II, Section 1 and modified by the 12th Amendment) was followed: the electoral votes were cast and they were counted by the President of the Senate in the presence of both houses. For those unfamiliar with the US Government, the President of the Senate is the Vice-President of the US who, in 2000, was...Al Gore!
If a person takes the above (a-e) for granted, just know this: it is NOT the norm. In most countries at most time periods such trials resulted in a military takeover either outright or to stem widespread civil unrest resulting from a heated event.
Many US citizens expect their government to be perfect. Yet, humans are fallible, imperfect entities and so are the structures (e.g., governments) that they create. On 20 January 2001, the US Constitution was still in effect, there was a peaceful transition of power, and the country moved on. During a trying time, the US democracy held and, from that viewpoint, the 2000 Presidential Election was a success.
Case in point is the Presidential Election of 2000. Most Americans view it as a "black eye" for US democracy but this is due to their lack of understanding of historical processes. I viewed the election as a success fro the following reasons:
a) the army did not overthrow the government;
b) the president did not declare a state of emergency and extend the length of his term in violation of the Constitution;
c) there were no legal restrictions on the press to avoid reporting on the situation (allowing the citizens of the US and the world to see the process unfold);
d) while there was violence at some demonstrations, widespread civil war did not erupt;
e) the Constitutional process (outlined in Article II, Section 1 and modified by the 12th Amendment) was followed: the electoral votes were cast and they were counted by the President of the Senate in the presence of both houses. For those unfamiliar with the US Government, the President of the Senate is the Vice-President of the US who, in 2000, was...Al Gore!
If a person takes the above (a-e) for granted, just know this: it is NOT the norm. In most countries at most time periods such trials resulted in a military takeover either outright or to stem widespread civil unrest resulting from a heated event.
Many US citizens expect their government to be perfect. Yet, humans are fallible, imperfect entities and so are the structures (e.g., governments) that they create. On 20 January 2001, the US Constitution was still in effect, there was a peaceful transition of power, and the country moved on. During a trying time, the US democracy held and, from that viewpoint, the 2000 Presidential Election was a success.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Introductions please...
Please introduce yourself to the class.
In addition to your name and subject area, explore the following...
Why did you decide to take this course?
How does one acquire knowledge in the Subject Area you teach?
(Think about Logic, Emotion, Sense Perception and Language)
Thanks for joining us.
Jason and Lisa
In addition to your name and subject area, explore the following...
Why did you decide to take this course?
How does one acquire knowledge in the Subject Area you teach?
(Think about Logic, Emotion, Sense Perception and Language)
Thanks for joining us.
Jason and Lisa
Welcome...
Welcome to the inaugural offering of TOK for Teachers. This blog has been set up to give teachers in the course a chance to discuss what's going on in class and in their classrooms. Along the way, we hope to have students jump into the conversations with us.
So feel free to post, comment and continue to find ways to integrate TOK into your classroom.
So feel free to post, comment and continue to find ways to integrate TOK into your classroom.
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