TOK Talk

In this episode, I met with Dr. PS Yuen and Janka Steenkamp (both IB English teachers to talk about Essay Title 4: Do you agree that it is “astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power” (Bertrand Russell)? Discuss with reference to the natural sciences and one other area of knowledge. Hope you find this episode as interesting as we did! If you’re looking for the TOK Essay Title Posters I mentioned, you can find them on my website at www.TOKTalk.org. You can also find the links to many ideas discussed in this episode and others as well.

Music is courtesy of Plastic Daizi Band, just one of our warm up sessions from many moons ago.

Guests: Dr. PS Yuen, Janka Steinkamp

Today I had a really insightful discussion with IB Theatre teacher, Alex Campion. We talked about May 2023 TOK Essay Title 6: To what extent is the knowledge we produce determined by the methodologies we use? Discuss with reference to history and one other area of knowledge.

Of course we talked about the Arts, attempting to give light to artistic methods in contrast with "the scientific method". I really enjoyed this one, and hope it leaves you thinking a little about the connection between the way we choose to produce knowledge and the impact it has on what we know. Stay tuned for more of these Essay Title discussions in the next few weeks!

Guest: Alex Campion

Today I had a coffee with Bill Kyzner and Bob Scheer and we unpacked the 2023 May Title 2: For artists and natural scientists, which is more important: what can be explained or what cannot be explained? Discuss with reference to the arts and the natural sciences. Questions that arose included: When does one become an “artist” or “scientist”? What does it mean to “explain”? Important for the artist/scientist to do what? So many different questions and ideas came up as we talked, I hope this gives you some food for your TOK thought!

Guests: Bill Kyzner, Bob Scheer

Today I met with Dr. Rachel Oser, (Science Teacher) & 孫秀東 Xiudong Sun, (Chinese Literature and TOK Teacher) to talk about Exhibition Prompt 8: To what extent is certainty attainable? 在何種程度上確定性是可以達到的？This was a really interesting episode for me firstly, because we begin by contrasting the idea of certainty in Religious knowledge and Science… This is something I find very delicate to explore through the lens of TOK. Secondonly, the episode was especially interesting because it was my first English & Chinese bilingual episode! I hope to do more of these in the future. I have added a translation of some of the sections where I thought clarity would help. I hope I have translated well enough to keep the integrity of Sun’s ideas, as well as to make it understandable to an English listener.

Some key quotes and ideas from this episode include:

Benjamin Franklin: “Nothing is certain but death and taxes”

Similar to “我唯一确定的事情是什么都不确定” The only thing of which I can be certain is that I’m not certain of anything.

"There are a thousand hamlets in a thousand people's eyes" in relation to Shakespeare… which brought up a discussion of Hamlet through a Taoist lens, and how this brings up the problem of lenses and certainty. We discuss certainty in the Arts in relation to good and bad interpretations.

Later we talk about issues that pertain to certainty have to do with our perspectives, replicability, tools and the limits of our human experience, raising the question Why do we need certainty? What is the role of doubt?

Key Chinese words I learned from our conversation:

物种起源 Darwin's Origin of Species

怀疑论者 skeptic

不可知论准 agnostic

Once again, thank you Bernard Wun for bringing us in and out of this episode with your guitar!

Guests: Dr. Rachel Oser, 孫秀東 Xiudong Sun

TOK Exhibition Prompt 4: On what grounds might we doubt a claim?

To unravel this question, I met with Sarah Rodgers (DP Chemistry & MYP Science Teacher) & Alice Brookes (DP Bio & MYP Science Teacher). Together, we talk about a range of reasons we might doubt claims that are made about knowledge, and conversely what might make knowledge claims more trustworthy. We touch upon a variety of criteria, and discuss issues related to science, doubt in the time of Darwin when religion ran the world, the conflicting information about nutrition, as well as the current political climate in areas around the globe. It’s always fascinating to talk with people from different areas of the world, especially international teachers because we see things from both our own culture, our host culture, and sometimes a third global perspective as well.

Are we immune from the challenge of doubting the norm? Should we really doubt everything? Should we question everything? Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? These are important questions to consider and I hope you take some time to think about the things you take for granted and where you’ve developed “cognitive ease” around what you believe.

Find links to episode references on www.TOKTalk.org

Once again, thank you Bernard Wun for music to bring us in and out of today’s discussion.

Guests: Alice Brookes, Sarah Rodgers

Today I sat down with Jim Faherty, an experienced University Guidance Counsellor here in Hong Kong to exchange views on Exhibition Prompt 7 What are the implications of having or not having knowledge? Because of his background in university applications and guidance, we discussed this question in relation to how having knowledge within this realm expands and helps to refine options for future choices in a young person's life. We go beyond this, and discuss the implications of having knowledge, one of those being the responsibility to share knowledge with others. We consider the reliability of sources, which is not only relevant to university choices but to all aspects of knowing about the world. We also explore what responsibility might come with having knowledge, and the relationship of money, power and knowledge.

We discuss the implications of not having knowledge as well again in light of having access to education (and therefore certain forms of knowledge) as well as the war in Ukraine and the race for a vaccine for Covid. We begin to think about knowledge as a resource, and only begin to ponder the problem of how we could better manage this resource on the internet. I hope you enjoy this episode and think again about the implications of having or not having knowledge.

Links for further investigation found on www.TOKTalk.org

Guest: Jim Faherty

Today I’m joined by Liu Yu, aka Mr. LY, teacher of Chinese Humanities and Assistant Principal at ISF Academy in HK. We discuss Prompt 6: How does the way we organize or classify knowledge affect what we know? We explore Confucian values in China as a way of organizing knowledge (and by extension society) within Chinese culture. We also consider language and culture as ways we organize knowledge, and explore how in our personal experiences we’ve been able to step outside our own individual cultures in order to understand more about the world.

We also really get into the challenge of language as a way we know about the world, and the complexities of translation, as well as how having more varieties of language allows us to become more aware of the nuances of our experiences around us.

Thanks again to Bernard Wun for the guitar that brings us in and out of this one!

Links for further investigation on www.TOKTalk.org

Guest: Liu Yu 劉宇老師

In this episode, I sat down with DP Design Teacher Donna Gee and DP Global Politics Teacher Bill Kyzner to discuss TOK Exhibition Prompt 5: What counts as good evidence for a claim. It really got me thinking about the significance of this question in my own personal knowledge about myself and the world, but also in a bigger sense about claims being made in today’s very heated political world. We stayed focused in this talk about evidence and claims within Design and Global Politics, but I cannot stop thinking about how perspectives play a very significant role in just how much evidence is enough to be “good” enough, and the implications this has on all kinds of knowledge communities. There really is so much more to be said about this prompt. I’m gearing up to do a reflection episode, so if you have comments or things you’d like to add, please send me a message via the contact page at www.TOKTalk.org.

And thank you thank you thank you to Bernard Wun for his lovely guitar licks on this track!

Guests: Donna Gee, Bill Kyzner

Prompt 11: Can new knowledge change established values and beliefs?

I know this will likely bother anyone who is interested in order and logic, but I've decided to break the order of prompts so I can publish them as I record them. Turns out the most interesting topics to those around me are not necessarily in the order the IB has given them. Who knew? Anyway...

Today I’m joined by Theatre Teacher, Bob Scheer. We get together and discuss TOK Exhibition Prompt 11: Can new knowledge change established values and beliefs? Bob has also created the harmonies for music on today’s podcast, they’re really beautiful. Enjoy!

Links & fact checks can be found on www.TOKTalk.org

Guest: Bob Scheer

This is the second episode in a series exploring the TOK Exhibition Prompts. Today I’m joined by Adam Walker, expert and teacher of Theatre. We get together and discuss TOK Exhibition Prompt 2: Are some types of knowledge more useful than others?

We’re both teachers of the Arts, so our conversation focuses heavily around the arts. It would be interesting to sit down with a physicist, architect, astronomer or statistician and have a similar conversation!

Another thank you to Vyvienne Schapel for the quick little piano riffs taking us in and out of the podcast!

For links to some of the theatre references discussed, visit www.TOKTalk.org

Guest: Adam Walker