The IBO is very clear about what ToK should be. The blame lies at the feet of institutions who don’t value ToK and treat it as a barely acknowledged addition to the diploma.
Deciding where to focus the blame doesn’t solve problems or explain their origin (it could do so incidentally, but that’s not blame-assignment’s primary concern).
Sure. But without identification of where the problem lies how can we even begin to address the issue?
It appears that students are coming out of the Diploma programme without a basic understanding of what ToK is, let alone a good grounding in it. The IBO could not be any clearer on what ToK is, what the aims and objectives are and how it should be approached.
As an IB teacher (of 15 years) and examiner I can confidently say that the problems identified in this thread have two points of origin: 1) Schools don’t care about the implementation of ToK in relation to the major subject areas and 2)in general teachers don’t know (and don’t care to find out) how to teach it.
Vladimir, I normally really like your comments, but I’m voting this one down because it’s a straight contradiction without any explanation backing it up.
(I’m letting you know to make it clear that it’s not widehead voting you down in some kind of retributive action.)
(It’s not a contradiction. The statement was clearly about placing the blame, which is even explicitly acknowledged in the next comment. I wanted to clarify that widehead’s statement was specifically about blame, which I think is a wrong thing to focus on.)
It’s where you place the blame.
The IBO is very clear about what ToK should be. The blame lies at the feet of institutions who don’t value ToK and treat it as a barely acknowledged addition to the diploma.
Deciding where to focus the blame doesn’t solve problems or explain their origin (it could do so incidentally, but that’s not blame-assignment’s primary concern).
Sure. But without identification of where the problem lies how can we even begin to address the issue?
It appears that students are coming out of the Diploma programme without a basic understanding of what ToK is, let alone a good grounding in it. The IBO could not be any clearer on what ToK is, what the aims and objectives are and how it should be approached.
As an IB teacher (of 15 years) and examiner I can confidently say that the problems identified in this thread have two points of origin: 1) Schools don’t care about the implementation of ToK in relation to the major subject areas and 2)in general teachers don’t know (and don’t care to find out) how to teach it.
Vladimir, I normally really like your comments, but I’m voting this one down because it’s a straight contradiction without any explanation backing it up.
(I’m letting you know to make it clear that it’s not widehead voting you down in some kind of retributive action.)
(It’s not a contradiction. The statement was clearly about placing the blame, which is even explicitly acknowledged in the next comment. I wanted to clarify that widehead’s statement was specifically about blame, which I think is a wrong thing to focus on.)
(Fair enough, I retract the downvote. Also: why are we whispering?)
It’s good to tune down meta discussion, I think. I often write two-part comments where the second part is in parentheses to specify its role.