I gave a presentation as part of my introduction to TOK presentations. Basically, it looked at the role of humour in our understanding of the world, (or Humour as a Way of Knowing)!
This was inspired by the number of jokes about economists – made by economists – I have heard since the GFC.
Harry Collins in an article for New Scientist says,
“[t]ake a long look at the Mona Lisa. How do you see her? As blobs of paint or as a woman with an enigmatic smile? Now explain how you came to see those blobs of paint as a smile. For your second mission, think back to learning to form sentences. Your parents never told you “verb in the middle” (if you’re English) or “verb at the end” (if you’re German) but still you picked it up. And, more remarkable, once you did, have you any idea how come this sentence breaks the rules but read it you still can?
Looking for new Ways of Knowing?
Just watched an episode of QI – an odd British TV show hosted by Stephen Fry. That might not mean anything but during a discussion a knowledge claim about was made about “morphic knowledge/resonance” – do you reckon it is true? And if so, how do they know?
Wade Davis in The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World provides an opportunity to engage students on the issue of the modern, or western cultural way of knowing. It is often a struggle to move students towards a point in their TOK understanding where they can appreciate the rather large assumptions built into their everyday understanding of the world.
For example, Davis tells in his book of Polynesians, or the “wayfinders who mastered the Pacific ocean in the world’s largest diaspora. Without writing or chronometers they learned 220 stars by name, learned to read the subtle influence of distant islands on wave patterns and clouds, and navigated the open sea by a sheer act of integrative memory. For the duration of an ocean passage “navigators do not sleep.”
It is always a concern of mine that teachers (and therefore students) get stuck on the ‘Big Four’ Ways of Knowing: Reason, Emotion, Sense Perception and Language). In my own classroom I even go to the extent of failing to mention that there are four WoK in the introductory stages of the course, talking about around twelve. So what are the others?
Well, one of them is Testimony. I use the following extract from Knowing from Testimony by Jennifer Lackey:
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