http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYwTIdagGSo
What ethical restraints do we recognize as we seek knowledge? This question, which runs through areas of knowledge in TOK, finds a particular focus this week in photographs just released of the Mashco-Piro tribe in southeastern Peru. The photographs, taken from a distance, renew the place of this group as an example of an “uncontacted” tribe in continuing issues of cultural and environmental conservation.
Assessment – what level of support?
The IB recently released a short paper on the issue of teacher’s supporting assessment tasks. How much can the teacher support the development of a summative assessment? How much feedback or editing is valid? From my own experience in a number of school across the world, this question is often answered by the culture of the school. However, the IB quite rightly expects there to be a standard so that all students are assessed fairly. The article can be found in the IB Asia Pacific December 2011 eNewsletter at http://issuu.com/ibasiapacific/docs/ibap_enewsletter_issue_dec_2011.
In many areas of TOK, we treat causation – concepts of cause and methods of establishing causes in response to the questions we choose to ask. My friend Lena Rotenberg has just passed me a link to a disturbing news editorial that, to me, begs for us to draw distinctions between cause, fault or blame, and legal guilt. With the death on a highway of a small child, it also raises the assumptions and values behind systems designed by a society – or at least by some members of a society.
In the Grist article “When design kills: The criminalization of walking”, Sarah Goodyear argues that city transportation systems in some American cities consider the convenience for car drivers over the convenience for pedestrians. She takes this balance of priorities further into other areas of values and bias: “Let’s talk frankly about one important aspect of this story: It’s partly about class and race.”
Yesterday the United Nations declared the situation in parts of Somalia to be a “famine”. The “famine” designation indicates a severe crisis of malnutrition and deaths from hunger. According to the UN News Centre, “famine is declared when acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 per cent, more than two people per every 10,000 die per day, and people are not able to access food and other basic necessities”.
The news of starvation and refugees has already reached world media. People already know. Will the language in which the story is cast change the reactions of world governments and individual donors? Will naming the disaster a “famine” affect action?
One of the activities I used to enjoy on a Monday morning was a quick look into the future. Students would gather news stories that had caught their eye over the previous week and would bring in news cuttings, which we would put to the marketing, finance, social and HR test. For example, we might examine a technology advance and examine the possible ramifications in terms of the market, costs and human resources. I would nominate two students per week in a rota to lead the morning activity; sometimes this worked and sometimes it bombed – well nothing is perfect.
Of course things have moved on – fewer students read the written word in a physical form, but the Internet provides an even more accessible and global outlook, so there is less reason why your students would find this activity difficult. The results can be a wonderful source of inspiration, not only providing exemplars for the syllabus in general, but as seed ideas for internal assessments and extended essays. If you have a department blog site, the students can also turn their stories into a posting and invite reactions from other students to the issues of the week. News items can also stimulate cross-curricular and TOK debate.
This month, the UK government announced its ‘responsibility deal’ to encourage healthier lifestyles in England. More than 170 companies have put their names to a series of pledges covering physical activity, alcohol, health at work and food. There were a total of 19 core pledges agreed, such as the introduction of calorie counts on menus in cafés and restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC. Seven major supermarkets and a number of drink manufacturers have promised to increase the proportion of drinks with alcohol labelling from 15% to 80% by the end of 2013. Other employers, including Mars and Unilever, pledged to share their expertise in managing workplace health with small companies.
One company promising to contribute to the initiative is the drinks company Diageo, which has agreed to fund the training of 10,000 midwives who offer advice about the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy. Diageo’s brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Windsor, Buchanan’s and Bushmills whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Baileys, Captain Morgan, José Cuervo, Tanqueray and Guinness. Diageo describes itself as “the world’s leading premium drinks business”. Ironically, one of its core products, Guinness, was once widely regarded as a good source of iron, useful during pregnancy or when breastfeeding.
I have been a big fan of swim coach legend Bill Sweetenham for around 30 years, and enjoyed reading his article on how he uses the principles of war to shape his coaching philosophies.
Whenever we interact with the Internet or make a commercial transaction on the Web, some aspect of our life and behaviour is tracked by someone. Our personal information is extremely valuable and although we may not know when, and how often it happens, the likelihood is that we appear on hundreds (or thousands) of lists regularly traded between commercial and state organisations, providing information on numerous aspects of our lives.
“Ground Zero Celebration of Bin Laden’s Death” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7DTln94Xx4
The arc of any project lends itself to close analysis.
From the first step planning stage, through active experiential learning, then a culminating event or production, and, finally a reflection, the role of the teacher as mentor and facilitator is crucial.
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