My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
Immediately following last week’s NAIS conference in Detroit, I flew to Detroit to spend my weekend undertaking training that I am required to do before I can teach the new Theory of Knowledge (ToK) course.
And I use the word “immediately” very deliberately. The NAIS conference ended in Philadelphia at 4:30 pm, and I had to be in Detroit to register for the ToK workshop before the desk closed at 5:00 pm. Needless to say, I didn’t make it, and after a very late (and bitterly cold) arrival in Detroit, I suffered the indignity of a late registration on Saturday morning. On the positive side, by organising this workshop over the weekend to follow back-to-back from the NAIS conference, it minimised my time away from school as well as the travel costs involved.
Teaching Theory of Knowledge is one of the great joys of my job. It enables me to interact directly and meaningfully with students – which is, after all, why I became a teacher in the first place. Moreover, unlike most subjects where the teacher is communicating to students by conveying content and skills, Theory of Knowledge enables me to get to know my students by engaging with them in wide-ranging discussions that challenge assumptions and broaden perspectives across what is potentially the entire scope of all knowledge.
Like all IB teachers, I am required to undertake professional development training before teaching a new syllabus, and a new syllabus for Theory of Knowledge is about to come into force. It is the most significant revision of the Theory of Knowledge syllabus since 1999, with new material being added, old material deleted, shifts in emphasis and changes in focus.
ToK is something of a crossover between epistemology and philosophy, and the course explores a variety of Ways of Knowing (WoKs) that illuminate various Areas of Knowledge (AoKs). At first, that sounds quite jargonistic, but students soon come to appreciate the ways in which their understandings in different subjects coalesce through the different methodologies.
The new syllabus has expanded the range of both WoKs and AoKs. In addition to the four Ways of Knowing in the existing syllabus – language, sense perception, emotion and reasoning – the new syllabus has added four more, these being imagination, faith, intuition and memory. Similarly, the six existing Areas of Knowledge – Mathematics, Natural Science, Human Science, The Arts, History and Ethics – have been joined by two additional AoKs, these being Religious Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge. The additions add an enormous richness to what was already an exciting and expansive course.
There are some other significant changes, such as a new assessment framework, the replacement of ‘knowledge issues’ by ‘knowledge questions’, and the provision of a ‘knowledge framework’ as a substitute for the previous emphasis on understanding the nature of truth.
Altogether, there were about 500 teachers in Detroit attending the various IB workshops. Most were there to learn about the PYP (IB Primary Years Program) and MYP (IB Middle Years Program), which are areas of enormous growth at the moment in North America. From the conversations I heard, it seems that administrators and teachers alike are attracted to the interdisciplinary and constructivist nature of the PYP and MYP to promote curriculum improvement in their schools. Several of the teachers with whom I spoke really appreciated the validation of teaching practice that the PYP and MYP provide to their schools through the process of rigorous external appraisal. As it was explained to all of us in our opening, introductory session, “we (the workshop leaders) are here to transform you from just teaching the IB as a curriculum into true IB teachers”.
The Theory of Knowledge workshops attracted so many teachers that we needed two rooms with simultaneous sessions to accommodate us. It was great to network with other committed ToK teachers and learn from two of the world experts in Theory of Knowledge, Sue Bastian (the long-time Chief Examiner for the subject and textbook author) and Marilynne Sinclair. The workshops moved far beyond being simply informative; they were (like most IB workshops I have attended since my first in 1990) truly inspirational.
The video has had over 1.5 million views, and I had used it with my ToK classes when working in Hong Kong (although I have not yet used it at Awty). In the video, Haidt explains the six moral values that he claims form the basis of our political choices:
1.Care for others.
2.Fairness, treating others in proportion to their actions.
3.Liberty, in which judgments are evaluated in terms of whether or not people are subjected to tyranny.
4.Loyalty to your group, family, or nation (which can also be known as Ingroup).
5.Respect for tradition and legitimate authority.
6.Purity, or the avoidance of disgusting things, foods, and actions.
It was interesting to watch this video again after a gap of several years. When I showed the video to my students in Hong Kong, they tended to see it as a commentary on the United States political scene rather than a commentary on ethics or morality. This was because the assumptions in the video did not relate closely to many of the countries from which my students had come. When the same video was shown to the teachers at the workshop last weekend, it didn’t seem to occur to any of them that the values portrayed might be US-centric and thus subject to critique by viewers from other cultures and societies. They saw the video solely within the confines of what I suspect was its original purpose, which was to relate American political thinking to different traditions of morality and ethics.
This experience of watching my colleagues’ reactions to Haidt’s TED Talk exemplified something I have noticed repeatedly, which is that North American IB workshops are very different to those I have experienced everywhere else in the world. At IB conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and Africa, there is always a deep sense of international-mindedness that reflects the diversity expected of an international educational program. This diversity means that participants are invariably challenged by a wide variety of approaches to learning, teaching methodologies, ways of thinking, cultural perspectives, and so on.
In contrast, I have found that almost all the participants attending IB workshops in North America come from the United States and Canada, and that almost none of them has ever attended an IB workshop outside North America. As a consequence, most of the attendees have only a very limited awareness that they are part of a global system of education with deep roots in transboundary mobility and international-mindedness, or that their IB students are just one facet of a wider global framework. This ToK workshop confirmed my earlier impressions that the IB in North America is quite a different experience than the IB everywhere else in the world, but it also helped me to understand some of the regulatory reasons for this stark difference.
“What is Qatar?” came a question from the floor. “Is it a place?”
“Yes”, replied the workshop leader, “It is a country in the Middle East where I have just conducted a workshop. As a matter of interest, does anyone know the capital of Qatar?”
Only one person seemed to know the answer. It was me, so I raised my hand and offered “Doha” to the apparent amazement of all my colleagues in the room.
For the sake of full disclosure, I then felt compelled to confess that I did not know the capital of Wyoming, to which the room erupted in laughter.
However, I had the last laugh after the collective chuckling had died down when it emerged that only one person in the room DID know the capital of Wyoming – an astute Geography teacher from Toronto. The laughter from the others had been a bluff.
This brief encounter highlighted one of the great omissions in American education as I see it; the neglect of Geography – by which I do not mean memorizing gazetteers (which is often the way Geography is handled in schools in the US that do attempt to teach the subject), but meaningful process-oriented, concept-based, explanatory exploration of spatial themes that help students to understand and explain their surroundings.
Detroit is a wonderful example of a place whose geography cries out for analysis. This is not because of its well-known unique factoid – it is the only US city that looks southwards towards Canada – but because of the characteristics of its urban core and sprawling suburbs that could be simplistically summed up in the term ‘urban decay and dereliction’.
Unfortunately, the heavy schedule of the Theory of Knowledge workshop did not allow any substantial time for me to explore Detroit’s fascinating spatial patterns – frustrating, as this was my first visit to the city. The best I could achieve was to take a circular ride on the People Mover (an elevated monorail) late on Sunday afternoon after the final session of that day’s workshops (which is when I was able to get some of the photos that illustrate this blog).
The signs of Detroit’s economic decline were easy to see (or, more bluntly, they were hard to miss!). Detroit’s geography is a subject worthy of a blog in its own right, and as I have already exceeded the “netiquette” length of a captivating and compelling blog this week, I will refer you to this interesting website to illustrate my point http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/geography-detroit-decline.htm.
The IB’s mission statement claims that the IB aims “to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect”. Given the IB’s mission, I think it is wonderful that every IB student must study Theory of Knowledge, but there are times when I regret that the same requirement does not apply also to Geography.
How can students improve the world if they do not understand it?
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On the same morning, the APPA (our parents’ association) hosted the annual appreciation breakfast for the faculty and staff. The parents catered a breathtaking and stomach-filling gourmet breakfast with quiches, meats, cheeses, pastries, bagels and a very popular fresh crepe station. They even arranged for Java Pure to set up a full espresso bar. Adding to this bliss, six massage therapists were on hand to give chair massages to faculty and staff.
Our teachers felt as though they were in heaven after this expression of gratitude from our wonderful parents. Yes, I know our teachers feel this way every day (!), but Thursday was truly something extra special. I have already thanked the APPA privately, but I also want to record my profound appreciation publicly – on behalf of the faculty and the staff, thank you to the APPA and the parent volunteers for Thursday’s wonderful breakfast, and of course for the massages. Your thoughts, consideration, efforts, time and hard work were deeply appreciated by us all.
After reading this long blog about Theory of Knowledge, Geography, Detroit and our brilliant teachers, you may have been wondering why the lead photo shows a soccer match. The answer is - it was one of two VERY special soccer matches that our students played yesterday (Saturday) at St Thomas’ High School here in Houston.
On Friday evening, both our Boys and Girls Varsity Soccer Teams were victorious in their semi-final matches, thus qualifying to play in the TAPPS State Championship game on Saturday afternoon. Our girls’ team, the Lady Rams, defeated San Antonio Christian School 4-1, while the boys beat Pharr Oratory School 5-1, thus earning their way decisively into the final game.
Yesterday afternoon, the Lady Rams took on Dallas Parish Episcopal School, a number one seed from the northern division, in which they (the Lady Rams) were hoping to win their second state championship, having won previously in 2003. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and the girls went down valiantly 5-0 as their opposition’s defence proved too consistently strong.
The boys game was against Grapevine Faith Christian School, and our boys were looking to secure the team's fifth championship (having won previously in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1996). Unfortunately, success was just beyond the grasp of the team, and after a nail-biting first half which saw a 1-1 draw, Grapevine edged ahead narrowly to finish the match 2-1.
Having both the boys and girls teams advance to the state final championship match, and emerge as runners-up to the very worthy state champions, was an immense achievement, and congratulations are due not only to our fine players but to their coaches, Mr Sam Waugh (Lady Rams) and Mr Satrap Yuksek (the Rams).
The photos below show just a few snippets from the two wonderful matches, both of which I enjoyed attending yesterday afternoon. For those who were not there, the Lady Rams were wearing the green uniforms, and the Rams were wearing the white uniforms.
The new Theory of Knowledge (plus more)
Sunday, 10 March 2013