Final Blog Post

How has the course IB Theory of Knowledge 1 impacted you as a learner and in the real world?

I’ve honestly learned so much about myself as a learner and a knower in this class. I can’t imagine how I’d be doing in my other classes without ToK. All of the reflections that we’ve done have really affected how I think about myself and others. I am so grateful for this class.

Give yourself self-ratings [A, B, C] on each: attendance, attention, participation, prepared 

Attendance:B  

Attention:A 

Participation:A

Prepared:B+ 

Pictures From the Collage Party

Today in ToK, we made collages of the pictures we thought represented imagination. We then put them all into one big collage and hung it up. In making my collage "chunk", I found an old flyer from the UNICEF campaign, Believe in Zero. This is still an active, global project. So I cut up the flyer and rearranged the words into a sentence about what I believe that imagination is. Here are the pictures of the collages!

Imagination

1. Pick one of your IB higher level subjects and one non-academic activity that you do.  In what ways do you use imagination to gain, evaluate, understand, apply or enjoy knowledge in each of these two cases?  Without imagination, would your knowledge be diminished?  

I'm picking Higher Level Music for my HL subject and composition for my non-academic activity. 

In HL Music, we often gain knowledge imaginatively. For example: If I am trying to determine the region from which a piece originates, (a common activity in IB Music), I will often close my eyes and imagine the instrument, player, or setting that is happening. If it's an instrument that looks like a marimba in my mind, I will think that perhaps it is South American. 

We also use our imagination to evaluate knowledge and to understand music. We'll think about the cultures, customs and context of a place prior to analyzing the musical elements of a composition.

We also use out imagination to enjoy knowledge, and enjoy music! I'll imagine what the composer must have been feeling or thinking while s(he) was writing the piece I'm listening to, and I'll imagine the mood, texture, or timbre of the piece in my mind both while listening and doing academic composing.

Meanwhile, in my own personal compositions, imagination plays a very different role. Oftentimes, I will compose a piece and then color over it in bright colors, depicting the mood I want the section to be played. For example, this is a snippet of a piece that I wrote just now:

I would color flames all over the first measure, indicating that I want it to be played intensely, followed by water on the next three measures, indicating that I'd want it to be played softly. Only I really understand my visual shorthand, and this piece is actually terrible and wouldn't sound good with a loud beginning and a soft ending, (or ever), but that's an example of how I use my imagination in composition!

Art Reflection

Blog post due by Friday, 28 March by 3pm
Respond to the four questions at the end of the class handout
TOK blog reflection questions:

1. Write a definition of “art” (no dictionary, Google searching or asking your art teacher) in 1-2 complete sentences.

I believe that art is the following:

A creative work, musical, visual, theatrical, edible, or written, that evokes one's senses and makes one think differently about the world in which they live, even if only for a moment.

1. How does the photographer, Chris Jordan, “tap” the power of imagination for a purpose other than creating a work of art?

He uses his imagination to create things which make humans realize what is wrong and how easy it is to fix it. He doesn't just make art, he also enlightens, informs, and stuns his audience.

1. Without Chris Jordan’s imaginative use of art to portray the examples discussed in talk, would your knowledge of the social phenomena discussed be diminished? 

I think my knowledge really would be diminished. I think that the visual really gave me the shock that I needed. I never really thought about how BIG all of those paper cups stacked up actually were. The expression on my face was that of pure awe.

1. Name one other “social phenomenon” that would fit in well with the sorts of examples depicted by Chris Jordan, and describe a possible “work of art” of your own that you believe would use imagination as a means toward further understanding. If you fall short of another example, you may choose one of Jordan’s examples, and propose your own “work of art” idea.

I immediately thought of these two things: the racial inequality of the American prison system, and the amount of girls sold into sex slavery in the US. 

Stats about incarcerated African Americans and Hispanics:

• Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
• According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
• One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. 

All of these statistics could be made into art. For example, if I drew a picture of America and colored in the percent of the population that is African American or Hispanic brown, and the percent of the population that is white in blue, and then did the same except with prison populations, that would be an interesting piece. 

Moving on to sex slavery. I could stack up 158,600,000  dolls (representing the amount of women there are in the States) and take a picture. Then I would paint 200,000 of them red. That's a visual of how many women and children are sold in the states.

This video really inspired me to create more activist art! 

Sense Perception and Rapid Cognition

How did you react to your results?  Were you surprised?  Angry or hurt? Pleased?  Discuss what you felt and why you think you felt what you did.

I was pleasantly surprised. In the first test, only 2% of people got my score. In the second, only 1% did. It was pretty exciting, because I felt special. Plus, I liked my score. It didn't offend me. I agree with it, now that I know what it is.

Do you believe that your test results say something about you that you should pay attention to?  Why or why not?

Well, I think that I should really try to love everyone equally. Both tests showed a "strong preference for" _____ over _____. I always felt like I was neutral in terms of feelings for racial groups and other groups. 

Do you think that these tests are valid?  When you first saw your results, did you question or accept the tests' validity?

I think they are valid. I was surprised, but I liked my answers.  I think that's why I think they're valid: if I didn't agree with them, I'd probably question their validity. That has ToK connections, right?

Give examples of the cultural messages that many support attitudes linking a dominant group in your nation or culture with "good" or "superior" attributes and a subordinate group with "bad" or "inferior" ones. Are these attitudes generalizations that can be called stereotypes?  How can generalizations be distinguished from stereotypes?

I believe that there is an innate belief in American culture that men are superior, mainly because of the way that this country was built with only male presidents and only males on the money, etc. For example, the idea of a housewife. There is no househusband. That word does not exist, at least in America. Also, women's reproductive rights are slowly diminishing, and we're losing control over our own bodies. The government is involved with women's very private matters, such as whether or not a woman will get an abortion, and not with men's, and I think that this is due to generalizations of women (and men). But I don't think it's a stereotype. 

If some of our consciously held beliefs, attitudes, and values are undermined by what Gladwell calls rapid cognition (others call this intuitive thinking or even gut feelings), what do you suggest we can do to combat jumping to (false) conclusions?

I've always been a fan of thinking things through thoroughly before making decisions. I usually don't trust my gut. I'm too scared of my gut. I usually trust logic, and not just feelings. Whenever someone tells me to "go with my gut", I feel like, "oh, god. I don't even know how to do that." 

Question 6 follows class discussion of the examples below (please don't view early).

I think that the two cases are vastly different. I think that Mikey's case was silly, because he was just a child who had the same name as a criminal, but that the other case was unjust and ridiculous. I cannot believe that those people were found not guilty. This is a perfect example of why American police should not carry guns. This picture says all I want to say but can't because I'm worried I'll get mad:

 

Sense Perception

Choose three real-life situations

1. one of your IB subjects; 
2. Music
3. one Sochi 2014 WinterOlympics sport (click on "Sport" under the Olympics rings); and
4. Rhythmic gymnastics 
5. any specific area of knowledge
6. the arts

Examine how knowledge gained by sense perception helps individual(s) be "successful" in each real-life situation.

In IB music, sense perception is absolutely necessary, because you need to hear the music to fully understand it. You cannot be successful in IB music if you can't listen to the music. I don't necessarily agree with this statement, and I wish that hearing impaired people could succeed in IB music and it was more all-inclusive, but it's really not. We've had entire tests where we just listen to a piece and then analyze it, and we don't even get to look at the score.

In rhythmic gymnastics, it's necessary to feel the beat of the rhythm in your body while you're performing. Gymnastics is a sport and an art, like dance, and if you can feel the rhythm, it helps you be successful at rhythmic gymnastics.

In the area of knowledge, the arts, sense perception is helpful because you need it for every art: dance, theater, visual art, and music. For dance, you need to feel the movements and hear the music. For theater, you need to portray strong emotions that you might not feel, but you still need to figure out how to feel them. For visual art, you need to see what it is you want to create and then use your hands (or a computer) to create it. And for music, you need to hear what's interesting about a piece in order to analyze it, you need to hear what would sound good while composing, and you just generally need sense perception in music in order to succeed.

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