TOK - 05.01

We discussed some very interesting points in this lesson. I really enjoyed the topics and questions the students came up with. 1) Whered do we come from? We discussed a variety of theories and possible explanations. We dwelt on what is knowlable and how we know what we think we know. These kind of conversations always fascinate me. This is something we usually don´t have time to discuss and while some students might find it boring it´s pretty important to look at some of the things we know and - like a 3-year-old go on asking Why? "How do you know?" etc. We seem to listen only to ideas that support our own beliefs and reject others. It is very easy to see the discrepancies in arguments that you don´t believe in but it´s much more difficult to look at our own belifs with absolute objectivity and go into detailed examination of the fundamental validity of our arguments. I loved the idea that the world as we know it is a minute thing, like a petri dish. Seen something similar on the Simpsons once when Lisa created a civilisation in a petri dish and she became God and Bart was the Devil. Other questions we mentioned: Is it possible not to juge? Do we have to pass judgement by formulating an opinion? What is time? Is time real? What happens when you die? Why do we feel guilt? Next week Ahmed is going to present the questions for disvcussion. I´m well looking forward to it.

Every group is as strong as its weakest member

Rafael gave this brief definition aboiut greoupwork and it made me stop to think. I´ll have to reflect on this. I´m a great believer in the power of voluntary teams and I think this definition is based on the wrong idea about a group. If a group is democratically-organically developed and members are allowed to identify their own strengths and the way they can contribute to the successful completion of a task.
I think we should look at the ways we organise groups rather than negate their usefulness.
My other problem is the intrinsic judgement about people being "weak" or "strong". Once again, I believe that we cannot identify people as eithe or both as we are all strong and week at the same time, you don´t want to have a boxing match with Muhamad Ali but you could probably beat him at a maths quiz.
The most difficult aspect of forming and running groups is giving each member and individual role, and offer them ways of contributing to the team effort, as well as design ways to support and scaffold the contribution of the otherwise weaker members.
It is of course also an interesting question what we mean by a strong group? Are they successful at perforning their task? Are they faster in coming up with solutions and producing results? Do they work together better than the other groups?
There are so many ways to interpret what success and a good group is that we cannot just leave it at the conclusion that the weakest links break the chain because groups are not chains, they are interconnected systems where the push and the pull works in a way that always the stong ones get to push and support the weaker ones but who is strong and weak depends on the task at hand.

Do animals have emotions?

Great conversation with Sophie - interesting conclusion: some animals (bigger ones) have emotions while smaller ones (for example cockroaches) don´t.
I´ll have to look into this.

Let´s get started then

I am a keen believer in not expecting anything from others that I don´t expect from myself. My plan is to post here 3-4 times every week to share my reflections, ideas, impressions and plans about the lessons we spenbd together.
Working with this group has been the most amazing challenge and privilege. I wake up every morning looking forward to working with this group. You challenge and help me understand your world, which I am very proud and happy to be a part of.
I am looking forward to today´s TOK lesson. Your task will be to look for a question in a publication and decide if it´s a knowledge question and what kind of answers you could give to it.