IBO TOK Workshop 2005

A few years ago I took an IB TOK workshop. I wrote to the IB organization to tell them what I thought, and they did not pay me the courtesy of writing back or even acknowledging my letter.

Hence, I now make the letter public.....

The letter has its weak points; but about the fundamental complaint that my time was wasted, I remain firm.


Bratislava
Slovak Republic, Europe
July 10, 2005

Events Unit
International Baccalaureate Organization
Route des Morillons 15
1218 Grand-Saconnex
Geneva, Switzerland

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have just completed a TOK in English Diploma Programme Workshop, held at Gymnazium Jura Hronca, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 04 July-08 July, 2005, for a total of 22.00 hours.

Please allow me to inform you of my reaction to and evaluation of this Workshop.

I do not believe that the workshop has made me better informed or will make me a better teacher. On the contrary, it has been a drain on my energy and my time would have been better spent elsewhere. Indeed, had I not been at the workshop my time would have been largely spent in the Reading Room of the Slovak Academy of Science, doing research on TOK-related subjects.

I did not find the Workshop Leaders to be especially well-informed or especially skilled teachers. During the last session about mathematics, it did emerge that Mr. XXX is personally engaged with his subject of mathematics, and able to reflect upon it. His personal engagement with mathematics is pure and ego-less. That purity stands in sharp contrast to other teaching methods which I witnessed during the workshop. When someone loves a subject, the subject takes center stage. Unhappily, there were times when I felt that with one discussion leader the center of attention was the leader’s own cleverness.
(On the other hand, allow me to acknowledge that teaching styles are personal. Two competent professionals might choose a different approach in the classroom, and both might succeed in capturing the interest of their students, and might be equally successful in educating them.)

I shall now describe some of the failings which I saw on display. What follows is not an exhaustive description. The examples I mention could be multiplied. My goal is to illustrate the general level which I witnessed and to back up my assertion that my time would have been better spent elsewhere. The examples which I describe are merely among the most egregious.


The first day we were shown a slide taken by one instructor in his home. We were asked to describe what we saw. Later, we were asked questions about our descriptions.

This activity was inspired by well-known research done by the American psychologist Loftus, research published several years ago, research which shows the unreliability of eye witnesses. Since that time Loftus has gone on to develop and extend her thinking about memory. It soon became apparent that the discussion leader was not aware of the more recent research. That in itself is excusable, but the fact is that in discussion the discussion leader lost track of the point and began to introduce information into the discussion, information available to him only because he was in the privileged position of being a person who lives in the house in the picture. “Did you see the bed?” he asked. Well, the fact is that we didn’t and that’s good, because it would have been impossible for anyone who didn’t live in the place to know on the basis of the picture—especially considering the quality of the projection on the wall.
An excess of enthusiasm perhaps, but also possibly a desire to appear clever….

Because the discussion leader knew nothing of her more recent work, he missed the opportunity to make a variety of points related to TOK. He missed the chance to discuss the nature of the “Human Sciences”, and he missed the chance to make a real world application. For in her later work, Loftus has tried to explain why eye-witnesses make mistakes. One proposal is that the imagination is crucially involved. And, that shows us how the social or human sciences can develop an explanation of a phenomenon which we wouldn’t notice otherwise. And once when we start to talk of imagination there may well be a connection with emotion…There is also a real-world application because Loftus has suggested that she can create false memories (and has done so). Moreover, she has suggested that advertisers try to create false memories—e.g., some people seem to think that they’ve eaten in McDonalds when they were young, though they haven’t……

Everything I’ve just written has formed the basis of classes in TOK which I taught in Bratislava before attending your workshop…. I did not need an “experienced teacher” from an IB Diploma Programme school to bring Loftus’s reasearch to my attention. Nor did I need an experienced IB teacher to show me how to engage students. I’ve been telling students about Loftus’s research since the 1990’s when I used to teach at the University of Toledo-Ohio.

On another occasion, the same individual gave our group a problem involving the arrangement of letters. We had a code to crack, and this was to be a group activity. And, when we were done, the group leader delivered to us his pronouncements about what he had “seen” in our group interactions.

I put the word “seen” in quotation marks because I have never in my life seen a clearer example of the way theory (or beliefs/expectations) can influence perception. The discussion reader had read something about the way scientists work in groups, and he was bound and determined to find it in the behavior of our group.

This was not a convincing pedagogic exercise, and, it was, moreover, a bit manipulative. In any case, as an illustration of scientific reasoning, it is flawed because it represents only certain sorts of scientists. I doubt whether it is a good model, e.g., for the sort of biology that involves field work.

A persistent weakness in all of the presentations by all of the discussion leaders was the heavy-handed and uninformed use of the concepts of language and emotion. There was no serious discussion of what an emotion is. Neither did the brief hand-waving by Mr. YYY in the direction of Steve Pinker’s most famous popular book constitute a serious consideration of the nature of language as revealed by the relevant science—the discipline of linguistics. You may think that it would be counter-productive to take language seriously, as an object of scientific study. Students are already burdened with work. However, I am talking about what instructors should know. It is always possible to treat more technical matters with a lighter touch in the classroom—assuming the instructor has adequately mastered the subject in the first place.

Instead of argument or serious inquiry we were submitted to scare tactics, suggestions along the lines of “Maybe we are controlled by our language or our culture.” Again, in the case of “culture”, the word was bandied about to scare us in a way that would suggest to a naïve listener that no one had ever made a serious attempt to understand what culture is.

Mr. YYYY used the word “hooks” and it is certainly true that one needs to get the audience’s attention. However, once one has done so, what comes next is very important. My consistent impression during the week was that the content of what we were subjected to amounted to little more than hooks with no real knowledge behind it.

I might also cite the way in which our teacher for a mini-lesson in propositional logic was unprepared to discuss the oddities of the traditional interpretation of “if” (or “If….then”). If someone is going to use a formal system to interpret ordinary language, one of the first and most basic tasks is to understand how the formal system falls short—and to be able to justify it or explain it. Our discussion leader couldn’t and had to refer us to a standard introductory logic text. I would not fault him for his immediate inability to explain the advantages of the usual way of doing things.

But it was especially sad that he didn’t seem to realize that among experts in the field—people interested in human reasoning and natural language rather than pure mathematics--the interpretation of “if” which he was teaching as the “right” one is not commonly accepted. A recent book on the subject has three theories, and the first one is the one we were being taught. And, the authors of the book in question quickly dismiss the first theory as inadequate. (See Philip N. Johnson-Laird’s review article “If bears eat in the woods…?” in the February 2005 issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences.)

You might say that this goes to the heart of the course “Theory of Knowledge”. A teacher must have the resources to adequately respect a student’s question or challenge. In the example I mention, the teacher was not completely up to the challenge. The point is that the student had a reasonable objection. The teacher said the answer was in a certain textbook. But, a more adequate answer is that experts in linguistics and psychology would agree with the student. Reasoning cannot be identified with formal logic.

And that is the sort of lesson I would have thought that TOK is supposed to give us. There is more to human reasoning than logicians and mathematicians have managed to dream of. It’s frightfully hard to actually say or know what reasoning is and it’s frightfully hard to actually say or know what “if” means, even while young children can competently use the word! (And if you want to say that children know how to use the word, that’s okay too; but that would be the start of another discussion, one which I did not witness during the workshop.)

A third example occurred in a discussion of Ethics. The discussion leader made the elementary mistake of identifying “Consequentialism” and “Utilitarianism”. I will spare you the explanation, but the mistake is a bit like thinking that every theory of evolution must be Darwin’s. It is the mistake of a beginner, not the mistake of someone qualified to be charging money to be heard.

I did not profit from my week spent with certified IBO teachers. I recognize that they were doing their best, and I am sure that their students profit from them, but I did not. I would not challenge their sincerity or their good intentions. Indeed, they are likable individuals. They were doing their best, but their best was less than I would need to improve my teaching. On the contrary, my time would have been better spent elsewhere.

Let us be clear about the main point of this letter. I went through the trouble to come to the workshop—neglecting pressing work in order to take the role of a student. When I sat on the student’s side of the room, I put myself in the humble position of one prepared to listen and learn. I was, moreover, being addressed not as an individual, but as a member of a group. The context itself defined the knowledge of the group leader as a precious thing in short supply. The situation itself defined my own knowledge as a thing of considerably less worth. But, the end result was that I was witness to displays which evidenced inferior knowledge, and less than ideal teaching methods. I didn’t belong in that situation. I shouldn’t have been there.

It was no fault of the teachers, the “Workshop Leaders”, that I was there. It was not their decision which required me to be there. Despite their limitations, I would only wish to praise them. The blame should not be placed on their shoulders. The blame must be placed higher up in the decision-making hierarchy of the International Baccalaureate Organization.

IBO owes me a personal apology. I attended the workshop only because my school’s Director cited a legal agreement between the school and IBO, an agreement which requires all teachers without exception to attend IBO training. That blanket requirement ignores the possibility that someone, such as myself, might have acquired the skills and knowledge needed to be a successful TOK teacher without IBO training.

By making such a blanket requirement IBO is being dogmatic. By making such a requirement, the IBO is failing to exhibit the virtues which TOK and IBO itself should be propagating: openness, a willingness to consider the possibility that a good rule has exceptions, respect for differences between individuals, an ability to recognize the possibility that an individual may have acquired skill or knowledge in ways that were not anticipated.

Not only have I lost a valuable week, but my own knowledge and education, as well as the knowledge of my teachers, have all been disrespected. That is an error for which IBO and my school share blame. However, it would appropriate for IBO to give me an official apology. And, if the apology is sincere, IBO should also apologize to my school, and refund the money my school paid for the workshop, sending the refund together with a letter acknowledging that I was competent to teach TOK prior to the workshop.

Sincerely yours,



PS As I did my best to talk with every Leader, and have some feeling for their level of understanding, I believe that I can also say: The problem would not have been solved had I attended a Workshop for More Experienced Teachers. The mistakes which the Discussion Leaders made did not occur because they had made adjustments for new teachers.



























filename: Reflections on IB TOK Workshop