On My ToK Essay

Well, here it is - the culminating and ultimately definitive climax of my year and a half (2 day a week) love affair with Theory of Knowledge at Aurora High School. Go figure, this is my final blog post as well (how brilliantly timed, I know).

I'd like to take a moment just to sit right down and tell you all a story of my experience with ToK - in the form of an annotated list of course!

1. Year one begins. ToK still has that 'new car smell' whenever we walk into Mr. Norton's classroom. The whole 2 day a week thing is unique and makes us feel special - it is a nice bit of elitism that helped thread all us IB'ers together. The final recollection of the day is one that resounds in everyone's hearts: Fish do not have ears, although it would seem that they can still hear. Go figure.

2. Year one warms up. At this point, we had no idea just what ToK was really about. Heck, I don't think I actually figured that out until about two weeks ago (more on that later). In a fit of self directed learning, we tossed our hats into a debate about Egoism with Ayn Rand being the target of a much deserved jeering.

3. Year one makes us question if this is all really necessary. I still contend the following was just an extension of Mr. Norton being incredibly bored. He opened the class by throwing out a handful of props gathered from his desk drawer and telling us to make a game. We ended up with some sort of ultimately not funny version of American idol where the only clever bit was Puneet's impersonation and Kimson's absolute cluelessness about pop culture. After which Norton passively suggested that what had just happened was in fact, weird.

4. We get labtops. At this point, the year was effectively over despite it being only the beginning of second semester. From here on we would be 'working' on ToK presentations.

5. We watch ToK presentations and then do our own. The seniors presented to us some of the most boring intellectual inquisitions under a slurry of obvious distaste for what they were doing. We promised each other that in no way would ours be that boring - after which we proceeded to give some of the most boring intellectual inquisitions under a slurry of obvious distaste for what we were doing. Woops.

6. During the summer, we learn that Mr. Wilcox would be teaching ToK from there on. Uh oh... actual work.

7. Senior year starts. What is all this nonsense of a ToK syllabus? We are actually following a prescribed path? Wowzers.

8. We watch the daily show. 'Nuff said.

9. The first essay is assigned. The first essay is turned in. The first essay is significantly curved; Mr Wilcox comments with it being "pretty much what he expected."

10. We watch the daily show again. Still 'nuff said.

11. We have a project about Languages. Standard Mandarin = not fun. I've already learned 6x the info from junior year.

12. Prescribed topics are handed out as we 'work' on our final ToK presentation. Oddly enough, even with the regime change, 'work' still requires the sarcastic quotes.

13. ToK presentations were vaguely interesting this year. Time considerations are significantly higher than they probably should be, but whatever. I write my ToK essay and have an absolutely horrendous time at it. Here's to vague pronoun references and the significant reoccurance of the words: logical, reasoning, critical, areas of knowing, perception and emotion.

14. I realize it's been a good year.

I'll miss you ToK, especially as I daydream in the now band occupied 8th period without you. No longer do I have the most unique element of a schedule in the school. No more ridiculous discussions about fallacy and perception or why all history teachers hate math. No more 'work.' No more considering how I know something - back to just accepting it.

It's been fun.

OH! I ALMOST FORGOT!

15. Special Olympics.