TOK: What can we learn from the performing, visual and literary arts?

I find art a really interesting topic because there are usually values inside every piece of artwork, which definitely gives us knowledge and probably helps us to develop skills which will help us doing other activities. Arts is one of the most important topics in Area Of Knowledge (AOK) because I believe the main point of Art is to explain history. For example if we go in a museum, all the art pieces will be explaining a certain period of the author, particularly what he was feeling at the time.

Performing Arts, for example drama, dance or music, are the most popular type of arts. It is really hard to perform because you must perform for a certain audience and must be confident in what you do. Performances, personally, is the hardest type of art, because of that need of confidence. Also requires a lot of skills, because you need to have an understand of how to dance, if you want to perform, or if you wanna do something involving musics, you must have a good understand in how to make a song or how to perform a certain song to an audience. The most tricky part of performances, is how to implement the emotions inside the story. For example, if you have to perform a sad story, you must be showing a certain degree of sadness in order to make your character looks real. The way you are going to express your emotions is the hardest and most complex part of performing.

Literary Arts, like poetry, is also a complex type of Art because writing is really hard for most of people. If you want to write a good piece of poetry, you need to have a lot of knowledge. Poetry is the type of writing that requires a lot of understand in figures of style, they usually use it all the time and they are always trying to explain an idea but without saying it directly to the writer. It is not just hard to the writer to write poetry, it is also hard to the reader to understand what is being told. But at the end, poetry is a beautiful type of writing and one of the most complex.

In general, we can see that Art is not a easy type of Area of Knowledge. It might be easy to understand but when we try to do a type of Art, we can see that is hard.

Language as a way of knowing

The role of language in how we know is that we can learn for everyone, because everyone has a different perspective. Language can help us understand other cultures and how they see the world. Many people, especially older than us, will share what they know to other people. If we see other people perspective, we would probably change our way of thinking. It allow us gain more knowledge. I think that language can do both. It is a way of expressing about the world and by communicating, we can build our ideas and structure this idea to other people. I used to think that language was mostly build by ourselves, but know I learned that people can change most of our language because will be the world around us that will lead us to learn that specific language.

Ways of Knowing: Memory.

Knowledge question:How time and other actions can change people ways of think?

Real life situation: An innocent went to jail and lose most time of his life, because a woman said that she remembered him doing the crime.

The mistake that many people do, is that they believe that our memories are like a camera, that we can just back the time and remember something. The problem is that the memory does not work like that, most of the time we forgot something and we keep trying to remember something. After trying so much, we may find what we were looking for, but that memory could be something made by our own thoughts. We can clearly see that this is true by the case of a man that went to jail just because a woman said that she was 100% sure that he was the person who committed the crime, and at the end, after many years, his innocence was proved. Even if he won the case, his life was ruined just because of a false memory, and the time that we lost cannot be replaced. I do not think that the woman should be able to confirm that she was 100% sure, her only prove was her memory, and only her can say what she thinks. The police presented five people that matched the description she gave, five similar people, and she confirmed a guy that was not even the real one. Even after doing many experiments trying to prove the truth, still have mistakes. As the scientist said on the video, more than 300 people per year go to jail by mistake, all caused by these false memories.
I do not believe that the police should consider a memory as a reliable source, only the person who remembered is able to see what is she remembering, and at the end she can be wrong and could ruin the life of another, innocent, person. If only one person is able to confirm, I think that the person should not go to jail, even if the person is guilty. Is better a guilty free than a innocent in jail. The guilty will probably commit another crime and than he will have his punishment, if the innocent goes to jail he will just be wasting his life.

Emotion and Memory – TOK

Real Life Situation: A person that lived in a house most time of his life and one day he moved because he grew up.

If you lived in a house, most time in your life but after many years, you moved house and are living by yourself, working, etc… After many years without seeing the house, you passed near to that house that you lived and decided to go here and see closer.

In the moment you come close to the house, you will probably remember moments that were remarkable in your life. Your memory can pick up wonderful moments that happened in that house but also memories that makes you angry and sad.
The memories that you will remember, will make you fell many emotions, because you spent basically your whole life there, you will be able to remember good times with your family and all the other things that happened to you there. Because you experienced living there so many years, the memories will automatically appear in your mind.

For the new people that are living in the house, does not have any remarkable memories because they just arrived at the house, they still have to live there many years to have an experience like yours. For them the house does not have so much important, but for you will be always in your mind. For your family or friends, it is different because they lived that time of life with you, memories will probably affect them, and if they forgot about you and they pass and see this house, they will remember you.

Voodoo Doc Dances Up a Storm-TOK

The visual presentation of the article makes it trustable. Even before I read, I had an idea that I could trust this article. Other thing that made me believe on the article is that some professionals commenting on the article, like Doc.Juru and Dr.Wolfgang. I believe that they are reliable because of the comments of professionals about the subject. I could not be able to check the information because they did not state the bibliography. It is a article that make people interested when they read. People who believe in science more than beliefs, will probably not enjoy this article as people that have other beliefs.

TOK: Experimental Knowledge.

I believe that most of the time our knowledge come from experiences. We only will be sure of something if we try by ourselves, even if someone that has already experienced and tell you that is not good, you will try anyways just to have a idea and not do anymore. I think every people learn from their experiences because they will always remember the situation if they face it again. The experience will be in the memory. I have grown in both ways, mentored by my family and also by people around me. Even if a really experienced person give you an advice, telling you not to do something, you would probably not listen to it because you want to try by yourself and take your own risk.
Our perspective will never be exactly the same as another person, because we all can see something with different eyes. For example, if someone tells you to bring a jacket because its cold but for you is hot. You have already your own opinion about what is cold or what is hot, if you came from a place that is really cold and you are leaving in a hot country. If one day is cold in that country, you would probably not feel cold because where you came from is much colder than this place.
All our experience is based on our culture, our community and sometimes take risks in order to learn the experience forever.

TOK Blog Post

How does perspective change the way you view the world?

Everyone has their own ideas about how they see the world. The perspective of each one is really different. For me for example, Europe and Africa are in the middle of the world because that was the map that I have grown with. But if you ask an Asian person how the view the world, they would say that Asia is on the middle.
I believe that culture can affect the way people look at the world. The culture in each country is very different. They grow with the perspective that they are “better” than other countries. Even if the country is not that good, they will support their country. If I ask some people from all around the world to draw a map, they will definitely draw their continent with more details than the others, because they are used to see the world like that and because their tendency is to know where they came from better than other places. I do not know how to draw every island around China (Thailand, Taiwan or Japan) but I have a better view of islands in South America. My perspective does not allow me to draw other places better than where I came from but for a Chinese person is much easier. All depends about the perspective, because without that, you cannot even know where you came from. We need to have at least a brief perspective from where we came.
We did an activity in TOK class that each of us had to draw the map world, how we imagine the world. I drew South America with much more detail than the rest of the world. King, Josh, Daphne and Erik drew Asia really detailed. Their education affected the way they see the world, because here in Asia they like to say that they are at the centre of the world, as all countries.
I realized that on Erik’s map, he did not connect Central America with South America together, probably because he does not have an idea in how America is divided.
I do not think that there is a correct or incorrect map. That depends on the culture and how the person has grown. We cannot agree in a perfect map because everyone has grown in different ways, so they have different opinions about the world.

EAL debate

Last week, the 3 EAL students participated in a debate, against grade 11 students. Those EAL students were two from grade 10 and one from grade 9 (Sibel, Claudia and Jan). The first speaker from the affirmative team (the EAL students) was Sibel, after was Jan and the last one was Claudia. From the negative team (grade 11) was Anya, after was Hannes and the last one was Jonathan. I was just in the audience on this debate, and I really enjoy how good the EAL students did. Their arguments against grade 11 were really good, they used strong arguments supporting the Chinese method of study, showing evidences that Chinese students are in front of Americans students in Mathematics and Physics, very important subjects. Grade 11 was also really good, saying that here in China they put so much pressure on student. They arrive at 7am and leave at 8pm. In America they arrive at 10am and leave 15pm. I support the American method of study, I don’t think that I person who studies 24 hours per day is going to be better than other people, also because people need a break after studying. Here in China they don’t learn, they just memorize the things and do well on tests. A lot of people in China committed suicide just because the amount of pressure from school. Doing this debate, I could see how important is the evidence, if you have a very strong evidence, the people against you will not win your argument.

Romanticism project

Frankenstein

On this project, me and King are going to make a timeline explaining more about romanticism in a website called eduhstry.com, that website is very good because you can add videos and images, you can edit the way you like.

Our research question is: “How does the romanticist idea affect current thinking?”

Lines of inquiry:
1- What was the main idea of romanticism?
2- What effects does it particularly make?

After we answer those questions, we are going to upload on that website, a video that we are making, talking about “Frankenstein”.

Reading journal

I’ve just started to read a book called Game of Thrones. I watched the series first and I think that is better than the book, but the book is also good. The characters in the series are very similar to the book. Usually the books are different to series or movies, but in this is case was very good. There are five books and five seasons. The history is happening in the past, looks the medieval era but is not completely real because have dragons and others monsters.

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