DCSZ TOK Class Blog

At last Friday TOK lesson , our group read and discuss the article called “Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change”. The article said Conservatives win the vote and decided to change the contents in the history textbooks, they want to stress the superiority of American capitalism, question the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government [...]

In TOK class, we read an article about a Japanese who have taken history from both Japan and Australia. He realizes that in Japan, a huge part of history is left out, especially the period when Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing. Japanese history only focuses on the success of Japan, which is [...]

In recent classes we have been doing a lot of discussion about history and whether or not there is just one main history or histories. It seems that many people have very different views on this, judging by the people i have talked with inside and outside of class. We read an article last [...]

History does not equal to the past”, to what extent do you believe it? Well, in my opinion, history is a part of past, but it is more likely a sharing experience among many people, while past can be defined as an individual’s happened event. That’s, history is a study of human being’s common [...]

In a recent TOK lesson, my group focused on the article “China’s Textbooks Twist and Omit History”, by the NYTimes in 2004. What I found very interesting was comparing the article which was written 9 years ago, to how it is in todays China (or what we know of todays China). The article spoke [...]

Recently in ToK we have been reading articles based on countries like China and Japan censoring their past and even modern issues from their citizens. Although I do think people should be able to explore the internet freely etc and I think that people have the right to know what kind of country they [...]

In recent TOK lessons, we are talking about history. Last TOK lesson, I read an article ‘What Japanese history lessons leave out’. When I first saw the title of the article, I was interested to read, because it is about the history that Japanese schools teach to their students and I knew that they [...]

Recently in TOK class we were spilt into groups and each group got an article to read all relating to History. The article I read was about how history is taught selectively in Japan. How Japanese history lessons only teach the success of Japan’s history and minimal information about its failures or defeats.  How [...]

His most disputed work was “The Historian and History” (1964), a witty indictment of American historians. In the book he observed wryly that there were then 15 “trained and presumably productive” people with doctorates in the field for every year of the nation’s history.

That is far more than is necessary, he argued, especially [...]

Biased = Conscious

Opinion = Unconscious

The reason for me classing opinions as unconscious thinking is that from the handout it talks a lot about cognition. In psychology I have seen that much of our thinking we don’t think about, it is just embedded in our brains to do so. So this got me [...]

With regards to bias and opinion, I think that we must try to distinguish between the two.  They seem to be different words to me.  I would consider bias an influenced viewpoint that deviates from fact or clouds the reader’s judgement of the truth.  On the other hand, opinion is a personally held belief, [...]

The difference between opinion and bias is that an opinion is what someone thinks about a certain topic when a bias is how someone thinks feels and reacts about a topic based on something from their past……for example I hate the color purple because my biological father likes purple. That is a bias when [...]

My history teacher in Wales said “Without opinion the sources are boring – bland” (OWTTE).

In IB History we don’t really say “Bias” anymore, because an opinionated source is just as useful as a relatively neutral source. I say “relatively neutral” because there is no such thing as an opinion-less source. We use the [...]

I’m not particularly familiar with any of these terms, since people use them in all sorts of ways (dictionary definitions don’t help either). However, I would say that depending on the context in which you use these words, their differences might be different. For example, a biased textbook is one that provides a one [...]

David Lloyd George Street, named after the British Wartime (of WWI) PM. He was also the first and only Welsh Prime Minister. Mendeleev Street, the man who compiled the periodic table. He was Russian. Lincoln Street, for his contribution to the emancipation of the slaves. Erwin Schroedinger Street for his contributions to quantum [...]

1) Wilberforce Avenue

This man was the man who championed the abolition of the slave trade. Also this man grew in my home town Hull.

2) Johnson Lane

This women was the first female pilot to fly alone from Britain to Australia (set a world record). She also was from Hull.

3) Shackleton Street

Everyone knows [...]

1. Messi Street. (Lionel Messi). Best soccer player at the moment (yes, better than Ronaldo). Reaching fame at a young age, and certainly being rich, who doesn’t know him?

2. Hillary Road. (Sir Edmund Hillary). One of the first climbers to reach the top of Mount Everest. He was named one of the ’100 [...]

Naming street is impossible to be done perfectly objective, but then it has to be objective to some extent.. In this case you would take some figures that ‘majority’ people wouldn’t argue against (but then this is disputable again) Okay i will try to be as objective as possible, maybe the most objective theme [...]

While we are thinking about street names, you might be interested in this post I wrote a while back proposing that schools do something similar—especially since DCSZ is opening a new Senior School campus in the coming months.

http://ericmacknight.com/wordpress/?p=557

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When thinking of people to bestow with the honor of a street name, people often lean more towards the obscure famous people; those who perhaps may have done great things, but are less known for it. However, we also have to remember that, even though they are widely known and remembered for their achievements, [...]

For this case, we have some information from some wallet that seem to be Mark Pullen’s solely because of ID card. Does this show you that the victim is Mark? No! This evidence can be manipulated by murderer or any others who have bad feelings towards Mark Pullen maybe. Anyway, this shows us how [...]

Hi…

Sorry, but this case can have infinite answers. I mean, really, it’s pretty hard for us to guess. There’s not enough information about who his friends are, for example. Maybe an interview will help? Anything in possible. He could have been taking a bus and gotten off at the wrong stop so had [...]

I’m merging both a catchup and the required post into one, since I feel they are mutual.

I think that in the case of Mark Pullen, he had either been using buses all day and was unable to one near the time of death, or had been getting a lift from his father and [...]

The case has presented to us some very intriguing details; these details lead to very inconclusive findings. We, as detectives, can only subtly distinguish motives and suspects of the case, though we are unable to draw any strongly supported information from the situation:

The most probably identity of the victim is Mark Pullen, though we cannot be [...]

From the reports and information on Mark Pullen, we can make a smart guess that he is just another college student. Confirming the identity of the person can be done through facial recognition, or if a conclusive identity is needed, DNA match.

On Friday 6th June, Mark Pullen had a dental apointment at 0915. [...]

We identified the person from his student card and this is highly likely but there is no guarentee. We traced his movements by writing it all on a timeline and we found out that is actually quite busy but there are many gaps in the timeline so it is a little hard to track [...]

Okay, when I saw this question, I was just like ‘Whattt?!?!’ How can history be classified as an art or science? I mean really… Art?? Science?? I may be biased because I like art and I take the subject though… Anyhow, art to me is something meaningful, something to appreciate that you put emotion [...]

“History is written by the winners”. I personally thought this was very interesting the moment I saw it. I heard this type of thing somewhere before too. In terms of war, the people who win the war will usually have a better say of it. (Don’t judge me please). People who win the fight [...]

In last TOK class we discussed if history could be called as an art or a science. I would say history is in a way art and scientific at the same time.

History is rather a story, it is often hard to find any piece of history that is not affected by subjective opinions. [...]

In class we discussed whether history should be considered an art or a science? I think it is part of both because you can say that by interpreting certain pieces of evidence and stories from secondary or primary sources. Also translating certain pieces of work from the past is considered as history too. But [...]

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it – Santayana

I chose this quote not because it is my favorite but because I disagree with it.  Events that have happened throughout history are of infinite complexity and it goes without saying that no moment in the future will ever replicate perfectly [...]

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – George Santayana

This seems to be the quote that stood out from the rest. Throughout history there were accounts of skirmishes between the militaries of different nations. Many military commanders failed to win battles because after winning about 80% of the battle, [...]

Today we started the history topic and tried to define it. We said that it could be things that happened in the past either seconds ago, centuries or thousands of years ago. Somehow we got to talking about about Mr. Macknight brushing his teeth is unimportant. But, I don’t think its unimportant. I think [...]

Today we watched a kind of documentary about the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays.  The documentary highlighted the way in which society (particularly that of America) changed over the past century.  It noted that we have progressed to an individualist, consumerist society that cares more about their desires than needs.  The documentary attributes [...]