(by Eileen Dombrowski, from OUP blog) It’s easy to miss the point entirely when treating Indigenous Knowledge in TOK. It’s not a special “category” of knowledge, even though it is listed in our syllabus in parallel with other areas of knowledge. Clustering up indigenous groups across the world to look at their knowledge does not enable us to treat that knowledge as separate or separable from other areas of knowledge. I’m a big fan of treating Indigenous Knowledge — but specifically as a particular cultural synthesis of other areas of knowledge and as a cultural perspective within and upon the other areas. Today I’d like to bring attention to three current topics that clearly deal with Indigenous Knowledge but, on consideration, deal equally with history, anthropology, and archeology. I’ve included links to supporting resources. Continue reading
(by Eileen Dombrowski, from 
(by Eileen Dombrowski, from 
Dombrowski, Rotenberg, Bick. Theory of Knowledge IB Course Companion. Oxford University Press, 2013.
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- analysis arts cause classification cognitive bias concepts/language confirmation bias critical thinking definitions emotion ethics evaluating sources evidence faith history human sciences imagination implications indigenous knowledge intuition knowing how knowledge claims knowledge questions language literature mathematics media memory methodology natural sciences perspectives psychology reason sense perception shared knowledge sources statistics symbolic representation truth ways of knowing
Dombrowski, Rotenberg, Bick. TOK Spanish translation. Teoría del Conocimiento, Libro del Alumno. Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Recent Posts
- Sharing knowledge – effectively!
- Standing at the Centre of the World: TOK class discussion (with handout)
- PS to “This is the nature of science.”
- “This is the nature of science.”
- Indigenous Knowledge: not a separable area of knowledge
- Controversy in the Canada Day Party: analyzing perspectives for understanding
- Love, betrayal, and physics: “Everything goes better with narrative”
- Is knowing harder than dieting?
- Love, luck, literature, and logic: Who will win the lady?
- “Moral robots” and that messy human factor
- Red lines and “complex moral duality”: TOK and ethics of witnessing
- The Statistics of an Emotion: 2017 World Happiness Report
- TOK and “fake news”: 3 tips, 2 downloads, and 3 resources
- A Bhangra smile: great way to open a TOK class
- Thank you, Hans Rosling: numbers, facts, and the world
- AGAINST empathy? Really?
- Media literacy for TOK?
- “Therapy wars” and the human sciences
- “Comfort” and discomfort: history and the shadows of the past
- Download TOK resource: 2016 TOK blog posts
- Film sound and the beautiful lie
- Is mathematics a gateway to empathy?
- Oh, that air of authority!
- Thinking beyond the knowledge bubbles
- Is Palestine on the map?
- Fear: biological, emotional, or conceptual?
- “I’m entitled to my opinion.”
- Creativity: arts and sciences
- Where do fresh ideas come from?
- Is that woman really a man? Tidy categories, messy world
- Burkini controversy: TOK activity in analyzing perspectives
- Small biases, large consequences: an interactive online game on diversity or segregation
- The book, the blog, the facebook page: different roles to support IB Theory of Knowledge
- Getting it wrong, getting it right, and generating knowledge questions: “The Forgotten History of Autism”.
- “Bomb detector”: knowledge goes horribly wrong
- Indigenous memory codes, the wisdom of crowds, and other summer listening
- TOK and zombies
- The Beach Beast: perceiving pattern, playfully
- “Genocide”: what we call things MATTERS
- Beasts, whirligigs, and raindrops: engineering, art, and the play of the imagination
the essential question of knowledge
The question “How do we know?” drives inquiry. When we ask it with the stress on the last word – know — it opens up overview questions on the very nature of knowledge and the forms it takes. When we ask it with the stress on the first word – how? – it takes an analytical edge applied to methods of giving answers. In this blog, we follow this question — sometimes seriously, sometimes lightheartedly — through issues and stories of our day.
