TOK WEEK

Ways to learn and the role of learners

Poetry

Phillip Kaye
​"repetition"

Repetition 

"I remember the bed just floating there.
Apart, apart, apart, apart.
My mother taught me this trick
If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning
For example:
Homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework, homework
See, nothing
Our existence, she said, is the same way.
You watch the sun set too often, it just becomes 6 PM
You make the same mistake over and over; you’ll stop calling it a mistake
If you just  
wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up,
one day you’ll forget why
Nothing is forever, she said... " 

POETRY

• What knowledge can poetry produce, transform or neglect?
• Why poetry and not prose was a choice?
• Do you like poetry?
• How it sounds like in terms of what we imagine poetry should sound like?
• Is there any use of poetry in learning and if so in learning what? 
• Does knowing about the poet change the way we look at poetry?

HAIKU

Express your self in simple ways

5 syllables+

7 syllables+

5 syllables=

poetry
 

Films

TOK value of movies and Amadeus; the choice by the TOK teacher

FILMS

What could have been the “main aim” of that movie?

Amadeus

• Is it safe to say there is always a message in art forms? 
• What did we perceive as important in that film?
• Can it be said that art anyway communicates and therefore there is some responsibility by the creator on what it contains?

Amadeus

• Who is to determine the degree of responsibility on image and sound that are so vague and can signify for people so differently?

Take these images

And these

Also these

Or this

What should they represent and why?

A man?

This man?

Or these men?

The real object becomes simplified in a text. The text is a boundary.

Film

• Can we ever capture the essence of an object or text unless it is convened about?
• Can there be censorship on the basis of what a message should mean about art then?
  Relate to the movie
• Alternative: BBC documentary called “The genius of Mozart.”
   

W. Amadeus M.

• Does his music have the power it had when first presented and composed? What is your experience? 
• One might think a major contribution of the movie is the contrast between the two main characters
• Can you tell me what chief differences could you notice between the two? What other contrasts became evident? 
• What Mr. Forman actually said about the movie?

“… individuals fighting or rebelling against the status quo, the establishment, is good for drama. And also I feel admiration for rebels, because I lived twice in my life in totalitarian society, where most of the people feel like rebelling but don't dare to. And I am a coward, because I didn't dare to rebel there and go to prison for that. That's, I guess, why I admire the rebels and make films about them…”