Maddie and Annika’s thoughts on a powerful and important IB lesson: 

This year we started the IB and as a part of the curriculum, we are studying the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) which looks at the different ideas and concepts connected to knowledge we use in all of our lessons. 

To help us explore these new ideas, we have been focusing on the Black Lives Matter movement and how we as ‘knowers’ can interpret, acquire and judge knowledge that is presented to us through the news, the arts, politicians, social media and other sources. 

Over the course of the lessons, we have learnt new terminology to help express our opinions and have been challenged to think about how and why our prior knowledge was obtained. 

We have learnt that it is important to make judgements by considering the context of the knowledge that we are analysing and to consider all perspectives. 

We have loved learning how to develop and analyse our current views on BLM to form stronger opinions and explore different perspectives on the issues surrounding the movement. 

We also appreciate that we have been educated more about the movement as a whole and love that current affairs and important movements like BLM are included in the ToK curriculum. 

Overall, we highly recommend ToK and the IB as we think it is a truly enlightening course where your opinions and knowledge are at the center of your learning experience.

Maddie and Anika Lower VI