Myth Buster

TOK blog assignment: do some research and try to determine whether a commonly held belief is true.

"Human beings are the only animals that kill their own kind" 

I was intrigued in this belief because, even though my first reaction was "I don't think so", I couldn't think of an example to disprove it, so i decided to do some researches. The website I think I can trust most is the one of the Time newspaper, because it's a trusted newspaper and it quotes a book written by an anthropologist that recently made researches about that topic.. that's enough for me to believe it =)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912086,00.html

school curriculum

As a lot of us had criticised school, our next TOK task is to write our own school curriculum, probably with the purpose of making us understand that it's really easy to criticise, but can we think of other alternatives?

School, like every other human invention, can't be perfect and never will be. We'll always study some subjects we don't like, we'll always find a teacher we can't relate to. But, still, that's something school should teach: how to deal with things we don't like, how to get the best from the worst circumstances. The main thing schools should teach is how to use our brain and that we should always be interested in what happens around us because the world is bigger than we can image. We have to be prepared in learning everything, because life is so unpredictable we never know what skills or knowledges we'll need in the future.

But I now I have to make up an "ideal" curriculum. I believe that at first everyone should have the same core education, and then one should deepen the knowledge he/she is more interested in. So my school curriculum would be divided into "core" and "additional" subject. This curriculum should be attended by 6 years old 'till 12 years old, starting the additional subjects after the first two years. These additional subjects should be optional, but at least two of them should be studied. After completing this path of study, at the age of thirteen, it should be chosen a High School where to complete our education, studying subjects we're really interested in. 

Core  

• Native language (grammar, literature)
  
• English (grammar, literature - because it's the easiest language to learn and it's spoken almost everywhere)
• Maths (being able to do calculations and understand the principles of geometry)
• History (we should all know a little about every culture, focusing more on our own history *american in the americas, european in europe, asiatic in asia, african in africa*)
• Geography (what's the world situation nowdays)
• Sciences (a basic knowledge of how our body and the forces of nature works, or, at least, we think they work)
• PHILOSOPHY (How and what the philosopher think - to teach people that trying to find your own answer to your questions is much more useful and satisfying than accepting the truth that religions give)
• History of Visual Arts (to know what and why other people did something in the visual arts field)
• History of Music (to know what and why other people did something in the music field)

Additional options

• Other language 1 (Spanish, French, German - grammar, literature) [choose b/w one of them]
• Other language 2 (Russian, Chinese, Arab - grammar, literature) [choose b/w one of them]
• Music (how to play an instrument)
• Visual Arts (how to express your creativity)
• Physical Education

-please note I'm writing from an european point of view-

is school a cave?

This is my comment to mr. Philpot's blog: 

Plato's myth of the cave is a smart analogy of what we think "reality" is, but I don't think that the school is comparable to the cave because, in the myth, the cave it's a prison where ignorant people live in. For Plato, the one the goes outside of the cave is the wise one, the philosopher, and his purpose is to come back and tell the other people what's outside of the cave: THAT is, in my opinion, the role of the school. School is teaching us an idea, a vague idea, of what the world is like, and that should give us the will and the curiosity ti break free from the chains of ignorance and go outside in the real world to see for ourselves and look for the knowledge. School is something very dynamical, a place where a continuous exchange of opinion take place, and that's why it cannot be considered a cave, where everything is dark and fixed. The importance of the role of the school does not rely on the things it's teaching, that may be as well true or false or incomplete, but on its purpose of making people interested in what happens around them, of going outside their little world, and being prepared to explore and investigate everything that surrounds them. Plato also said that it may be that we are not ready yet to face the outside world, because the truth is sometimes incomprehensible to our minds: our role is to find our truth, our answers between the shadows and the lights. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.