TOK Presentation

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TOK Presentation A sample Presentation for
Students
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Criterion A Identification of Knowledge Issue

• Did the presentation identify a relevant
  knowledge issue involved, implicit or embedded in
  a real-life situation?
• 1- 2 The presentation referred to a knowledge
  issue but it was irrelevant to the real-life
  situation under consideration.
• 3-4 The presentation identified a knowledge issue
  that was in some ways relevant to the real-life
  situation under consideration.
• 5 The presentation identified a knowledge issue
  that was clearly relevant to the real-life
  situation under consideration.

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Knowledge issues

• Who should decide, and on what grounds, which
  history should be taught in schools?
• Whose history should we teach?
• What part does the notion of historical truth
  play here?

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Real-life situation/contemporary problem

• The demonstrations in China against the issue of
  a new history textbook in Japan in 2009

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China will not apologise for violent protests
against Japan
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Background

• Screening text books
• Pre-war Japan
• National narrative struggles
• fine militarist stories identity
• Authorised text by Ministry of Education

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Further Considerations

• More than just the teaching of History in schools
  and community
• Confucian ideas
• respect for authority
• Deification of Emperor in Japan and ignorance of
  events of the past

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Language and perspective

• Nanjing Incident Dec 1937
• Japanese perspective
• Rape of Nanjing Dec 1937
• Chinese perspective
• Discuss the implications of the above two titles.

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Japanese troops formally enter the city of
Nanjing in December 1937
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Japanese soldiers used live victims for bayonet
practice
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Evidence of atrocities against civilian population
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This brutal massacre was possible because
Japanese soldiers dehumanized their victims. Here
a soldier is proudly showing off his kill.
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China will not apologise for violent protests
against Japanese embassy and some businesses

• Japan is accused of glossing over history
• No apologies from China
• No remorse from Japan

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Criterion B Treatment of knowledge issues

• Did the presentation show a good understanding
  of knowledge issues, in the context of the
  real-life situation?
• 12 The presentation showed some understanding
  of knowledge issues.
• 34 The presentation showed an adequate
  understanding of knowledge issues.
• 5 The presentation showed a good understanding
  of knowledge issues.

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WOK - Language The power of the textbook

• Why are history textbooks important enough to
  fight over?
• Should textbooks be truthful and accurate?
• Students believe what they read in textbooks.

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The power of the textbook

• history textbooks reflect an 'official' version
  of history
• They shape contemporary patriotism
• They are directed and published by the state
• they have enormous authority

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The role of the historian

• The past is fixed and unchangeable. (Elton)
• History is the record of human behaviour, but
  crammed with an unlimited number of variables
  that is not susceptible of the scientific method.
  (Tuchman)
• History is the search for truth (G.R.Elton)
• By and large the historian will get the facts he
  wants. (E.H.Carr)

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Criterion C Knower's perspective

• Did the presentation, particularly in the use of
  arguments and examples, show an individual
  approach and demonstrate the significance of the
  topic?
• 1-2 The presentation, in its use of arguments and
  examples or otherwise, showed limited personal
  involvement and did not demonstrate the
  significance of the topic
• 3-4 The presentation, in its use of arguments and
  examples or otherwise, showed some personal
  involvement and adequately demonstrated the
  significance of the topic.
• 5 The presentation, in its distinctively personal
  use of arguments and examples or otherwise,
  showed clear personal involvement and fully
  demonstrated the significance of the topic.

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My point of view

• Is history too important to be left to
  historians?
• Historians are dangerous people. They are
  capable of upsetting everything. (Khrushchev)
• however
• History is the historians experience. It is
  made by nobody save the historian to write
  history is the only way of making it.
  (Oakeshott)
• finally
• History will be kind to me for I intend to write
  it. (Churchill)

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The Nanjing museum
The Nanjing Massacre museum
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What part does the notion of historical truth
play here?

• Iris Chang has written a critically acclaimed
  account of the atrocities and killings of Chinese
  civilians by Japanese soldiers.
• There are eyewitnesses and overwhelming evidence
  of the deaths of over 300,000 people

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• Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking talks
  of
• correct history"
• History should present a "positive view
• "dark history."

Memorial to Iris Chang at Nanjing. She committed
suicide in 2004
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The Nanjing massacre museum the number of
victims
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The Nanjing museum
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Language and perspective

• The Japanese dismiss the Nanjing Massacre as
  "nothing like a holocaust. They describe the
  invasion of the Korean peninsula as an unopposed
  annexation, necessary for Japan's security. They
  allege that Japan's wartime rule prepared Asian
  countries for independence from their European
  colonial masters.

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Conclusions

• Is there a moral or ethical need to find the
  truth?
• How do we ascertain what is the truth of events
  in the past? Reason, evidence?
• How should we acknowledge the reality of the
  past? (- Perception?)
• Should we accept the anything goes version of
  history?
• How strong is the evidence?
• If the truth is to come out then, and the
  evidence is overwhelming, then to deny the truth
  behind the Nanking Massacre is to do more than
  merely cite another historical perspective.

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Criterion D Connections

• Did the presentation give a balanced account of
  how the topic could be approached from different
  perspectives?
• Did the presentation show how the positions taken
  on the knowledge issues would have implications
  in related areas?
• In awarding the higher achievement levels, the
  emphasis should be more on the quality of the
  consideration of connections than on the quantity
  of connections mentioned.

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Criterion D Connections

• 12 The presentation explored at least two
  different perspectives to some extent.
• 34 The presentation gave a satisfactory account
  of how the question could be approached from
  different perspectives, and began to explore
  their similarities and differences.
• 5 The presentation gave a clear account of how
  the question could be approached from different
  perspectives and considered their implications in
  related areas.