Primary Years Newsletter
Our Primary Years Newsletter helps young students to explore and make sense of the very latest real-world events and issues.
Alongside our Middle Years and TOK Newsletters, it enables schools to create a continuum of authentic critical thinking that will take students on a life-changing epistemological journey, and help them to become nuanced and courageous thinkers.
Access the 2023 Primary Years Newsletter
Ask your students to think about… What does it mean to communicate? Can our senses be wrong sometimes? How does empathy help us solve problems? How do traditions bind a society? Are humans animals? Do we exist in digital environments? Access the newsletter presentation here.
The 8 comparative concepts
One of the central aspects of the TOK course is the 12 key concepts. These are ideas that have been identified as having a particular significant relationship to knowledge. Understanding, exploring, and using these concepts will help students to understand the way knowledge is produced and used, within all the different elements of the TOK course – the core and optional themes, and the areas of knowledge.
In order to prepare students to tackle this central aspect of the TOK course, we have selected 8 of the 12 key concepts, linking them to the stories we feature in the primary and middle years newsletter. We call them the comparative concepts, and you can use them to generate questions, discussion points, and research tasks, and enable students to explore ideas across the curriculum. Examples of these questions are below – but feel free to come up with your own ones!
Being certain
In which subjects are we able to make the most and least certain claims about knowledge ? Why does this variance exist? Does language allow us to be more certain about knowledge? Can certainty bring disadvantages in terms of our understanding of the world?
Cultural contexts
How does the nature of the subject areas differ in different cultures? Do mathematics and science transcend cultural differences? Do the arts deal with culturally universal concepts?Does the way we understand the world depend on the language we speak?
Using evidence
What role does evidence play in the different subject areas? How has technology changed the way we gather and use evidence? How does the selection of evidence shape our understanding? Does evidence support or challenge our assumptions about the world?
Staying objective
Which of the subject areas deal with the most/least objective evidence? Is mathematical knowledge completely objective? Can we be objective about the arts? Has technology allowed us to produce knowledge more objectively? Do our political and religious affiliations always undermine our ability to be objective?
Shifting perspectives
Which of the subject areas are most and least affected by different perspectives? How do our religious and political perspectives shape the way we view the world? Do our perspectives determine our language use? What forms our perspectives, and should we seek to escape them?
Power & agendas
How does power affect the way knowledge is produced within the subject areas? In what ways can language be used to consolidate power as ideas are communicated? How does political and religious power influence the way we understand the world?
Accessing the truth
In which of the subject areas is it easiest to access the truth? Is mathematics the only subject area that deals with truth? Has the development of technology allowed us to access the truth more easily? Does language help or hinder us from accessing the truth about the world?
Knowledge & values
What is the relationship between the development of our values and the subject areas? Which of the subject areas deals most intimately with values? Does the way we use language have ethical implications? Does the possession of knowledge bring with it certain responsibilities?
Develop your students’ authentic critical thinking
Our in-school & online workshops are engaging, inspiring, and jargon-free, and leave TOK and non-TOK teachers with practical takeaways that they can implement easily in their classrooms.
We can help you with a wide range of issues and topics related to the TOK course, and help you turn your students into authentic critical thinkers who make sense of the world in a nuanced and objective way. Find out more and book a session here.