TOK This Week

We have a couple of special events this week during our TOK class. On Wednesday, we will be attending a screening of a documentary film called "Hiding." It is about human rights in North Korea - a nice tie-in to our discussion of human rights and ethics last week. If you have time, below is some background on what is going on in North Korea. The screening will take place in the band room.

BBC Newsnight segment on North Korea (15 minutes)

BBC Newsnight interview with North Korean defectors (13 minutes)

BBC Newsnight segment on internet access in North Korea (1 minute)

Movie trailer for "Hiding" (2 minutes)

LINK website (this is the group that will be presenting)


On Thursday, you will have to take the healthy youth survey. I tried REALLY HARD to get you out of it - I didn't want to lose class time. But I lost that battle. They supposedly really need seniors to take it. Sorry.

For your homework this week,

1. Post at least one comment to the United Nations post (below) and respond to at least one comment by other students. (Total of 2 posts)

2. Post a comment or two to this post about Wednesday's film. What knowledge issues are raised by the situation in North Korea?

All posts are due by Tuesday, October 26th.

United Nations Ethics

To what extent is it possible to maintain a set of universal ethical standards around the world?

Below are the lists of essential human rights from each of the two groups. Your job now is to create a single list of eight rights. At this point, you may drop your assigned country roles from class. In your discussion, respond to the question at the top of this post. Also, which of the human rights below do you think every country in the world could agree to? Can you think of any modern-day countries that would possibly object to any of the rights below?

As a reference, you may want to glance at the actual Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Group 1:

• right for personal protection (by the government)
• right to food
• right to health care
• right to an education (if wanted)
• right to shelter
• right to the pursuit of happiness
• right to land to grow non-drug-related crops
• right to legal forms of work

Group 2:

• right to govern our country
• right to public free education
• right to a speedy trial and fair and equal representation
• right to food and shelter
• right to free health care
• right to security and personal protection
• right to earn a living within legal boundaries
• freedom of speech

National Youth Listening Tour

For those of you who attended the event today at Youngstown with Alberto Retana from the Department of Education, please let us know how it went. I sent you with one knowledge issue: how do we know if a teacher is effective? Were there any other knowledge issues/big questions that came up in the discussion?

If you did not attend, follow the discussion online and pose new questions. We will weave this content into our class over the next few weeks. Thanks Ebony and Marlys for organizing this.

Trolley Dilemma Woman Dies

Click here for a New York Times article about Philippa Foot.

Kant

Some of you were having a tough time with Kant today. Here's an episode of "Justice" with Michael Sandel that does a pretty good job of tackling his ethical framework.

The Ethics of Cheating in High School

Today we discussed the ethics of cheating in school. Read this editorial from the New York Times and post a comment. Below are some guiding questions.

Do you agree with the absolutist statement that plagiarism is always ethically wrong?

Why is cheating such a common practice in high school? What can schools do to decrease its occurrence?

Is there any link between plagiarism or other forms of cheating in high school and unethical behavior later in life?

Can you approach this issue from two different perspectives? (Use the 5 perspectives in the Ethics Background Reading.)

Bonus reading: a recent article about the impact of technology on students' decision to plagiarize.