November 2021 Prescribed Title #3

November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – cruise ships banned from Venice

Text: “Italy to ban mammoth cruise ships from Venice as of Aug. 1” “Declaring Venice’s waterways a “national monument,” Italy is banning mammoth cruise liners from sailing into the lagoon city, which risked being declared an imperiled world heritage site by the United Nations later this month.” https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/italy-ban-mammoth-cruise-ships-venice-aug-78823148 There are Read more…

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November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – BBC article on Chinese students in Australia

BBC article “China pressure ‘undermining Australian universities’, report says” “Chinese pro-democracy students in Australia experience harassment and fear punishment if they speak out on sensitive issues, a new report says. Human Rights Watch found such students feel surveilled in Australia, leading many to self-censor in classrooms. Academics teaching China courses in Read more…

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November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – article by the New York Times on the use of analogies in history

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/opinion/war-and-analogy.html The New York Times opinion article “War and Analogy” discusses how different U.S leaders used different analogies to described the situation in Kosovo in the late 1990’s. The op-ed also notes that the politicians used the analogies to argue for a particular kind of response by the United States Read more…

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November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – History education and exams

“Rote memorization has displaced critical thinking and driven young Japanese students away from the study of history, argues the author, who blames the universities’ own fact-driven entrance examinations for the crisis facing the humanities and social sciences in higher education.” https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a05103/exam-hell-and-the-crisis-in-history-education.html The focus on “obvious facts” (i.e. basic rote memorization) is Read more…

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November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – news article on homosexuality in animals

Article: “Homosexual Activity Among Animals Stirs Debate.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2004/07/homosexual-animals-debate/ There are two wildly different “obvious facts” connected to this real-life example. One of them is that homosexuality is natural and is part of the natural kingdom and is part of human nature and sexuality as well. The other “obvious fact” from the Read more…

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November 2021 TOK essay prescribed title #3 RLE – Artist “paints” using Excel spreadsheets

“77-year-old Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi chooses to work with Microsoft Excel to produce his beautiful works of art. His “paintings” are remarkably intricate works that mimic traditional Japanese paintings that offer scenic views of natural landscapes rich with cultural motifs.” https://mymodernmet.com/tatsuo-horiuchi-excel-spreadsheet-paintings/ There are significant disagreements about how to judge the value Read more…

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