I used to think that language is just what we speak, what we hear, what we read, what we write and also a way to communicate, to share our thoughts and that’s all. I know that with language we can express our idea and interact with each other and without language it will defiantly be harder to exchange our knowledge. But those are the only things I know about language.

So after I read this chapter about language I found out that language is actually a form of behavior, and the language that we are using is symbolic communication. I also learned that not like other animals on this planet, we used sign language. So this is a point I never thought about before because I always seen language as words like English, Chinese, Japanese, etc. But actually it can also include gestures, movements, facial expressions and body reactions. And I used to thought that without oral language there is no way that we can communicate, but by doing the “no talking” activity in class, I notice that oral language is just making our communication easier, and we can still communicate without oral language. Another thing I learned was the diverse of the languages in our world. How a language can be different from another and the different ways people communicate, and because of this language can be misunderstood and useless.

So after finish reading the chapter in the book, I know the importance of language as a way of knowing, its influence and also how it is been used between different people.

Knowledge Question: To what extend should memory be trusted when one studies primary sources

Memory is a ways of knowing and we all had autobiographies or personal diaries as our primary sources before, but to what extend shout it be trusted? From one perspective, memory was an excellent source, because it provides firsthand information and experience on the event. Some people even said that all knowledge are memory.

But from the real life situation provided by Elizabeth Loftus’s speech, a man named Steve Titus was convicted on someone’s false memory. From this case we can see that our memory cannot always be trusted, we tend to forget things, misremember things and change things that are in our memory. Just like what Avishar Margalit said: “Memory is knowledge from the past. It is not necessary knowledge about the past.” Our memory don’t work as a video camera, it is reconstructive, and it changes all the times. It changes because of the new knowledge, because of what other people told you, because of your change of perspective; it changes because of a lot of things. Like the victim in the real life situation, at first she wasn’t really sure if Titus was the raper, but when Titus was put on trial for rape and everybody thought that he is the man, the victim got confident. She went from not really sure to absolutely sure that Titus was the raper, and this change in memory was because of the approval by the public. Of course, that does not mean all of our memory are false and should not be trusted. Although our memory can be reconstructed it’s still base on something real. So we can use memory as a primary source, we just need to consider it’s limitations.

 

Does it matter if what we believe is true? Is there any harm in believing knowledge claims that are false?

People all have different perspective and their own understanding to the situation or the problem which makes each knowledge claim unique among the others. So some knowledge claims are not wrong, it is just you have a different opinion toward this statement.  Sometime it is because of the person wasn’t informed with the correct information, which makes him or her to make false knowledge claims. The reasons why people believe in false knowledge claims are it might comes from a person you trust or it is something that you wants to hear about. Sometimes they will even persuade you to believe that their claims are right like propaganda or advertisements.

Personally, I think of course it is important that the knowledge we gain and what we believe is true, but in some cases it doesn’t matter that much. I think the importance of knowledge claims being true of false depends on what types of claim is it. If it is a knowledge claim on our learning then of course it is important that whether we gained the right information or not. If it is a claim that you would like to believe in that it is true and there is no impact on the others too, then I think it doesn’t matter if it’s false or not.  I think If it is just a personal believe and it does not affect the others, it is harmless. But if the knowledge claim is a lie and its on purpose to hide something or to trick someone, it is most likely to be harmful.

Of course, experiential learning is very important in IB courses. Instead of just memorizes all the facts and information, we can learn by practicing and doing exercises more. Through our experience of solving problems and finding solution, we become more familiar with the methods of how to do it and also we are more confident to use the concepts and skills. For example math is a subject that we need a lot of practice of. Our experience of practicing solving questions stay in our brain so we know how to do it next time.

In CAS program, we are required to take on experiences of quality for our own growth. As an IB student, I came up with an idea doing an environmental program to bring up awareness of our environment. I found out that all of the students that are doing CAS are learning through doing things and having experience. In my CAS program I also tried something new like doing student council and this extended my capacity in leadership.

I think many of the experiential knowledge that I gained are to some extend shared knowledge. Experiences like collaborating or doing group works I think are shared knowledge because I don’t learn as an individual but as a whole. As we are working together I gain shared knowledge from sharing opinion and also gain experiential knowledge on how to work collaboratively.

Experiential knowledge is knowledge that you gain from your own experience before.

I think almost everything we do in our life is an experience and that everything we learn from doing things is experiential knowledge. Of course there are also some knowledge like the math formulas are knowledge we gain from the teachers. But as we keep doing and practicing those questions, those become our experiential knowledge.  I think areas like living skills, social skills and sports are mostly experiential knowledge, because those skills and knowledge we need to physically do it and experience it ourselves in order to do it well.

I think people don’t always learn from their experiences. For example all of us had lost our personal item before but we never learn from it, even adults lose things all the time. After our experience, we are still forgetful and not careful enough. Another example is we all know that the food just been cook are usually hot, we still eat it straight away every single time. Because we forgot our experience every time, we don’t learn from it.

If I am looking for someone to help me with something, I’ll trend to find someone who I know that have experience solving this problem, and this is because I believe that those people’s experiential knowledge can be very helpful. Or, I will go to ask people who are also solving the same questions, because they are in the same situation and they are also struggling with the questions, so they would have the empathy to help me with the questions. That’s why when we have problem we trend to ask the teachers or the students in the same class because the teacher have the experience doing those problems and the students have the empathy because we are learning the same things.

I had look for experience for specific knowledge that I can gain. A good example is choosing which class to take, I know Math class can give you skill on calculation and solving problems, English class can teach you skill on reading and writing, since I already have an idea in advance about what kinds of knowledge I can gain from what class, I can choose the classes that it’s beneficial for me like art class if I want to be a designer.

Job applications ask for past job experiences because the companies want talented, hard-working people with a large amount of previous experience in order for their companies to grow and develop. Compare to people with absolutely no experience, the company will more likely to choose people who have experience and done this job before. Because people with more experiential knowledge can do it better, even though it might be a different job experience when people are seeking for a new job, since they already have job experiences they have the communicating skill, collaborating skill, and many other skills and this is why the company wants.

We all have our own personal perspective that’s shaped by our culture, our surrounding, the influence from the others and all of the knowledge that we gained. This week in class we discussed about the different culture perspective. People from different countries, which have different cultures, can have different perspective including things like table manners and the way of talking.

But of course culture is not the only thing that affects our perspective. For example, I am 16 years old girl, and my age and my gender affect how I view the world. The perspective of a boy is very different from the perspective of the girl. A boy might be more interested in sports, cars and gaming while a girl will probably more likely to be interested in clothes, shopping and arty things. Same as the age, as we grow up, we gain more knowledge which can change our perspective. A child might view the world in a much simpler way while adults view the world in a much complicated way. Another example is our environment. I grew up in China so my mother tongue is Chinese but I am actually an American. My dad is from Taiwan and my mother is from Malaysia. Because the cultures in those four countries are so different, I need to get use to every culture and get familiar with those languages. And this makes my viewing of the world wider and makes my perspective more diverse from others.

So my perspective is affected and influence by many different factors such as age, gender, language, environment, and culture.

How does perspective affect how you see the world and your place in it?

Different people have different perspective of the world. Perspective means different viewpoints which can affect by the differences in our culture, religion, geography and politics. Although the world is always the same, we view it in different ways because of the different perspective we have. Our perspective is based on our knowledge. Those knowledges can be given by our parents, our teachers, our culture and our environments, but we can also learn it and gain it ourselves.

From the map activity that we did in class, I noticed that we all drew the map in a different way which also means that we view the map in a different way. The largest difference that I noticed was somehow the Chinese put Asia in the middle and the others put Europe and Africa in the middle. This is because those are the kind of maps that we grow up seeing it (See picture 1 and 2). I don’t think there is any wrong with placing yourself in the middle of your own map of the world. When we are younger, we put our family in the center of the universe, because that’s all we know. As we grow up our world view expand, we find out that we are not the only one in this world. Just like what King said during the discussion: “knowledge can make us feel small.” So our knowledges can affect how we see the world and also how we place ourselves in it.

There are also many other differences such as the details of the map. While most of the students in our class are Asian so that Asia is the continent that we are most familiar with and the one with most details, Victor drew South American with the most details because he’s from Brazil. As a Taiwanese I will definitely put Taiwan on the map, while other people might not even thought of Taiwan because it’s so small. The differences in our map can also due to the politics. In a Chinese map, they might put Taiwan as a province of China, but in a European or American map, they put Taiwan as a separate country. The different politics and educations can also change our view to the world.

I don’t think there is such thing as a correct or incorrect map, because we all have our own way of analyzing and presenting the map.