Seniors have anticipated the TOK Exhibition for about a year now, and the time has finally come. Many Juniors last year were excited to present their project, while others were worried about the quality of their essays.
Exhibition is an integral part of IB, but most students don’t even know what it is until they take TOK, leaving some students blindsided. Fortunately, Meridian’s DP TOK/Government/Economics Teacher, Aaron Holman, is ready to help his students succeed.
According to Holman, “The idea behind Exhibition is taking this broad, ambiguous knowledge question and attempting to answer it by finding three objects that help support your answer. And these objects have to be real-world objects with a singular place in time.”
Many students saw these knowledge questions and realized they could use the exhibition as an opportunity to display their culture and identity.
Adithi Bashyam, a senior at Meridian, explained, “My question was about the relationship between personal experience and knowledge. I wrote my exhibition on my own culture. I talked about some things that people from cultures that aren’t my own wouldn’t know.”
“One of my objects is the Suicide Squad film. It’s just my favorite film with one of the best iterations of the Joker I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Expressed senior Bryson Hearn.
Some students used the exhibition as an outlet for expression, and others simply participated in the IB Diploma. But no matter how engaged the students were with the project, there was something for everyone to learn.
Senior Charlie Edwards said, “Mr. Holman gives good directions as best as possible. It’s abstract and intangible, yet he does a good job, maybe showing some examples.”
“I think I could have used a little more time to reread my essays and familiarize myself with the project, coming back into it.” commented senior Yahia Aswad.
“I could have done better with typing a lot. I think.” noted senior Lason Willis.
The TOK Exhibition allowed students to express themselves uniquely, and even though some people didn’t partake in the expression side of the project, there was still plenty to learn about themselves.