On 21st March, the SFC1 IB cohort was treated to a day out in Oxford, to pursue activities related to Theory of Knowledge.
Our students visited Pitt Rivers Museum, part of the university, to examine its remarkable collection. One of their goals was to select objects from the collection, to use in their TOK Exhibition (part of the IB requirements).
Pitt Rivers is effectively a ‘museum of museums’. It has changed very little since it was set up in the late 19th century, such that students can study the museum itself, in terms of how we have acquired knowledge, as much as the artefacts it contains. When General Pitt Rivers used his private collection to create the museum, he insisted that the display cabinets were organised typographically, rather than by specific areas of the world or specific cultures. Speaking about this taxonomy, one of our students expressed intrigue on account of, “…the way that there were so many objects displayed from all around the world at different time periods. It is fascinating to see different countries producing similar objects at different times, showing progression in humans.”
Beyond Pitt Rivers, the students enjoyed a guided tour of the 15th century Duke Humphrey’s Library (part of the world-famous Bodleian Library) and were able to see how medieval books were organised and collated.
Finally, there was a TOK-inspired treasure hunt in Oxford, which ended up at the Ashmolean Museum. It was a wonderfully enriching day out.
Another of the students, when asked whether we should judge Pitt Rivers collection by the values of today, said: “No, I think it is important to acknowledge the zeitgeist of the time and how societal values have developed, it is like a time capsule.”
Mr Hawley, Assistant IB Coordinator
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