I’ve returned from a great training in Houston on how to teach the Theory of Knowledge class for our International Baccalaureate program.  It should be a fun class, though it will require a fair amount of preparation work.  It’s basically designed (as I see it, at least)  to help students recognize that the world is not black and white, and that there’s a lot of ambiguity out there.

It fits in nicely with a quote I used in a recent In Practice post from Saul Alinsky, the “father” of modern-day community organizing:

“I detest and fear dogma…The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right..”

One of the things I’m particularly excited about is that I believe quite a few of the lessons I’ll be using for the Theory of Knowledge class can be modified for use in my Intermediate English class, too.

Upon my return to school a student gave me one of my favorite foods — Hmong papaya salad — as a “welcome home” present.  Unfortunately,  eating it began an unimaginably terrible (at least from my self-pitying perspective) bout of food poisoning.  I’m on the road to recovery now, and expect to be fully recovered by Monday and return to school.

However, both the trip and my illness have put me behind in a lot of areas, so I probably won’t be posting quite as often over the next few days.