Friday, July 18, 2025
In a showcase of intellectual exploration, South Side High School students in the International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge course presented their final exhibitions on March 26, grappling with the complex relationship between knowledge, certainty, and personal experience.
The exhibition is one of two major assessments for the senior-year TOK course, which is an essential element of the IB diploma program, challenging students to reflect on how they acquire knowledge and to examine its validity.
TOK instructor Vincent Falivene said the exhibition is an opportunity for students to engage deeply with questions about knowledge, often blending theoretical and personal perspectives.
The exhibition, as the final project of the half-year class, requires students to choose from one of 35 questions that are central to the meaning of the course, Falivene said. Students look at what they know, how they know it, what counts as evidence and why anybody should believe it. They choose a question and develop an analytical response using three objects as evidence to answer that bigger question.
“We ask them to consider the idea of writing things and pulling physical objects [and] these ideas into real world settings,” Falivene said, “but also create discussions that go beyond the classroom, which can occur between classrooms and between different people in the school.”
Haidyn Goldspiel, for example, focused on the ways personal experiences influence knowledge, particularly within her family. As one of her objects, she chose a recipe passed down from her great-grandmother, who had once run a bakery in Poland before fleeing the Holocaust.
“I’m able to continue on my family’s legacy and feel as connected to them as possible because of these recipes that my family still has,” she said.
For Marina Ioannou, the exhibition served as a chance to reflect on a central philosophical question: “To what extent is certainty attainable?” Her personal analysis concluded that while humans can approach certainty, perfect truth remains elusive. She illustrated this idea using three objects: an alarm clock, representing “something we think is certain, but it’s not as certain as we think,” a sundial, “something we feel more uncertain about,” and a piece of art about “seeking relative truth and perspective.”
TJ Brull’s exhibition took a similar approach, examining the relationship between personal experience and knowledge. He used three objects: a cape from his childhood, a business case study, and a soccer ball. For Brull, the objects symbolize how his personal experiences shape the way the knowledge of the objects is perceived, based on his memories.
For her exhibition, Andrea Rodriguez shared a painting from her IB art class, where she combined personal experiences with artistic expression. She explored themes of global experience through artwork and literature, also referencing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Thing Around Your Neck” to highlight the complexities of cross-cultural understanding.
“It delves even deeper into that culture in Nigeria with these two women,” she said, “and it talks about the economic and financial struggles within this particular area that might not have been known due to such an Americanized society.”
Jayden Agnant’s project tackled the connection between culture and knowledge, using food as a lens. He examined three items — Jamaican oxtail seasoning from his culture, pizza from Gino’s Pizzeria from local culture, and the French dish beef bourguignon from a culture new to him — each representing different cultural insights and personal connections to knowledge across his experiences.
Amelie McLaughlin’s project focused on the implications of having or lacking knowledge. She presented a family heirloom rock from Ireland and a fashion piece from Robert Wun, exploring how understanding the background of these objects deepens their significance. She also discussed a project from last year’s math class, which highlighted how misconceptions about sizing in clothing brands can lead to false knowledge.
Ella Burbige explored how interactions with others shape knowledge, drawing from her experience in organizing an EKG screening event, statistical analysis of New York City subway ridership and a collection of international trading pins, demonstrating how knowledge grows through engagement with people and data.
The exhibition provided students with an opportunity to showcase their knowledge while engaging with their peers and reflecting on what they had learned from each other’s perspectives.
At South Side, full IB Diploma candidates are required to complete six courses across at least five subject areas, including English, a world language, history, science, math and a sixth class of their choice, such as art, business, or psychology. In addition to coursework, students take the Theory of Knowledge class as a requirement that connects all the other classes and extends their learning.
The TOK exhibition not only provides IB students with an opportunity to reflect on their learning but also sparks discussions that extend beyond the classroom. The presentations are part of an ongoing effort to foster critical thinking and intellectual curiosity among students and the wider school community.
“I liked the class a lot because it gave me a chance to take my own past experiences and think about things in a specific way due to things that I or my family have experienced,” Goldspiel said, “and so I reflected on that a lot with my exhibition, because it gave me a chance to talk about my family.”
