Student 38

Curl Cream

Knowledge depends on our interactions with other knowers because interactions are what build our perspectives when gaining new knowledge. Our perspectives are what shape the lens through which we process information, and declare what knowledge is significant to know. Everyone possesses a different perspective and decides if the information is useful.

To most, curl cream is a regular hair product, not to me, curl cream is fundamental in my life. I never paid attention to the care of my hair. I didn’t even realize that my hair was being improperly taken care of until I met people with the same hair type as me. As I talked with these people, they told me about their hair product recommendations like curl cream. Through my interaction with others, my opinion of hair care changed. I realized that the process of taking care of your hair wasn’t just for looks, but also for self-care. The act of taking care of yourself was deeper than just the surface, it was about self-indulgence. After the interaction, whenever I had another conversation about hair care, whether it be with a hairstylist or my grandmother, my perspective shifted.

The introduction of curl cream in my life brought up an important TOK big question of “How do our perspectives and biases shape our knowledge of the world”, and answers it by showing how my shift in perspective made me more biased towards certain practices like proper hair care. My shift in perspective also exemplifies a TOK key concept of perspective and it impacts me because like the curls in my hair, I had bounced into a new perspective of seeing things and of interpreting new knowledge, and my interactions are what built that.

K-pop Album

Our Knowledge depends on our interactions with other knowers because interactions are what shape the way we perceive new knowledge. For example, I used to be an anti-fan of K-pop and thought that the music genre was highly overrated. These generalizations I had made were also based on previous interactions I’d had in my life.

Interactions may not always be in person, they could be online like through social media, which is where I got my previous “anti-K-pop” knowledge from. Social media had taught me that K-pop was an embarrassing and childish music genre and therefore I built my opinion off of it.

This all changed when I had an interaction with another knower, a knower who was indeed a K-pop fan. This fan showed me all of her K-pop albums and gave me an in-depth explanation about the origins of the genre and what the most popular parts of it were. After my interaction with her, I started to see the genre as something more, it had completely changed my knowledge about K-pop.

The introduction to K-pop connects to the “Arts” TOK area of knowledge because it expands on how the same piece of art can be perceived in different ways. In particular how my friend and I possessed two opposite perspectives on the same piece of art– K-pop. This, in turn, relates to a key TOK concept of “perspectives” in the area of knowledge itself.

I would have never gained this knowledge if I didn't talk to her. I decided for myself to explore more into this genre, and through my exploration, I interacted with more people which shaped my knowledge.

Eventually, I bought my first K-pop album from a band called “Ateez”. This album symbolizes many things, it symbolizes my growth in knowledge due to an interaction. Therefore, something as simple as a K-pop album symbolized how knowledge depends on our interactions with other knowers as it showed how important it is to converse with people with different perspectives.

“Dahi” Yogurt

There is an Indian tradition of eating “Dahi” (yogurt) before any major life event. For the last 17 years before any monumental occurrence, I had also had a spoonful of dahi. This tradition has been embedded into me since my childhood, and it is now something that I follow myself.

I learned about the tradition through my family members. Growing up everyone had always fed me dahi and it had become normal for me. This knowledge was built on my interactions with other knowers.

My knowledge of dahi highlights the TOK concept of “culture” relating to Indian culture and the optional theme of “religion” relating to Hinduism. The tradition of eating dahi superstitiously, showcases how religious beliefs can impact the way one's perspectives are built.

With the turn of events, this knowledge all changed as I interacted with my friends and told them about my tradition. My friends mocked me for believing in such a superstition. Through my interactions with my friends, my knowledge about the dahi changed again. As the conversations I was having about the yogurt differed based on who I was talking with, the different perspectives then helped me make my own opinion about dahi more diverse. It was only through these interactions that I realized that different people would view the same object in such different ways.

Therefore, the Indian tradition of eating dahi is an example of how interactions with other knowers will help you become more diverse in your way of thinking. My knowledge of dahi has changed and made me a more open-minded learner by allowing me to experience how different cultures can view a singular object from different perspectives. In my case, it was the clash of traditional Indian culture and American culture on something that can be seen as a good luck charm or just fermented milk.