Grace Gaffey (Upper Sixth)
On Friday 19th of November, the Sixth Form IB cohort visited the Pitt Rivers Museum and New College, Oxford, with the IB cohort at Bedford School for a trip relating to our Theory of Knowledge (ToK) curriculum. Theory of Knowledge is a unique subject within the International Baccalaureate (IB), which allows students to reflect not only on what we know, but how we know.
The Pitt Rivers Museum displays objects from all time periods and from all across the globe. However, as a museum they are aware that it is important to work with members of the community from which the objects originated, to gain a true understanding of the collections and display them as appropriately and respectfully as possible. One object that particularly caught our attention was the Star House totem pole, which originates from Haida Gwaii in Canada. This totem pole is an integral part of the Haida first nation’s culture as it signified a family’s adoption of a girl which is particularly important as their society is matriarchal. The pole was built in around 1882, but by 1901 it arrived at the Pitt Rivers Museum after having been bought for $36 and shipped from England to Canada. The museum is now making a conscious effort to work with the Haida Gwaii community to enable them to access and learn about their heritage. This links to our ToK curriculum as we frequently discuss indigenous knowledge systems and how we can gain knowledge from them.
We then visited New College and found it incredibly interesting to learn about the strong links between the college and the Harpur Trust. New College is one of Oxford’s oldest colleges and was founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham. The full name of the college was “The College of St Mary of Winchester’ but was soon called New College, due to the fact it was the second college to be named after St Mary, the first being what is now known as Oriel College. Originally, New College was only for the education of priests and more specifically those who had already been educated at Winchester, Wykeham’s other college. It was only during the middle of the 19th century when ‘non-Wykehamists’ could begin to attend the college, and not until 1979 were the first female undergraduates admitted to the college. It was a fantastic experience to be able to walk around the college and get a feel for what university life could be like in the future, and also see where parts of Harry Potter had been filmed!
Overall, the trip was a fascinating experience and something that we will be able to draw upon in our theory of knowledge lessons going forward.
