Curator’s Note

Theory of Knowledge has a habit of making completely competent teachers feel like frauds. If you’re an English teacher, like me, you probably got handed TOK because the final assessment is an essay. You know how to teach writing – but how are you supposed to lead a debate on higher-level mathematics or natural sciences when you deliberately avoided both in college? We chose the humanities for a reason.

When I was first assigned the class, I spent late nights scouring the internet for anything usable, and I’m forever grateful to the 2022 TOK Weebly for giving me a launchpad. I fell in love with the course once I started digging deeper – building model essays and exhibitions, finding texts and case studies for students. It became an excuse to go down rabbit holes I’d otherwise never touch, and a license to keep questioning everything we take for granted. TOK forces me to be a lifelong learner, which is one reason I’m still teaching after 18 years.

Language and Literature was the opposite: always my passion and my comfort zone. But while there’s no shortage of lesson plans on novels and poetry, non-literary texts are another story. Most of us were trained to close-read literature, so ads, infographics, and photojournalism sit outside most teachers’ comfort zones. As a former journalist with design aspirations, I’ve enjoyed dedicating a lot of time to them, so my Lang Lit materials lean heavily non-literary, paired with the scaffolds and frameworks that have actually helped my students get results.

IB Coordination brought a learning curve of its own. Five years and two program evaluation cycles in, I’ve developed tools that make assessment calendars and data review more manageable. Much of it is school-specific, but I’ll turn more of it into templates over time.

Across all three roles, I’d built up years of material with nowhere for it to go. I didn’t know what to do with it until I read Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, which convinced me that “curator” fits how I feel as an IB teacher. Kleon convinced me to put my work out there – not to become a “content creator” (Lord knows we don’t need another influencer), but to find a community of peers wrestling with the same headaches and taking joy in the same specific details of the job. Though it’s drifted toward a traditional teacher resource page, I want this space to function like an old cabinet of curiosities: a home for the specific, slightly offbeat, and genuinely useful things I’ve built over the years.

If there’s a common thread running through those things, it’s design. For most of my career, people have complimented my pretty slideshows. I love building materials that are visually clean but also intentionally structured to help teenagers break down complex ideas. (And okay, yes, I also like when they look pretty.) I know slide design isn’t the biggest lever for student achievement – I should probably spend more time grading faster. When I’m procrastinating on a giant stack of essays, it’s usually because I’ve spent three hours pushing a unit just a little further.

That tinkering never really stops. I’ve never been good at leaving a lesson alone once it works. I don’t think I’ve ever recycled a unit unchanged, so what you’ll find here is usually the third, fifth, or tenth iteration of an idea – and I fully expect a better version a year from now.

Which is really why I built this site: I’d rather keep iterating in good company. I want to see what others are building, get honest feedback on my own work, and find the teachers who actually enjoy this side of instructional design. Thanks for looking through the cabinet. Drop me a line if something here helps – or if you see a way to make it better.

Don Campbell IB Coordinator · Theory of Knowledge and Language & Literature · São Paulo