Image credit: Playground 2.5 generated Salvador Dalí inspired AI surrealist art work: Constrained by Time

A FUN TOK CLASS RITUAL—WITHOUT HESITATION, REPETITION OR DEVIATION!

Why not appropriate “Just a minute” as an idiosyncratic, fun, class activity? Here’s what the ritual entails:

An individual student is required to speak on a designated subject for exactly one minute—without hesitation, repetition, or deviation from the subject.

At any point the speaker can be challenged by another student raising their hand and asserting “hesitation,” or “repetition,” or “deviation”! The moment a challenge arises, the timer is paused. If the teacher deems the challenge legitimate; the timer is restarted, and the successful challenger takes over speaking on the same designated subject. Typically more challenges and several speaker changes occur. The winner is the student who remains speaking at the end of 60 seconds.

The game has two obvious sweet spots. It is always impressive if a single speaker can last for the full minute, maintaining eloquence and composure from beginning to end. The other crowd pleasing moment is when a challenge is made, say, two seconds from the very end. The merciless challenger takes over, and wins, having barely uttered a word!


DISPLAYING a timer

Just a minute requires the teacher to display a precise timer with “pause” and “resume playing” functionality. It also helps to have a jarring noise at full volume to signal when the 60 seconds are up. The AS Timer shown here has a fog horn! This worked well for teaching my classes in San Francisco—evoking the familiar sound of a container ship in the Bay.

A countdown display is also useful for all timed TOK hands-on activities, as well as small and large group discussions. As I emphasized in the Starting TOK section, assigned time allocations act as a constraint that helps to generate creative tension and sharper focus in the room. 

BBC LEGACY

Just a Minute was an BBC Radio 4 program first broadcast in 1967. The show's iconic theme music is Chopin’s Minute Waltz—it lasts much longer than 60 seconds!


Acknowledgement and final thoughts

I was introduced to ritualizing Just a minute as a TOK class activity by my trusted colleague and fellow ex-pat Brit, Nicola Meehan, who is a most gifted and highly respected IB Psychology teacher and TOK Coordinator.

Just a minute is a versatile ritual. A few quick rounds can be used as an upbeat warm-up at the beginning of class, as light relief when transitioning between intense activities, or as initial stimulus for class brainstorming on a new concept.

After trust has been established the teacher can cause jaw dropping mayhem by engineering “Just a minute stunts” in cahoots with individual students. For example, I once conspired with the sole Estonian speaking student in the class to address the topic in Estonian. Needless to say she spoke for 60 seconds continuously without a single challenge!