Teaching history is refreshing

One of the many good things about teaching History etc again is the thinking that is required. The textbooks that I have for World History and Geography are very general lacking anything in depth for the students to get their proverbial teeth into.

Five thousand BC to the present in one handy history volume that is about the right size to keep a door open on a windy day; seven continents in one book for geography also in a size that might mean amputation if you dropped it on your foot...

The students are quite philosphical about the books; they call this kind of study memorize and delete... hmmm... I have instructions that I should use the text, so I do. I just choose small sections and supplement, hence the joy in finding suitable BBC DVDs. It probably sounds like a lazy cop out but I actually watch them, and make prework sheets if there is unfamiliar vocab as well as either writing comprehension sheets that draw attention to the main points - they have such little historical schemata that is is difficult for them to work out important and less important information. The idea of perpectives is new to them in an academic context though they get it immediately once it is turned to daily life situations. They had no trouble seeing both the Spanish and Aztec point of view when doing role plays last week....

History is so much more interesting when it's not just trivial pursuit practice.

The good students have good questions, which also keeps me on my toes and something I rarely experienced in Japan.

Did the Spanish have slavery when Cortes set sail for Mexico, and if so how widespread was it? (Yes they did)

What happened to the Muslims at the bottom of Spain and Portugal? Did they convert or migrate or get killed? (A combination of all three I supposed but have yet to go back to check.)

How can it be true that the native americans didn't have the 'temperament' for slavery if the Aztecs actually had slaves themselves? (Good question, it was probably refering more to nomadic type Native Americans who might find it difficult to adjust, but yes the implication that the book is being racially stereotypical is also a possibility - note: textbooks are not perfect.)

Why do the Ancient Egyptians have an underworld where people go to when they die rather than heaven or a place in the sky? (Perhaps because the sun god was their main god and went down into the underworld / unknown at the end of the day. Interesting question though)

What are whirling dervishes exactly and why are they in Khartoum and not Cairo? How are they perceived by Muslims generally?

(Muslim mystics who enter trances when they spin and chant. Probably seen as a bit fringe even by a lot of Sufi, they are more common in non Arab Muslim countries. Would definitely be disapproved of by Wahabis. They are in Cairo but mostly 'entertainers' rather than real sufi mystics.)

I guess the longer I teach, the more I will understand... (sometimes I think the reverse also might be true...)

The questions I get in History of South East Asia - we are looking at the VN war - are more in my comfort zone.

In general the students have very limited conceptual knowledge of politics or economics which translates into a very limited conceptual knoweldge in History. The notion of concepts such as pretexts for war, ulterior motives, even mutually beneficial are not just unfamiliar words, sometimes it seems they are conceptually quite different or non existent. (I am more familiar with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese traditional philosophy - Confucianism, than I am with tradtional Thai, Burmese (or Indian for that matter) philosophies.

We were talking about changes brought by the French the other day and I was saying to them the other day that education from the French was important for the Vietnamese because it gave them the conceptual language that would ultimately help defeat the french. The western ideas of democracy, elections, will of the people, which the Vietnamese used in their campaign for independence are not the same in East Asia, much like the idea of filial piety, the corner stone of Confucianism, doesn't exist in the same way in Western philosophy.

Interestingly, the domino theory doesn't make sense to them. It's not an idea that students seemed to have difficulty with in Australia - next country, next country, next country. The attitude here is 'why should we change our govt. if VN does?'. I guess with Burma next door they might have a point. I don't know how active the Comintern was in Thailand. Last lesson we looked at US anti communist propaganda, tomorrow will be looking at Chinese and Soviet propaganda posters; there are some interesting youtube clips. One of the students reads traditional Chinese so should get the gist of the posters easily and will translate it for the class. One of my Russian colleagues is going to go through the Russian ones with me.




Enough ranting, time to get dinner.