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Home › Forums › Core Seminars › East Asia Origins to 1800, Spring 2020 › Session 7 - May 2 morning (Jennifer Jung-Kim on ancient Korea)
Mario Ruiz.
cgaoProfessor Jennifer Jung-Kim from UCLA will discuss ancient Korea.
Please download and read the PDFs below.
Meghann SerilThank you for preparing the lecture and reading materials. The "Good, Bad, Ugly" article reminds me of a question Prof. Dube brought up in a previous lecture: "How do we know what we know?" One take away from the reading is that we need to teach students to think critically about the sources they are using to understand history. Surely no historical figures are truly all good or all bad, but they tend to be presented in this binary way. So we must consider the author's of history and their purposes in painting historical figures in a certain light. Although this is not part of the third grade social studies standards, I think I would approach this text with a language arts emphasis. I think it would be beneficial for my students to use portions of the text to discuss the language choices that are used to described the three main historical figures and how the author uses that to convince the reader of the merits of each person.
Meghann SerilI really enjoyed the two readings on Ho Nansorhon and Sin Saimdang. I know one discussion I have not facilitated enough with my students is about the recorded histories and lack of recorded histories of different groups of people and their contributions. I would like to bring to them the fact that Sin Saimdang is featured on the 50,000 won bill to generate discussion of which historical figures we might choose to include on our own money. This could tie into a discussion of having Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill here in the United States.
During our discussion could we discuss further the difference between Neo-Confuciansim and Utilitarian Confucianism? I am curious about these different schools of thought and their influence on culture and norms.
Sandra FloresThe neighboring countries had great influence in Korea. Shamanism and bronze was adpated from Siberia. Korea has a strong foundation in Shamanism since the Neolithic period. They believe that spirits can either be evil or good. As for the bronze, it was introduced to Korea in 1500 BCE. The bronze was used for tools during shaman rituals. I am wondering how much of Shamanism is still alive in the Korean culture. China introduced iron to Korea in 300 BCE and they influenced their architecture. The majority of thei iron was for tools used in agriculture. The capital of Paekche constructed a building that shares architectural aesthetics. Like the Chinese, Koreans also practiced buddhism, confucianism and the common language among the aristocrats was classical Chinese.
I can use this information in a lesson of how we influence each other. How we learn from each other and we need to be concious of how are decisions can affect (positively or negatively) other people. My students can also work on a project in which they will identify other cultures' influences in their community. They can also research when and how they were introduced.
Sandra FloresConfucianism was introduced to Korea during the Koryo Dynasty and surprisingly this was a negative change for females. Before Confucianism women had power, they had the opportunity to learn and their class status was more important than their gender. Once Confucianism was introduced to Korea, women were oppressed and had to abide by the "neo-confucianism" virtures of diligence, frugality and chastity. Women who wanted to read literature or write literature would bring dishonor to the family. A woman by the name of Ho Nansorhorn, disobeyed this rules and became one of the best poets during the 16th century. She was able to do this because she was born into a family of poets and scholar officials. Although, her father disagreed, her brother supported her. Unfortunately, she was married off and she was seeing as a bad wife and bad daughter in law for writing. Her main topics after she was a wife were pain and sorrow, she was often referred to the poet of tears.
I would consider her a feminist and in the class have a discussion of how religion subordinates women. Students can compare her poems to other feminist pieces.
Samantha AuerbachThank you for taking the time to create these lectures. While a lot of these topics are not in 4th grade social studies standards, I did see some parallels in early Korean history that could be made with my 4th grade students. We discuss primary and secondary sources, specifically with information about the California missions. I like the idea of using the early Korean dwellings as a comparison to native Californians early dwellings, as they look quite similar. There is also a comparison to be made by students about where the early Korean settlers built their homes to the early native Californians. Both settling along the coast and using trade as a means to aquire tools and food they wanted. While the texts are too difficult for elementary aged students there are concepts from them that could be used and adapted, such as the good guy vs bad guy rulers. Why were rulers looked at as either good or bad? What information did the author add and how can we tell it's credible? This idea can easily be adapted to 4th grade standards and used in a written response or literacy task. We discuss at great lengths credible sources and who to trust!
Samantha AuerbachI thoroughly enjoyed learning about Korea's early history. As I was listening to your presentations, I was trying to see how I could use the information in my 4th grade classroom. I think what aligned most was the poems and art. Sijo poems would be perfect for 4th graders. I teach at an environmental studies magnet, so I would teach the students about Sijo poems and have them write their own about nature. I also like the artwork. I'm not sure I would show my students the paintings of the teacher with their students, but I do like the idea behind of having students create a painting or drawing about our own classroom. I can see this being either an introductory lesson in the beginning of the year to learn about each other, or a great lesson at the end of the year to summarize our time together.
Samantha AuerbachHi Meghann,
I really like your idea about teaching your students about Sin Saimdang and her appearance on the 50,000 won bill. I teach 4th grade and I could see my kids really enjoying having a discussion about historical figures they would like to see on our own money. I also really liked that Sin Saimdang's art was displayed on the won. I think you could combine both ideas and have students not only propose what historical figure US dollars could showcase, but also design what the bill would look like including art associated with the historical figure.
Sandra Floreshttps://www.cnn.com/style/article/north-korea-song-dance/index.html
Hi everyone. I came up across this article and thought it went with what we are currenty learning: Arts and Humanities. As we read in the articles attached, arts are universal and Korea has a history of creative women and men. This article explains the importance of music in North Korea and the political influence it carries. Koreans also used music to speak about social issues. The song "The Sea of Blood" is about the guerillas and "The Flower Girl" is about feudal oppression. The majority of the songs are very patriotic and North Koreans are restiricted to the music they can create. Very different from South Korea, whose K-Pop is now listened to in the entire world.
Billie JohnsonHi Meghann,
The concept of who does the historical storytelling is a huge point of discussion in my class. We also discuss the impact historical memory has on a person's life which I think is equally significant. I do agree that not all historical figures are not all good and not all bad and like that you made them human. Sometimes when major figures in history are discussed, they are sometimes discussed as nearly not of this world. Approaching the topic from multiple perspectives is incredibly important for students to get a complete picture of history.
Jessica NgThank you for a very informative lecture/presentation. I teach ETK, so a lot of this material isn't usable in my classroom as-is. However, I love that every ancient culture we've learned about so far have produced their own forms of ceramics and pottery. I would share some of the designs as an art lesson on form, or perhaps lines (squiggly, zig-zag, curvy, etc.) We could also talk about how certain shapes are better for different purposes, like how a wide mouth is easier for pouring in liquids or how a bowl shape is best for eating. Perhaps I would get a group of parent volunteers together so that as small groups, we could help the students form and decorate their own bowls, pots, vases, etc.
Billie JohnsonThis is such an important historical text in terms of women's history, perhaps as a focus for International Women's Day. Of course I would want to explore more of the history of the women discussed. What really stood out to me was how literacy is/was used as a tool to keep a person subordinate. This immediately made me think of slavery and how educated slaves were deemed useless because they would start to think for themselves. It is a shame how history and the use of these harsh and harmful tactics were not used in isolation. It is almost like there is a book that people studied on how to mistreat others. This mentality of how what access women or slaves had to literacy definitely fit into a particular archetype. How is it that people who are thousands of miles away from each other and speak entirely different languages behave in this way? Anyhow, so I would love to engage with students on the importance of women in history and the different ways these women used their creativity. Literacy is a huge focus on my campus, so this fits right in with us focusing on the importance of literacy and how it enhances creativity.
Alma OchoaBillie, I absolutely agree with you. Reliability of the source is really important and as you mentioned getting multiple perspectives is extremely important because as Meghann mentioned historical figures are usually represented in a binary way and we know that that’s not the case. Great point ladies!
Jessica NgI think the topic of how and whose histories are recorded is fascinating. Thinking about the traditional design of our own American dollar bills, it seems absurd that anyone other than a government figure should belong on our currency (I sure hope that changes soon). Sin Saimdang was a prolific painter (an unusual pursuit for women at that time), but the article indicates that her fame is also largely due to her famous philosopher son. It makes me wonder, how did she and her work get chosen to be on the 50,000 won bill, while her son's image is on the 5,000 won bill, accompanied by *her* artwork? What does this choice reflect about modern Korean culture?
Billie JohnsonIt's so refreshing to hear you lecture again. I certainly look forward to our meeting tomorrow. The first lecture pretty much covers everything my class works on for 6th grade History. However, I think it would be worthwhile to cover the history of Korea on its own. We can discuss the importance of artifacts and what they tell us outside of what is written. I also found the piece of how it is thought large stones were moved and constructed intriguing. I would use this as a way to incorporate art with a small scale art project for students to demonstrate there understanding of this concept. It would be great to discuss the overall importance of trade and exploration so that when they start learning about the Age of Exploration in 8th grade those concepts about what else was transmitted besides diseases with trade and exploration are built in. Also, just in general I do like to discuss topics with my students that are not typically discussed; there is more interest about what they don't know much about.