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AnonymousI would want to use the beliefs of Buddhism with my students in order for them to become enlightened and truly understand themselves. This would be transition lessons to help them become one with themselves.
AnonymousDuring the lecture, Professor Meeks explained that Buddhism was introduced to China by relating it to filial piety. For example, Buddhist monks were supposed to exhibit the most filial piety because they were sacrificing their lives for not only themselves but also to save their families. I did not know that filial piety extended to hair and that shaving your head was disrespectful to elders because hair is inherited and is a status symbol.
Also, I remember when I was learning this in school, I did not understand why Buddhism was so different from the Buddhism that I had known growing up. Now, I see that because there was a transition from India to China, certain aspects of it had to be downplayed in order to gain mass acceptance.
The sentiment that Chinese people felt about beggars is similar to the disdain that students express for homeless people; in my classes, many of them insult each other by calling each other bums or hobos. I wonder if by introducing them to this idea of filial piety would get the students to humanize the homeless people who live in our communities. They deserve dignity.
AnonymousAfter listening to Professor Meeks’ lecture on Buddhism and seeing how so many people had questions about it, it made me think about how oftentimes, the history of Buddhism is not well-known in the U.S. As a result, much of the population has misconceptions about it, and it leads to potential appropriation. The following article was one I found, and I think it’s important that when Buddhism is taught in school that we need to not culturally appropriate it. Otherwise, it is counterproductive to teaching our students about diversity.
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/07/culturally-appropriating-buddhism/
AnonymousCould you clarify what you mean by this? Do you mean that you don’t really focus on teaching Buddhism but rather try to embed Buddhist teachings in your teaching style/classroom environment?
If that is the case, I would agree with you. While not everyone can teach about Buddhism because of their curriculum requirements, our students could benefit from knowing Buddhist teachings and using it in their daily lives. Nonetheless, it starts with us teachers modeling it for our students.
AnonymousWhile I was hearing and reading the articles I thought about teaching symbolism in Buddha religion. I would probably collaborate with the history teacher on this but I can definitely reinforce images and symbols in my class. I found this website that, http://buddhismwoot.weebly.com/symbolism-in-buddhist-art.html, that talks about geometric symbols in art and their meaning to Buddha religion. Students can use this and create their own designs.
Air: identified as blue or black and depicted to be semi-circular.
Fire: identified as red and depicted to be triangular.
Water: identified as white and depicted to be circular.
Earth: identified as yellow and depicted to be square.
AnonymousWhile I was walking in the Korean Learning Center Museum I noticed they had free brochures and catalogs at the front desk. In one of the catalogs, titled Templestay Korean summer 2016, I saw a a pamphlet about Prostration when entering a Buddha temple. This brochure can be used to show students the proper etiquette when going to a Buddha temple. I thought this would be a good pamphlet to add to a PowerPoint or have students create a poster when teaching about Buddha religion.
Templestay also has many other catalogs for teachers or students to go through. http://eng.templestay.com/board/book.asp?bt=5&cid=16
edited by njimenez on 9/1/2016
cgaoPlease download and read the attached documents, which are all selections from The Norton Anthology of World Religions, edited by Jack Miles.
edited by cgao on 7/26/2016