Session 2 (9/30) - From Monarchy to Republic

[Jennifer Cutler]

When studying the Treaty of Versailles so often history classrooms focus on the War Guilt Clause and the problems it caused for Germany. But often the non-western nations are left out of the Treaty and the classroom discussion. I think it would be a great activitiy to ask students to think about how each nation who felt cheated reacted to the treaty, which would include China and lead to discussion about the May 4th Movement. This would also help students understand Mao Zedong's beginnings, since he was the schoolteacher who supported the movement. 

Also, have students look into a possible "friendship" between Sun Yat-sen and Lenin - both were nationalists who spent time abroad and both became disillusioned with western democracies that refused to support their struggling goverments. Of cours Chiang Kai-shek had different ideas from Sun Yat-sen, but this could lead to further discussion about the April '27 conflict in which Nationalists moved in Shanghai and killed those they viewed as being communist threats. After the massacre, the Soviet Union did not recognize Chiang Kai-shek's gov't and perhaps becoming to western (since the USA and GB did recognize his gov't) peasants aligned themselves with the Communists (and Mao.) Again, this could be a great discussion to have in class about how different groups of people find leaders who may not support those people, but at least don't support a leader those groups dislike. And a comparison to today's United States political climate could certainly help students see repeat patterns in history - and perhaps predict possible outcomes and plausible solutions. 

[Susie Suh]

The Treaty of Nanjing heavily favored the British, giving them everything they had been wanting in regards to trade with China. They had access into Chinese ports past Canton, and it also allowed British citizens to be upheld to British law rather than Chinese law. Britain was also allowed rights that any other country might have in China. I think the Treaty of Nanjing is a great way for students to explore the power dynamics of treaties, and viewing it from multiple perspectives. It also gives students a better understanding of the later frictions between the West and the East.

[Susie Suh]

The U.S. has been part of many treaties that I believe students have been taught to view in a positive light. It would be an interesting activity to have students view the treaty from the opposite side and list the positives and negatives from the other parties' perspectives. In our global age, I think it is extremely pertinent for our students to be able to understand how our actions have affected our allies/enemies, leading to the present political/economic state.

[Betsy Telle]

I really like the ideas that you suggest here. I think that using the classroom as an example is a great idea. I imagine bringing in more chairs of desks to help illustrate the growing population. I feel that it could help show resource scarity and help them understand the aspects of the slowing of Economic Development.

[Betsy Telle]

While teaching health, it would be interesting to have students look at Opium trade, usage, and response in China. We could spend some time comparing it the current drug crisises in the recent US history. The students could look at the trade aspect of the Western world using Opium trade to exploit China and how the US and Reagan administration used drug trade to their advantage. There's also comparisons to the legality vs illegal smuggling. A focus could very much be the response to addiction. I find it informative the response of China to address addiction. I see a lot of similarities between their response and the War on Drugs. The United States has yet to have an effective response and for students to learn about what was successful and not could be useful for the future in the United States.

[Betsy Telle]

I really enjoyed reading Lin Zexu's letter. I found it so damning on the UK and Western countries that they knew to make Opium illegal. They knew the damaging effects of Opium addiction. And yet they purposely exported to other countries, knowing full well that the countries will be harmed. Lin Zexu mentions that Queen Victoria appreciates China craftmanship. He points out the hypocrisy of wanting the result of China’s success, while also trying to cut it down. While I think calling the recipients of his letter Barbarians, I feel that he makes many valid arguments that the UK should stop exporting Opium to China.

[Cynthia Jackson]

1895 was just 19 years before World War I and we know from studying world history that this was a period of increasing nationalism. Most of the empires and countries that China interacted with as trade partners or through war were westerners that believed in their race and ethnicity being superior to anyone living in “the East”. With China’s long history of influence and prominence over Japan and Korea, it was probably very disparaging to have another country in the East rise and defeat them in battle.

 

In 7th grade, it can be hard to help students consider the ways that multiple events and movements around the world interact with each other- in this case European and American empire building, nationalism, alliances, and the development and modernization of East Asia -because students have not learned much history yet. Their experience with history up to this point is some state history and ancient civilizations of the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Without the contextual knowledge previous learning would provide, students are unable to draw connections. However, I believe that the significance of China and Japan’s relationship changing could be taught if students understand that Japan and Korea first followed in China’s footsteps, so to speak, for thousands of years (just not as deeply as mentioned above).

[Jennifer Cutler]

One way to have students better understand that growth does not equal development is to look at the industrial revolution in many western nations. As the countries' output increased often the quality of life depreciated. When studying this effect on China over the past centuries, we could ask a similar question: "what have been the major social consequences of China's rapid growth, especially over the last three decades?" China's economy during the later Qing Dynasty suffered from rebellion, invastion, civil war, and corrupt government administrators. So many have provided concrete examples with objects found around the classroom, but I wonder if students could understand the concept of economic growth and development from an abstract perspective. Could we look at data points from industrializing nations? Or could we look at post industrialized nations to see if economic growth and development have aligned more? This could help students understand how the two are correlated, but not necessarily equal. 

[Ester Yang]

I love your idea on having students compare the current drug crisies with the ones that were dealt long time ago. I'm not teaching Health, but I do use a lot of examples from Health to teach the affects in genes. I agree, students should be exposed to the history of Opium trade and how these trades were misued in the recent US history. Then, they can identify some of the similarities and differences using a graphic organizer to organize their thoughts. 

[Serece Tascione]

The benefits of the Treaty of Nanjing result in an imbalanced agreement between China and Great Britain. It leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions. How can a treaty attempting to resolve a significant war for China, result in Great Britain receiving a significantly higher part of the bargain. Especially since this war connected to it was a result of China trying to protect its people from Opium being brought in from Great Britain. How does it results in China paying Great Britaina a substantial amount of fees and territory? China is required to pay twenty-one million dollars to Great Britain for loss and debt. I am very curious what debt was accrued during this time. I understand the need for trade, but as China began with trying to block physical access for trade, how do they end up agreeing to give Great Britain Hong Kong, which will provide more access and ease for trade wtih China? How were such inequalities agreed upon, and how do they play a part in the next chapter for China and Great Britain. As well, how do these attribute to a peaceful relationship as mentioned in the first article.

[Serece Tascione]

When I was teaching fourth grade, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was mentioned in our books about California history. It gave a very brief statement about its significance in ending the war between the US and the Mexican Republic. It wasn't until I read the entire treaty myself that I understood what was really entailed. I found that students needed to see the inequalities and realities themselves...the small print if you will. I broke up this primary resource into its different articles and spread them out to different small groups. The groups were in charge of translating the language into a summarized statement that could be understood by a fourth grader.  This was a very challenging assignement due to the verbage used in such treaties, so I intervened with facilitating each small group. In the end, what students took from this was the connection with how the articles directly connected with their current history. Building this connection led them to want to know more about both sides stance on the war, and how roads led to these agreeements. They also wanted to know how the treaty has changed over time.

A large factor that I see repeated amongst wars/treaties is border and territory ownership. Control of this affects the make-up and future of a society/country. Control of a border affects demographic and economic impact, as well as, cultural impact. With missionaries comes new ways of life to a region: religion, educational values, language, etc. Through the changes brought by missionaries have come: forced leadership, descrimination, demoralization of differences, hosility and resistance. Though much good can come from learning other cultures, history has not proven that acceptance and equality are a large benefit of missionaries. Circling back to the purpose of many treaties, which is to create a peaceful relationship, I am not sure articles that follow this support the ideas of peace, for how does peace begin with inequalities, or through missionaries who are sent to teach rather than learn through the compromise of ideas. 

[Jennifer Dikes]

I have taught this treaty in the past, but have only used an excerpt from two articles of the treaty. I have never read the entire document until this workshop.

I find treaties absolutely fascinating - the language is always so formal and apparently precise, but so often can be interpreted very broadly as well.  I really enjoy watching students wrestle with the language and discover the places where very neutral sounding language can be used to state something that is completely unjust, surprising or bound to cause enormous problems later. Watching those moments of discovery in the language is always fun for me.

In sitting and reading the treaty for the first time in full, I kept asking questions as I realized how much I didn't know about China in the 19th century and in the present day. I ended up doing something that I teach students to do - make annotations on your reading to pull together your questions, answers to those questions if you have to find them from outside of the document, and notes of your observations on your reading. I will definitely show my students these annotations as a model in future.

The first question I ended up asking was why Queen Victoria is mentioned by name, and the "emperor of China" is never mentioned by name. I ended up looking up the naming systems for the Chinese emperors - I did not realize that the Chinese emperors used era names and were therefore not mentioned by name in treaties such as this but instead by era. (I know very little about Chinese imperial history - I knew that the Japanese emperors did this, but didn't realize that this was something that they got from China.)

I also did not realize how significant the East India Company is to the story of British interference/involvement in China. I have also limited understanding of how the British empire truly functioned outside of the US, so I didn't fully understand the commercial nature of this treaty. The fact that the British negotiator Pottinger is from the East India Company, and not the British government, is something that I did not realize. Nor did I realize that Indian troops were used in fighting the Opium war.

In the context of teaching this treaty in the future, it will not be useful to devote the necessary time to teaching the entire document. I will continue to use just the paragraphs I've taught before - articles two and three. But after doing so might be a good time to show them my annotations of the entire document, and to explain the connections to the broad trends in the British empire.

[Jennifer Dikes]

It is striking to me how little I learned about the history of imperialism in my education. My high school studies simply gave me terminology like imperialism for Europe's relationship with Asia and Africa in the 18th and 19th century, but no real understanding of what that really meant. My undergraduate and graduate school history education focused on other parts of the world and other time periods. It is only in the last five years while attempting to teach the history of the 19th century in a global history or IB history framework have I really started to read deeply enough to understand the pervasive impact of 18th and 19th century imperialism. 

The unequal treaties are an example of this for me - I could tell you that Britain controlled Hong Kong, and that it reverted to China in 1997. But I never stopped to think what the Chinese perspective on this fact really meant - the idea that part of the tension between Communist China and the Western world during my lifetime originated in a treaty in 1842. I can make this clearer to students by making sure they read Chinese commentary on these treaties - not just from the 19th century but from the present day. Making sure that students see China not simply as a stage for European ambitions, but as a historical actor and a nation with people who had opinions about European action is important to me.

[Jennifer Dikes]

Teaching periods where many different movements for change happen simultaneously can be very interesting but very confusing for students. I envision teaching the three major strands of late 19th century China (self strengthening, reform and revolution) over a number of classes. Giving students primary sources, like the ones that we have read for this week, will give them different perspectives to understand the varying goals of different groups.

I fully intend to modify this week's task from this class - I will use smaller excerpts of documents for the students, have students use graphic organizers like quotation charts to identify particular points in the documents that express the different perspectives of different groups on China's current problems and suggested solutions. 

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Here are pdfs of the two presentations for this session. As before, I needed to compress them so I could attach them. As before, feel free to use these with your own students, but please do not post them to the web or otherwise share them. Thanks - Clay

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Author]

Posts