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Chris HertzogFinal Essay
Contemporary China Spring 2019
Chris Hertzog
This has been a great class to support my classes as a High School teacher of World History AP. I have saved most every article we have had in each session and can use them as well as the videos that have been provided on each topic.
In teaching the World History AP curriculum, I have always tried to blend the past with the present in each unit as the AP exam heavily weights the April exams on modern era topics, though always with the assumption that the student has a firm grasp on the history of a region and the past while they explain or discuss the present. In fact, one of the essays styles involves a prompt called ‘continuity and change over time’ where the student needs to compare and contrast a topic, event or a social, political, interactive, cultural or economic event, trend or system over a period of time and connect what happened then to what is going in the present. Then the student is to explain the nuanced changes and that have occured in this topic, while at the same time acknowledging the subtle or not so subtle ways in which these areas have remained the same.
Some examples of this kind of essay or discussion could related to Chinese leadership styles, Confucian attitudes towards family and culture, economic structures and policy or military policy and always in relation to foreign and domestic policies.
This class, the discussions and the materials we received are perfect for what I described above and for what I like to do in class. For example, I may be covering the Song or Ming dynasties and their foreign trade policy and in doing so losing my student’s interests by the moment, but by bringing in a contemporary essay on Xi Jinping and his current economic or military plans, such as the South China Islands or the New Silk Road, these are areas that peak student interest because it is in the news, but they also can quickly see how the past is so identifully connected to the present.
I intend to use some of the USC lectures on these subject areas from the postings on YouTube but also the short news clips in class. Most of the time I will quick edit some of them for time and then show them in class.
The articles provided I can do the same. Sometimes I will edit them for length and this is possible by using google docs, even for pdfs. You can import a pdf into a google classroom and edit it and export it for students to read in Google classroom or in print form.
Either way, this class has provided me a wealth of materials to supplement my curriculum. The only main problem I see is finding the time to work through all the material that I have gotten from each of the sessions we have had. Great trove of gems to use and very current. Thank you!
Chris HertzogFinal Essay
Contemporary China Spring 2019
Chris Hertzog
This has been a great class to support my classes as a High School teacher of World History AP. I have saved most every article we have had in each session and can use them as well as the videos that have been provided on each topic.
In teaching the World History AP curriculum, I have always tried to blend the past with the present in each unit as the AP exam heavily weights the April exams on modern era topics, though always with the assumption that the student has a firm grasp on the history of a region and the past while they explain or discuss the present. In fact, one of the essays styles involves a prompt called ‘continuity and change over time’ where the student needs to compare and contrast a topic, event or a social, political, interactive, cultural or economic event, trend or system over a period of time and connect what happened then to what is going in the present. Then the student is to explain the nuanced changes and that have occured in this topic, while at the same time acknowledging the subtle or not so subtle ways in which these areas have remained the same.
Some examples of this kind of essay or discussion could related to Chinese leadership styles, Confucian attitudes towards family and culture, economic structures and policy or military policy and always in relation to foreign and domestic policies.
This class, the discussions and the materials we received are perfect for what I described above and for what I like to do in class. For example, I may be covering the Song or Ming dynasties and their foreign trade policy and in doing so losing my student’s interests by the moment, but by bringing in a contemporary essay on Xi Jinping and his current economic or military plans, such as the South China Islands or the New Silk Road, these are areas that peak student interest because it is in the news, but they also can quickly see how the past is so identifully connected to the present.
I intend to use some of the USC lectures on these subject areas from the postings on YouTube but also the short news clips in class. Most of the time I will quick edit some of them for time and then show them in class.
The articles provided I can do the same. Sometimes I will edit them for length and this is possible by using google docs, even for pdfs. You can import a pdf into a google classroom and edit it and export it for students to read in Google classroom or in print form.
Either way, this class has provided me a wealth of materials to supplement my curriculum. The only main problem I see is finding the time to work through all the material that I have gotten from each of the sessions we have had. Great trove of gems to use and very current. Thank you!
Chris HertzogPhillip makes some great points on the Kurt/Ely analysis in regards to using this with elementary students, which would be useful for any High School classrooms. Asking students to critically look at the narrative we commonly say or hear that the U.S. drives Chinese policy and economics and that we are still trying to believe that this is what happens.
It does raise some good discussion topics on how we can bring this conversation to post WW2 Japan and Germany and ask how much or how little did the U.S. influence those countries directly or did each, like China make more of their own decisions for the good of their own countries because they have their own goals, successes and drive to be who they are and chose who they want to be based on their own directions.
I think students today are well aware of the products they use and that they are most often coming from China but that they are not fully aware of how much of this is Chinese decisions or U.S. influence. I think many of my students are aware of some of the intentions of countries trying to influence other countries and the debates or the rhetoric being expressed by leaders. I think it is a great time to make them aware of this debate and ask students to look who they think they is driving who or is China just doing things that make things better in China and that is what they have always done.
Chris HertzogI think this weeks readings and lectures can give us many questions to give to our students, the main one being, "What does the next China look like?"
Of course this is a leading question, and one that seemingly can offer endless discussions or student repsonses. The article comparing the U.S. and China in regards to their interactions and business ventures in and with Africa , "The United States and China in Africa: What does the data say?" is a great example of areas that students today would definitely be surprised with and interested in seeing how China and the U.S. compare really in imports and exports, but also in realtion to Africa and the connections both nations have with a growing economic sphere.
The other area is with the China Belt road; "The Belt and Road: Security Dimensions". The real questions to ask students after reading this article is why? and how? The jury is still out if this is going to work or be a successful venture for China, but they are doing it anyways. Perhaps it is more of the fact that it is going to help the nations it goes across more than it helps China. Maybe that is the point. We tend to see articles and news reports on China that lean towards them doing everything only for China, but maybe we all do that if we are honest, but at the same time China could be doing some global work and positioning like a Marshall Plan, that benefits both. That laying out large amounts of capital and effort to build lasting relationships and infrustructure is a good thing, for China and those China would like to work with, and as some have pointed out in this weeks readings, China will work with or help those who do not necessarilly 100% agree with their agenda idealogies or policies like the the U.S. did with the Marshall Plan in the post ww2 Cold War era.
Chris HertzogGreat article to also get the students thinking about who this player is in Chinese culture, history and current politics. Students today are always curious about if history or even current events are driven by large currents or societal movements or do individuals such as Xi Jinping make a difference? Do world history players like Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhem II make a difference as individuals based on individual decsions or choices? Are these people who make personal decisions on unilateral basis and just go with their intuitions?
It seems like Xi Jingping is not willing to show all of his cards on this one. Is he acting in line with the "party" or is he going on his own? Or is he leading the party with his own personal agenda with them moving along with.
Interestingly, NPR had an article this afternoon on Xi's visit to Europe appearently to talk with individual leaders to make certain individual agreements. It reaveal China's ambitions into the world and the world's ambitions into and towards China. Who is driving who here? But in this visit, the EU leadership seems to make it clear that they are a unified system and not just individual coutnries, especially as it comes to the Belt and Road project. However, at the same time they want to work in and with China.
But it still comes down to people not really knowing what Xi Jinping is going to do next and how will he react or move next? He does not fit into normal paradigms and in each move he makes people wonder. Of course the human rights issues in China seem to not change much, but other issues, especially related to finance and business ventures, there are many continual surprises.
Chris HertzogChris Hertzog
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47615966
Here is the article from the BBC on the insta-goth movement over a woman asked to leave a train due to her makeup.
Definitely something to grab teens in our culture on the power and speed of social media. Certainly this could be a great way to look at social media intensity in both a closed country like China vs a more open country like the U.S. in regards to access and use of social media.
What is also interesting or a curiosity for our students could be at looking at something like the Goth movement and asking where it came from in China or is it something coming from outside China. Is it a Japanese or American cultural push or movement, or is it a latent or delayed connection to the 80s or a retro movement going on?
I suspect my students would have a better idea on how to answer these questions than I do!
Chris HertzogThe material from this week is really terrific as Margaret states in her post above. The pollution, deaths, ground water pollution and the air quality is really, really unbelievable. They of course have come an incredible distance when it has come to industrialization and growth, but at such a human cost and environmental cost.
And it at least appears that the Chinese system or the government has decided to clean up and so it goes. It will be facinating to watch to see if they really can shift the direction to economic and industrial growth while at the same time moving to hydropower and solar. It sure seems if anyone can make that change, it would be China in the phase they are in. Certainly, they cannot sustain the growth they are having with the pollution that is killing so many people.
Great articles for this topic this week to use in class. Here also is an NPR article I mentioned last week on electric cars.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700873537/the-increasing-demand-for-electric-cars
Chris HertzogI will definitely be using this article, or at least the charts comparing the 1980s generation compared to the post 1980s generations see themselves, the world and life. This is a terrific article to have students look at the generational diferences in China from the pre 80s to the post 80s and then compare what has happened in the same generations in the United States and/or what has happened in Europe during the same time period.
Those categories are eerily universally similar in nature to what was going on in the States and Western Europe in that time period. Perhaps the numbers are a bit different, but those questions and categories are definitely applicable to all three regions. Relations to friends, influence of Japanese Anime, usage of the internet, fastfood eating habits, attention to appearance and cooperation with others levels are all things that can be investigated not only in China during the same time period but also in the U.S. and Europe.
However, in addtion to all of that, kids today would probably have even more to say on those same attitudes. How does this current generation here in the California see these topics? And how do the students today see these numbers in comparison to how they live now. I think this would be a great introduction or attention grabber to start a period of class or discussion.
Chris HertzogVery helpful and thought provoking discussion tonight in the seminar on bringing up all the different angles and aspects on teaching on China... or anywhere for that matter. But ya with China, how do we in such limited class time, teach on such a massive country with so much cultural history, languages, regions and diverse economic and financial situations.
When teaching on any part of the world outside of someone's home culture, I always start my classes with the saying, "It might be different, but that does not make it wrong." I have found that lowers some of the walls and especially for those in my classes that may be from that culture we are talking about and they have something to add or something to correct and explain. Breaking down stereotypes seems to be the first task and then trying to get at the info.
I try not to shock and awe too much, but often those short attention grabbers can reel in students and get their interest going. I have really appreciated both USC-China courses I have had for that reason. I have grabbed so many articles, vid clips and anectdotes to use in class, which has made the task of prepping and covering such an amazing country and society much, much more fun to do.
Chris HertzogThere is so much to comment on the matierial and topic of the article "Children of Great Development." What industrialization and commercialization is doing to the children throughout the rural regions and then to those who make it to the cities and urban centers and still are left to fend for themselves. It harkens back to the industrialization of the United States, places like the Tennessee River Valley or in England in places like Manchester or London and not just with child labor but the abandonement, lack of education and the continual cycles of systemic poverty.
Thereare so many areas to connect this article into World History lessons. Also, there is a good connection to the world wide reaction to the children migrants in the Syrian War crisis, but little to no reaction to this situation in China. The numbers are staggering. It raises questions of how China will be able to keep up with this issue and why there is such an income gap, which seems to be continuing to grow.
Chris HertzogBrett makes some good points and great ideas for using these articles and topics in the class. I agree the the Tiananmen Square protests do get a lot of coverage in 10th grade world history class. There is much out there on these events, for good reason.
With our material this week it has caused me to think about where else I can bring in material to other topics related. Music for certain and how that has been an uncontrolable force in China, or say the internet, or those VHS movie houses. This is directly tied to pop culture movements, but what about the vehicle in these to carry ideas of intellect, politics and/or religion. It seems that ideas are coming at China, like all parts of the world, at lightning speeds and that when you embrace economic reforms all the rest will eventually come with it. Even Chinese workers simply learning English to read an instruction manual or pamphelet to a "western" product and learning something new. This of course is not even touching the video game issues and the psychological affects or messages contained in those. Warcraft? That has some metaphors.
Chris HertzogGreat week for many ideas on how to connect U.S. High School students to trends and movements in China! It is really something how modern China has mixed the internet, commerce, communication and capitalism in the biggest communist country in the world. Definitely breaks some stereotypes. But that is good for getting students interested and hooked into a lesson. Obviously I am simplifying a lot of material here from this week, but there are literally hundreds of attention grabbers here. In AP World, the course often highlights syncretism in culture, music, religion, technology or whatever else. Old to new or horizontal ideas that seemingly are popping up all over China.
The Falun Gong movement was really the most fascinating in that it is a relgious movemtn combining much of Chinese past belief systems as well as using some new ways of communications to shock and scare the authorities into suppressing it, even though it appears to be just a peaceful movement... now conveniently labled a cult. How often is this in history, a group that challenges the system by peacful means and becomes labeled as subversive and dangerous.
That probably could be argued about the Wham concerts and passing around of cassette tapes in the 80s, but now there is the internet with full surveillance, and yet people are communicating, organizing and creating, all in under a pretty repressive regime. I'm sure the camps that Falun Gong members were sent to were horrific. It is crazy that the communist party with is some 90 million strong can have that much influence and control with so many groups that outnumber them all over the country. I guess we shall see how many Tiananmen like demonstrations China will have, or if the future will involve technology in a way that even Falun Gong movement will seem simplistic.
Chris HertzogAlong with the changing economic shifts and the focus on pollution and green solutions, I was notiicing how many of our articles and subjects this week are on the rising middle class. I think students would latch on to the issues of the green movement in China, as it seems to be happening on a global level, and they would be curious how it would help the Chinese economy as it would here in the States. Our students today are quite aware of the world around them and quite conscious of environmental issues, so the interest would be there to see why China has the same concerns. Also, I would ask my students why or how this is all connected to a rising middle class in China. Why (or why not )are they so concernced with the green movement. How is this rising middle class changing China? Is this growing consumer group aware of what their consumption is doing to their own lands and waters? It seems this highly educated Chinese consumer group is growing, wealthier than ever before, able to gain access to goods as never before and are conscious of the world around them as never before. Even with the so-called SOE's, Chinese are becoming more in tune with the world outside of their borders. This is always the edge for any group or nation concerned about keeping control of certain information and still wanting people to move ahead and push the bondaries on technology, research and development and entrepenurial creativity. How far does Deng Xiaoping's saying go... and I'm paraphrasing here... "Who cares if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches a mouse."
Chris HertzogOne more great article to use from this session. The Reuters story on pork consumption and trends in China is great for linking a lot of world history curriculum.
Wow, so obesitiy is an issue in China too? Of course there is a real concern about real famine there as well. Both coexisting. That would be a good class discussion on its own.
However, it seems that pork consumption is seen as not a good thing any longer in many Chinese diets. In my classes we talk a lot about the Columbian Exchange, the industrialization of food, the growth of cities and populations and how the world diet has become, well, the world diet. Food is available from all over anywhere now, but of course pork does have a long history in China. Most food historians put the domestication of pigs somewhere in the region Afro-Eurasia. But definitely it has been a long staple of the Chinese diet and some historians and chemists argue that is where the gunpowder development originated as well... pig waste (poop +pee) is sulphur and nitrates after all. But the animal does breed quickly and will eat a vareity of products to get larger.
However, now the Chinese are more interested in lamb and beef and leaner meats, they are concerned about the health risks of a pork diet. Also, there is a growing concern about hormones and pig raising conditions, even from the pork that imported from the U.S.
But what I think students would find so interesting and relatable to them is the issue of health, obesity and growth hormones found in meat is as much a Chinese concern as it is a U.S. concern. Chinese are eating less meat as a whole, wanting healthier options for meat products and desiring more vegetables be available as alternatives. The growing middle class (urban white-collar workers) is what the article sites for much of this change, but it is not much different than any urbanized and industrialized land. If we have the resources why cant we have good things to eat. This is definitely an issue we are struggling with here in the States as well.
