[Esther Dupree]

https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/

I took a virtual tour of The British Museum.  This is such a fantastic resource.  They have a beautifully designed graphic interface where you can choose to explore one of the following:

• Art and Design
• Living and Dying
• Power and Identity
• Religion and Belief
• Trade and Conflict

Then you can choose from one of these areas of the world to explore:

• Africa
• Americas
• Asia
• Europe
• Oceania

Then you can scroll through a timeline and choose to look at specific exhibits from a specific time period.  I couldn’t have designed a better way to explore their resources.  I honestly would rather do a virtual tour than a live one because it is organized so intuitively.  I can piece things together in a coherent manner.  When I am in a museum I get overloaded and overwhelmed.  This virtual tour allows me to study items that have a cohesive geographic and thematic connection.  Each exhibit has a map showing where the item is from along with a detailed description of what it is, what it was used for and the historical context and significance of each item.  The site also shows connections of each exhibit and how it connects to other areas of the world and other time periods.  This is one of the most important things that teachers can do—show how everything connects.  I will definitely be using this virtual tour—even if only for my own learning.  But I hope to use what I have learned from this site to provide examples of architecture for my architecture lessons that I am implementing this year thanks to this course.

 

[Esther Dupree]

I chose to take this class because I have a BA in History and Asia is a huge gap in my education.  I studied colonial history and minority studies in Africa, and North and South America.  Asia is a vital part of the historical development of the world as well as an integral part of our society and economy today.  Knowing how Asia has developed and learning about core values and political trends will help me better understand how our students need to be educated about the history and current developments in Asia.  We have a huge gap in understanding because textbook writers leave them out so much.

I am so glad I was given the opportunity to participate in this course.  The speakers and professors have so much knowledge and passion for sharing what they have spent so much of their lives learning with us so that we can take it back to their classrooms.  I also love that I am taking this course with other teachers who can relate to how this course impacts my career.  Teachers know that I have to translate all this very dense information into something digestible for my student population, which varies widely among all of us in this course. 

I also am so grateful for all the resources offered by the professors and other teachers.  I am learning so much about how to find and utilize resources to explore Asia as an educator in a more meaningful way.  Also, personally, I love the film recommendations.  It’s a world I really haven’t spent any time exploring.  I hope to take the next session and continue to expand my learning about Asia.  Thank you so much for this incredible opportunity.

 

[Esther Dupree]

Thank you for the film suggestion!  I think this would be a great film to show when discussing class, aristocracy and heirarchy.  Every country has some form of class system and it would be good to make this part of a unit where you compare and contrast the different country's structures.  In my Scandanavian history class my professor taught us about a Lord who was particularly cruel and was whipping his peasants in the field one day while on his horse.  One of the peasants pulled him off the horse with his whip and all the peasants came over and stabbed him with pitchforks.  I know this is an extreme case, but it is interesting to see how power dynamics in different countries are established, maintained and challenged.  This movie would add some insight into South Korea's structure.

[Esther Dupree]

Thank you for reviewing this.  I am adding this to my list to watch soon.  I think I was aware on some level of many atrocities in China, but this course has really opened my eyes to how the world is so ready to gloss over the atrocities commited there because leaders don't want conflict and they want a strong economy.  The question always comes--what can I do to make an impact on the world and help others stand up to this kind of abuse?

Films like this help me to feel more informed, but also more helpless.  I appreciate that this course encourages us to create a long range solution of educating our students so that they can take this information as they are building the world in a shape for their generation.  The more we teach others about it, the more people can vote and act in a way that supports people who are being treated and governed so immorally.  I understand there is also the stance we need to have of, not being overly zealous and trying to put our values on someone else's culture.  But examples like these seem to be very obvious to me about what is right and what is wrong.  It's sad that our students will also have to learn this cognitive dissonance that well-informed adults have to grapple with regularly.

[Esther Dupree]

This is a great film to use because it has a lot of great conversation starters.  You can have the students compare differences between the film and the written story and the real history of China.  This would also work really well with a gender discussion.  Which attributes are considered feminine and which ones masculine?  How does this align with actual cultural values and gender representations in China?  Which representations are likely more US influenced?  I also would love for students to study the Chinese reactions to the first film when it came out.  What did people like about it/not like about it?  Did the Chinese government react to it officially?  If so, how?

What about this film helps us learn more about China?  What does this film get wrong and disrupt learning?

[Esther Dupree]

Thank you for sharing this!  Sometimes (often times!) East Asia is really left as a dark spot when we learn about world history.  Everything about the culture, geneology, values, religion geography and traditions seem to not be disseminated in traditional social science instruction.  This would be a great film for secondary students who are studying WWII.  It is really important for students to know that not just England, Germany and the US were part of that war.  Every group of people participated or was deeply affected by the events of WWII.  It would also be really useful to discuss with students the Chinese approach to human rights tragedies.  Germany has a very adamant stance against genocide and they work hard to instruct all students about the terrible things that happened leading up to and during WWII.  They have plaques on houses all over Germany showing that Jews were taken from specific homes there.  Rowanda has a museum dedicated to teach everyone about the genocide that took place there.  They want to insist every foreign visitor along with every student growing up in the country.  When a nation faces the atrocities commited under their flag, it allows younger generations to refocus the values of society to prevent such things from happening again.  I wonder how China addresses any of the many atrocities that have taken place under their flag.  It would be a great resarch unit and a way to really have students decide what is appropriate in terms of addressing human rights violations from the past.  Along with this, we can focus a light on America and compare some of the things that have gotten swept under the rug here and how we as Americans honor or ignore those who have suffered under the majority's rule.

[Esther Dupree]

Great choice!  It actually is such a great resource right now because it is about their mother with Tuberculosis and how she had to be away from their family while she was sick.  This could be something students draw conclusions about the similarities and differences between their mother's quarantine and COVID-19 quarantine.  In a regular high school class I could see having students discuss the emotional impacts on families and how these girls found a way to find beauty and joy in a time of deep anguish.  

I can also see how using it as a how plants grow lesson with kids would be so meaningful.  It would allow you to engage in TPR (Total Physical Response) techniques while teaching them all the elements of a plant life cycle.  I love your idea.

[Esther Dupree]

Thank you for sharing this resource!  My students really thrive with sentence starters.  My students love learning about geography and nature all around the world and this will be a great way of teaching them how to connect some vocabular skills while learning more about other places.  National Geographic is such an important educational resource because of the deeply meaningful images and stories behind those images.  The images we see influence our focus and our world view and how someone is represented, which helps determine who we become.  Especially in a time when we cannot travel to different places to enrich our learning, we need to find more meaningful ways of incorporating online resources.

This will be a great resource to connect learned phrases with the content of geographical features in East Asia.  The first time I planned a pretend trip with my students using AirBNB and other internet resources, one of my students freaked out because he thought he wasn't going to be able to sleep in his own bed that night.  It is difficult sometimes for me to convey to students that places exist outside of their own worlds and that we can learn about them without having to go there.  This will be another key resource in my being able to bridge the gaps for them from their community to communities and cultures and countries around the world.

[Esther Dupree]

Like you, I didn't know anything about the Uyghur human rights violations in China.  My sister and brother-in-law both lived in China and discussed the amount of oversight from the government.  She said that every neighborhood has a police department and her neighbors reported on her daily about where they went, what they ate, if they had any visitors etc.  She said she would often be asked for her passport to cross the street.  They have a culture of informing on everyone.  If they don't inform first, someone else will inform on them for not informing.  All her travels were documented and all her phone calls.

I think it would be extremely difficult to stand up to such a powerful government for citizens.  It is so sad that so few people are aware of the very blantant human rights violations amongst many people in China, including the detainment and oppression of the Uyghur people.  

This is an important topic for all Social Science teachers to cover in their classes.  There are many ways to approach it.  I would use it in teaching a Government class to compare and contrast the things that China is doing to the Uyghur people to other governments with minority populations that pose some sort of (perceived) cultural or existential threat to the majority.  I would want the students to debate on what is going to far in taking away individual rights in the name of power or safety or any other claimed reason for human rights violations.

Thank you for presenting such a personal topic and educating us on such a crucial matter.  

[Esther Dupree]

In the last reading, it goes into Japanese historical belief that 5 of the body's main organs have relationships with direction, season, element, color, spirits and sensory organs.  I think this would be an excellent art project for my students.  We could discuss what types of images they would want to use to create a piece of art assosicated with a specific organ.  I would also ask that they write a poem about their chosen organ and its assigned aspects according to this particular Japanese theory.  

I would also want to discuss with student how they think this medical approach to health affected how Japanese people who valued this correlation, lived their lives.  What did it affect?  Art? Architechture? Food? Relationships?

The mediums for art I would have students use would be a digitally created image, a painting, a diorama or 3D object craft.  We could talk about what the different aspects of the 5 organs mean to them and what they think they could be represented by in artform.

I think all civilizations have had inaccurate medical methods of assigning reasons to illness or success in life.  It is insteresting to see how this was a part of the cultural values and interacted with art, architecture and life in Japan.

[Esther Dupree]

This is a great topic to explore.  I think it could even be taken into a larger scope to compare how different cultures 'value' revenge.  Many Arabic tribes have historically had blood feuds that spanned centuries.  The legacy of Scottish Highlanders' descendents in the Ozarks has led to a violent culture of honor and revenge.  I would want to ask Professor Yamashita, "How does the history of Japanese revenge/vendettas affect the culture today?"  There seems to be high value on respect, but low incidents of violence in Japan.  How does a culture so focused on respect and honor manage offenses without using violence?    If I were using this in a classroom, I would like to compare different approaches to honor, respect and offense and revenge in a way where we study how different groups of people approach each of these things.  We would then apply what we learn in society today--how do people in American society manage all these things, honor, revenge, respect or offense?  What are positive ways of managing this and what are unhealthy ways of dealing with this?  What can we learn that are good/bad examples from Japanese history?

[Esther Dupree]

I teach a cooking club and chose to show this movie to both my cooking club students and my SPED students.  

This movie is an excellent bridge to learn more about Chinese culture by starting with such a universal topic--food.  Cooking varies with different cultures and areas of the world, so this is a great way to show students ingredients and techniques they have never seen.  

For my cooking club, I would only show them this first cooking scene and present some recipes to try that incorporate some of the techniques used in the film.  I will also invite them to research recipes to try that will incorporate ingredients or techniques we learn about from the film.  They will be compiling a vocabulary bank from the first five minutes as we work to learn the names of every type of food we see and every type of cooking used in the film.  

For my class, this film has several uses.  We also do cooking lessons in my class because we work to learn about other cultures while learning adulting skills like cooking.  I will issue a simpler version of my lesson with my cooking club.  I will have about 5-10 new vocabulary terms written down with pictures for my students.  We will pause the movie and check off each term as we see/hear it.  I will also have a simple recipe to try incorporating some of the ingredients and techniques used in the film.

The other part of the film I think that will be useful is to address our transportation unit.  We work on looking at how people all over the world get to work and school and travel around their home towns.  This is a great film as it shows the Chinese citizens driving in motorcycles and taking public transportation.  It is different from what they see in Los Angeles and we will be comparing the transportation in this film to what we have seen in other countries and add the differences and similarities to our class transportation map.

The final portion of this film I find really useful is seeing what a school in China looks like.  Like with transportation, we study the way students all over the world learn and what their schools are like.  We will compare photos with the other places on our map and we will discuss the differences between what we see at our school and what we have seen in the film and in other places we have studied.  They will write about what they think is the same and what they think is different from what we see in Los Angeles and other cities.

As far as a film recommendation, I wouldn't show the whole film in any K-12 school as it has a sex scene that I wouldn't feel comfortable having students view.  I would highly recommend the film in bits and pieces as there are so many great insights into a Chinese city, which can help students relate to life in a city across the world from them.  There are even some excellent interpersonal conflicts that would be fantastic for students to observe and write about for an ELA or Psychology class.  There is generational tension as well as conflict and contrast between the sisters' chosen paths in life.  Many of the family dynamics are universal and students will be able to relate very well to the different points of view.  A younger generation bucking trends of their parents and finding new paths for themselves while some daughters are able to discover important cultural traditions and revived them into their own lives.

This is an excellent film for personal viewing.  Even though it is a bit old, the concepts are timeless.  Chinese cooking is rich in history and tradition and this film really stands the test of time.  

[Esther Dupree]

I like your choice of values in how you would describe the Hongwu Emperor.  Could you use these examples of how to define the current values of their principal? teacher? parents?  What values do they see around them vs. what values do they want to see around them?  

[Esther Dupree]

A huge deterrent for wanting to open their borders and ports to immigrants or international businesses was laid out in the ever changing borders in Europe.  China would have wanted to maintain control over the land in their country.   Other countries also practiced imperialism and colonialism and opening up borders could put China at risk for that.  Another reason they wouldn't want it open is to avoid too much influence form other countries.  Today, North Korea keeps people out in order to maintain a strict order in their country.  There are other countries who work to preserve the integrity of their culture from outside influences as well and not in such a drastic isolationist practice.  Some benefits to opening borders is inviting economic stimulus.  Trade and business with other countries can often increase market production and improve a standard of living.  However, incoming businessmen and government do not always have the best of intentions and take advantage of the people, destroy the environment or cause political unrest.  This is a reality that exists down to every person in the world.  What influences will we allow in our lives?  How do we protect ourselves from fraud or harm?  How do we take our best skills and assets and share them with the world?  I believe East Asian countries have had every reason to historically (and currently) resist communication and trade with other countries.  It is difficult to prevent exploitation from a culture with different technology and different values and communication styles.  I think there are some beautiful examples of how countries benefit from a rich tapestry of immigration and cultural reciprocity.  Unfortunately, change is rarely avoidable.  The best approach is to probably build slow and steady interaction over time if you don't want too much changes in the status quo.  This would be a fantastic discussion for the students at my high school.  Our school was featured in a documentary where they talked about how basically 99% of our students are Hispanic/Latino and how they rarely get a chance to interact with people from other ethnic or cultural or even socioeconomic backgrounds.  The students could discuss the pros and cons to going to different schools, bringing students from other schools, or developing partnerships with students with varied populations and then compare their thoughts on how this relates to outside influences in East Asian countries.

[Esther Dupree]

This is such a relatable and discussion generating idea.  My question is, does it signify she is more important or more valued by being on a higher note value or that her son is more valued by being on a more used note value?  In Korean, does the larger note mean more status?  In other countries, would a higher or lower note denomination garner more prestige?

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