[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. 

[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]

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]

After the first seminar session, I have a number of ideas that I want to pursue to develop future lessons for students. I will be teaching a number of units for my classes that connect to issues of demography in the region.

One of the courses that I teach is IB history of Asia. One of the themes that the IB suggests for teaching postwar Japan is to look the reasons for and the impact of Japan's 'economic miracle.' I would like to look for data to use to help students understand this period, including demographic data on births, deaths and the number and type of women workers. Students could use a series of charts to see how economic output changes over time, and the limitations of women's participation in the workforce. 

I also teach a more contemporary issues course called IB global politics. One of the themes that the IB suggests for this course is development. Teachers create case studies to teach issues around development, globalization and their impacts. China is often used as an example of a successful and recent approach to state directed development. I could develop a lesson that incorporates the demographic changes that have occurred in China over the last generation, and are projected to occur over the next 30 years. The lesson would then ask students to speculate on what impact this might have on Chinese political and social policy. I would then give students a selection of articles or excerpts from articles on China's importation of robots, increasing use of technology instead of the 'cheap labor' of the past, and ask students to explain the connections between these demographic changes and development policy.

[Jennifer Dikes]

I found the letter from the Qianlong emperor to George III absolutely fascinating. I have previously studied some (and taught) the "opening" of Japan to the US, but have never looked at the exact process of Europe forcing China into more open trade. In the past, my students have started with the assumption that all communication and trade is positive - how could it be bad to talk to people? I can imagine that the British had a hard time comprehending the level of contempt expressed in this letter. While the American Revolution had not exactly turned out as expected, the British certainly expected that all governments would welcome both their money and their interference. Showing students that there was a government both powerful enough and culturally self aware enough to hold themselves above the British at this time would be important for them to see.

I personally struggle with teaching students to see the desire for this trade and control as mperialism. Students are used to understanding an empire as territorial. They understand taking control of Hong Kong or Macao as creating an empire; it has been harder to explain that being forced to open trade is part of the same process.

The letter of the Qianlong emperor would be helpful in making this clearly - he clearly sees and understands China as the center of power and understands how the British would interfere with that power. Using the GDP data from 1800 would also emphasize this point - China was 33% of the world's GDP and it made sense for the emperor to make decisions to protect that.

This would also be useful for connecting to the present day and the current tensions over trade between China and the US.

[Jennifer Dikes]

I teach an International Baccalaureate global politics class, and one of the major themes of the course is understanding the origins of conflict, and to look at the ways that nations, regions and the international community manage conflict. While my 11th and 12th grade students already understand in abstract that nations fight over resources, they don't really know how to apply that general understanding that they've learned in previous history classes to understanding the present day. The example mentioned in the lecture of the dam built by North Korea that has been used to flood South Korea is something I was not aware of. My students study North Korea and its attempts to use its nuclear weapons as a way to increase their power, influence and access to trade and other support to bolster their economy. I could certaintly incorporate this example of using the most basic resource of water and water management as a part of its larger attempt to leverage what little it has over South Korea.

Students in my IB classes also must complete three research projects over 2 years. Two of those research projects must focus around big global challenges and analyze the ways that state and non-state actors may attempt to address (or ignore) these challenges. One of these is the environment. I could encourage students to look into water management in China or Japan as examples of the way that the state may support one set of goals for water management which may or may not be supported by non-state actors and individuals that are impacted. The building of the Three Gorges Dam comes to mind as an example I could suggest to my students, as well as the role of water in the tensions between India and China over Kashmir.

[Jennifer Dikes]

Hi! My name is Jennifer Dikes, and I teach in New York City. This is my 16th year of teaching, all of it in New York City public schools. I teach International Baccalaureate history, global politics and theory of knowledge to 11th and 12th grade students. I will be working completely online for the foreseeable future though my district is planning to have hybrid instruction (though that hasn't started yet). During quarantine, I've been taking classes (like this one) and watching webinars that I would not have had access to in the pre-covid world. 

In the pre-covid world I spent a lot of time in movie theaters and working out in group settings. In our new world, I'm spending a lot of time in the nearest (mostly empty) botanical garden and exploring my area in long walks.

I'm really excited to join this class.

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