Final Essay

Taking the class on East Asia has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my year thus far. My understanding of contemporary East Asian history had been limited to information I picked up while studying the history of Western cultures and countries. East Asia has risen quite dramatically since the early to mid 90’s, when I was in high school and college. Today, a strong understanding of East Asian history seems imperative to those who desire a more well rounded worldview. I am happy to have developed a better understanding of this region of the world, and I look forward to sharing my knowledge with my students.
There are many ways in which I plan to use all that I have learned from my time in this seminar. The standards for the 7th grade social studies curriculum include units on both Medieval China and Japan. Many of my students leave these units wondering how both stories unfolded. In the past, I have told them that they will have to wait until 10th grade social studies to find out. Now that I have gained so much knowledge on these two cultures, the students won’t have to wait until high school, they can find out now.
We conclude the China unit in my class with the decline of the Ming Dynasty, and China once again closing its doors to foreigners. I explain to the students that China’s foreign policy would come back to hurt them, as the rest of the world began to modernize in the 19th century, while China remained stuck behind its metaphorical walls. My hope is that I can now spend a day talking about the dynasty that came after the Ming, the Qing; and then spend another lesson discussing what happened during China’s “Century of Humiliation.”
Similarly, the Japan unit ends with the decline of Japanese feudal society, but does not discuss how it went away and what replaced it. My hope is to create a lesson through power point on the Meiji Restoration to show the students. I am also interested in showing the film “Twilight Samurai,” which gives a very authentic portrayal of Japanese feudal life.
In conclusion, I wanted to once again say that taking this class has been very satisfying. I am excited about the prospect of bringing new content to my classroom, and I am looking forward to furthering my understanding of East Asia by taking the other East Asia class offered by the institute.