Sam Yamashida Day 2

I actually have Liz Dalby's book GEISHA. Even though my daughter told me it was Ms. Dalby's her PHD research, I somehow doubted it. . No matter what the "morals" of a geisha might or might not be, the work is still to give men a fantasy world for a short period of time. It is interesting that Japanese men like to have a woman be cultured but still subservient. There are photos in the book. Very instructive. Dr. Yamashita was one of those teachers who is so good you get interested and don't realize you are learning. His history questions and the way he organized the material into first act, etc. made it easy to understand and human. I was especially struck by how he kept reminding us we are looking back thorough the filter of time and things were always very complicated. i have never heard anyone even mention the Japanese Army in China as a large contributing factor to WWII.

OK, this will look like a copy of Anita's second posting but it really isn't! I was using her laptop to post and forgot to sign her out and me in...so here it is again -
Today I wrote down the books that Sam recommended and plan on looking up several of them. My favorite is the book that he wrote, "Diaries from WWII Japan" because I love to learn history from the people who lived it. I plan on using journals with my 4th graders in language arts and will show them this book so they can see how children in Japan during WWII wrote about their experiences, and that they ended up in a book. Suzanne Lopez

I loved how Samuel mentioned Foreign Min. Matsueka Yosuke went to the University of Oregon...

Echoing other posts, not only did the content of Professor Yamashita's bring more understanding about Japan but also his teaching methodologies were enlightening. What really stuck with me was his reflection on how an ideology, presenting in a textbook or propogated by a government, is "consumed" by the population. With his work, Professor Yamashita figured out how the population took in an idea through reading their diaries. There are other ways to collect this information (interviews, music, political cartoons). The trick would be to figure out how censored this material would be or how to read between the lines in the case of censorship.

I think this is a powerful lesson for our students. We would really teach them to "read" and understand history.

Before Professor Yamashita's lecture, I always thought the answer of "why Japan attack Pearl Harbor?"was simply because the United States stopped exports of oil and steel to Japan, so Japan was mad and tried to destroy the United States Pacific Fleet based on Pearl Harbor. Also, in that way U. S. could not stop their conquest of south and east Asia. I like Professor Yamashita's approaches of using four levels of analysis. From the angels of constitutional, diplomatic, foreign policy dicision making, and geopolitical, it truly expand my thinking. Thanks, Professor Yamashida.

Hello all,

I think one of the greatest things about this seminar for me is experiencing the teaching styles of Clay and the other Professors. I appreciate the thoughtful approach of the older (sorry) instructors. The way they blend their own personal life experiences, people they have met, places they have been reminded me of why I really love teaching. The older I get, the more I can draw from to bring to my classroom.

To hook students on history, I think you have to have the side tracks, the stories of travels, interesting real experiences and I am grateful for this opportunity to extend my learning in this way. I'm sure everyone knows people from different cultural backgrounds. Thinking of the major civilizations, I can identify 1 Chinese man (surgeon), many Japanese (all professionals), A Nigerian professor I talked at length with at APU, many Spanish (my students included) whose family stories and experiences I could bring into the classroom. Speaking specifically about Asia, there are many Korean Churches, Chinese schools and of course the Chamber of Commerce that could provided opportunities for an interview, or perhaps guest lecturers for the classroom. How about inviting the local Tai kwando or Kung Fu dojo master to speak to the students? They are definitely up on the history of their craft and its origins.

Being here at USC also gave me another idea- a "Heritage Hall". I'm thinking about a wall, that held essays on family histories. It would take years to get a wall of great ones but It would be a good project to get students thinking about their own "historical thread". At my school many of my students consider themselves "Mexican". Now there were many distinctions made by the Spanish when they arrived in the "New World"- Spaniard (born in Spain), Spanish (born in the Americas), Creole, Mestizo, Mullato, indian etc. Although Americans are averse to "class distinctions", I would have to say in my own humble opinion, for most cultures it is something that is still close to their herts (we have been finding that out in great detail about China and Japan). I think the "hyphenated Americans" of today, speak of the issue in a backdoor kind of way. "I'm proud to be a Japanese-American", but the knowledge of what that means may extends only back 60 years ( or what they learned in school). Michelle Obama got into hot water by saying she was never proud of this country until her husband was elected. I think she was speaking more in terms of world history, and the respect for the African culture, history and peoples and not just of the United States in general.

Anyway, my point, when talking to younger students about history, I'm going to make it a point to stress "don't be in a rush to be judgemental" when looking at the facts. As Clay has brilliantly expounded, its a mess. "It's not one thing after another, it's everything happening at once". By looking at societies in terms of the key interests of a group, i.e. wanting equality, or wanting progress, or wanting economic growth, one can better visualize why certain practices were acceptable or not. By judging the older cultures by today's modern standards we not only fail to feel the empathy with the past, but never quite get a handle on the actions of those nations today.

The textbooks are full of facts. It's our job to help our students see the bigger story, the hidden pictures that are behind them. I wish you all the best in your projects and in success touching the lives of your students in the coming years.

Just a thought. Thanks for listening.

Jon

Fellow Colleagues, In a small minded nationalistic mindset believed up until a day in the second week of August in the year 2010 that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was based on "You
Imperialistic Yankee Dog" dogma & our response was a biblical reference eye for and eye...a tooth for a tooth ..a Mao button for a.......I thought Dr. Yamashida's prelude to war lecture was sheer genius. I liked his comments a great deal when he stated "that looking at war or any other historical event through the lens of time passed is so much different if you were there and experienced it." Historically this comes to light when the victor's often write the history. Three of the most important words he spoke simply "WAR IS COMPLICATED" At some level I guess I always believed that but never really thought about...he forced me to.
I found the opening quote of his tome based on the diaries of numerous Japanese to be very powerful: "In this autumn of emergencies when life or death of the state is at issue the weak have become food for the strong" Tamuri Tsunejino November 11,1944. Those few words enough for me to purchase the book. Ironically in this book he acknowledges Liza Dalby
( Diary Of A Geisha ) for "informed advice on Kimono terminology" based on her knowledge as a fashionista of Japanese dress. She has written a book on this as well.
I talked to my father who is in the 86-year-old veteran of World War II regarding his time and place when the announcement of Japan's surrender took place. My father was in the invasion of Normandy and states that some of his fondest memories of the war were when he transported German POWs back to the United States. My father who is a third-generation American spoke some form of low German and was able to communicate with them. He would often say"we are at war because we think differently?" In August of 45 he was training in the Chesapeake River Basin, preparing for Task Force 58 that was headed to the far east..when there was an announcement on the deck that Japan had surrendered. He said there was a lot of hootin and hollering. Instead of heading into war he found himself on the St. Lawrence Seaway headed to Sandusky, Ohio. I may have preferred a sail into Shanghai!!! When I asked him what him and his fellow soldiers thought about the Japanese military... he said they were considered brutal and barbaric. (as if we were not)On a more positive note he told me 15 years ago I was right about Vietnam. Dr. Yamasida was right: WAR IS COMPLICATED!
Remember,T.W.C. ( Together We Can ) Do Anything!
Rand