Message from jbaybo

[Anonymous]

After much reflection regarding Professor Patelko’s lecture and my own studies of European history, there were various connections that came to mind. A couple of these connections were the different post war destruction and recovery conditions between post-World War I-II and WWII Germany and post-World War II Japan. Both nations suffered considerable death and destruction due to the fire bombings such as the bombing of Dresden and Berlin and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The economic and structural recovery for Germany and Japan were similarly begun through enormous amounts of loan monies made available from the American banking system. Plus, both countries experienced a walk of shame for different reasons: Germany was blamed for the cause of World War I and was blamed by the European community thereby forcing the Germans to pay huge reparations. Whereas, the Japanese were blamed by the United States for causing the US to enter the war and the Japanese were ashamed of their defeat in World War II along with the illnesses that were a visual reminder of their defeat due to the atomic weapons used upon Japan. Both Germany’s government in post-WWII and Japan’s government in post-WWII goals toward recovery focused upon national recovery not nationalist ideals. Threads of connections and similarities seem to jump out at me during these past two weeks.

There are so many other interesting connections, however that would turn this into a book and for the sake of brevity the other similarities will not be discussed, but I do want to note that now I have more ways to include Asian history by having my students look for connections between countries. Also, the California Standards Testing (CST) does include Asia, but the bulk of the questions focus on Europe and era of the Cold War. Thereby, a lot of emphasis is placed upon these areas just mentioned; so we teach those areas mostly. Now I understand how I can give my students a more complete guide to learning about history. Plus, this is a great strategy to get my students to THINK, not just regurgitate the text book or standards. [Edit by="jbaybo on Aug 5, 8:03:07 AM"]The last sentence in the first paragraph needed distinction between which wars.[/Edit]
[Edit by="jbaybo on Aug 5, 8:17:58 AM"][/Edit]