ancient tradition

[Anonymous]

I have discussed this very issue in my classroom, however, I have yet to have a critical conversation with my students about the importance of tradition amongst past cultures because they are "21st century learners" who think that most of the traditions of the past are ridiculous. When reading "Things Fall Apart" or "Siddhartha", my students have no connection to the culture or the traditions due to the lack of commonality. I need a better way to show that their traditions, though different, are still important in the context of the particular culture and time period of the people that we are reading about.

[Anonymous]

Teaching history I often go through thought to see how I can relate a tradition or political practice that a leader or politician may have carried out that doesn't make sense to us or to my students who live in a democracy that does its best to protect its citizens rights. It is an objective that I strive for each year and never really hit the mark, that students will understand that all the historical problems that we study such as totalitarianism, harsh dictators, revolutions are not just solved, they are continuing problems. The Hunger Games book and movie helped me to bridge the gap this year. In referring to the movie, they could see and relate to the control and censorship in which The Capitol went through to control the population. Students were even given an optional assignment to compare and contrast totalitarian/fascist tactics used by dictators in the 1930s and tactics that were used by the government of Panem.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Great timely article in the LA Times today about a few remaining elderly women in China, "in China, foot binding slowly slips into history". The article not only connects with our past lecture topic, but it gives my students reading Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" an example of a tradition that doesn't make sense to us, was painful, and yet still had complete acceptance at one time. Only in the small towns in the country do some women in their 70's have the feet from the binding era. The Cultural Revolution 1949 put an end to the practice. They estimate there are 30 of these women still around. [font=Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif]"In ancient China, men preferred women with small feet, and in a male-dominated society where the best a woman could do was marry well, the reality was that what men wanted, men got," the article says.[/font] It was a painful tradition that no one objected to. Just like the town in the story "The Lottery" where they annually stone one member, because it is a tradition.
edited by egoebel on 4/16/2012

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