Final Reflection

[Anonymous]

It's great that you have the fascination with Asia and that you want to share that with your students!

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Since I did not have a formal background in Asian history, this seminar has been incredibly helpful for me. Although I spent years living and traveling in Asia, my understanding of the history and culture has many gaps. Some of the most glaring holes have now been filled in, but the overall feeling I had at the end of the seminar was that I wanted to learn more.

It was invaluable to have the opportunity to study Asia under the tutelage of experts in their fields. The lectures were interesting and stimulating -- even at the end of a long work day, I wanted to stay even longer. In addition, the sessions were particularly relevant since they were targeted to us with the understanding that we would be re-teaching the material to our own students. I work with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who live in a very sheltered environment and have had little to no exposure to other cultures. For them, the images we saw and studied will be useful in terms of helping them visualize this "foreign" world. My 7th and 8th grade classes regularly look at and analyze political cartoons in the New York Times-produced Upfront magazine, so we can easily incorporate some of the caricatures and political cartoons into our pre-existing unit.

The areas of the seminar that will be the most relevant are those lessons covering pre-1900 history. The information on the history of feudal Japan helped fill in some glaring holes in my own background. Since I did not understand this era well, I have had a tendency to go through it as quickly as possible. Now, I will be able to broaden my unit, though I still need to do quite a bit of research on my own. My students will love the idea of the ritualized vendettas. I will also be able to expand my unit on the Chinese philosophies. We have traditionally looked at the basic beliefs, but I hope to incorporate the idea of the class debate between representatives of each of them.

The Middle School curriculum technically does not go past this point in time (1900). That said, the students often have questions about more modern history, particularly as it relates to current events or articles in our news magazine. Having greater knowledge of modern Asia will help me to be a better teacher -- I will be able to respond to more of those questions directly rather than having to tell the students, "I'll look that up." Beyond that, taking part in this type of seminar helps me to model the idea of life-long learning. I regularly talk to my students about the various classes I take and tell them about my own homework assignments. They always seem amazed that an adult is still in school for fun. I also am under strict orders to bring them presents if I am able to travel to Asia over the summer.

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