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I enjoyed being exposed to a vast amount of the culture and history of East Asia in this class. I had little to no exposure to Asian history throughout my entire formal education, K-12. Although there is very little in the standards that I currently teach to my third grade students, I feel much more empowered to create opportunities for my students to learn about East Asia and its continued importance in their lives. It seems that there are so many relevant ways to “rethink” our history texts and, perhaps more importantly, through what lenses they are written.
Clayton is enormously entertaining – a brilliant storyteller, and I enjoyed his unique and passionate presentations. The most helpful ideas for me, overall, were the themes that were repeated over and over. The idea of growth vs. development, how many countries, China in particular, go through periods of being “open” or “closed”, and the serendipitous nature of history itself and how it is told and remembered.
I will use what I have learned in my classroom to open up conversations about these themes, since they apply universally. I will incorporate a number of arts and culture themes into a year-long exploration of “identity” in my classroom. I am excited about a tea ceremony that I have planned, complete with introductory geography, historical timelines, the arts of calligraphy and origami, and special foods (an adventure in and of itself for most finicky third-grade eaters).
Thanks very much for the opportunity- a seed that has already sprouted in my classroom!
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