Hearing what the others had chosen for their proposed lesson plans was insightful and valuable. I liked that we could share with each other, and it did force us to have formulated the beginnings of our lesson plans. It was a very comfortable setting.
As far as the history of Japan, we covered a great deal of information. Some things I found interesting were these:
• Warriors had an appreciation for cherry blossoms.
• Samurai did many unchivalrous acts.
• "Defend, defend. Don't think of your life as your own." This thinking was instilled in WWII Japanese soldiers, some who surrendered 30 years after the war ended!
• There were female samurai.
• Hideyoshi's strict class system allowed only samurai to have swords.
• If you pull out your sword, you must kill someone.
• Osaka Castle was huge!
• Some daimyo became Christians, and then Christianity was banned from the 1620s to the 19th century.
• Saikoku - Japan went into a lock-down mode and was a closed country, except it was open to the Dutch for commerce purposes.
• The Alternate Attendance System was a form of controlling the daimyo. Half the time they lived in Edo, and the other half they could go home, but their wife and son were basically kept as hostages.
• Because samurai traveled to Edo, it stimulated the economy. Spending more than half of your income meant you could not be building up armies. It was very non-threatening to the Tokugawa shogun.
• Kabuki used to have women, but drunk samurai forced performers to be all male. Samurai were not allowed to bring in their swords.
• The Americans and Commodore Perry were very demanding of the Japanese, giving them one year to open their borders.
• Many samurai became teachers.
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