What Would They Say About Us?

An interesting idea came up in one of my classes.  One of the students made the comment that Medieval Japan seems "violent" and I asked the question what people in the future would think of our culture?

Another student raised his hand and said "People that study us in the future will see us as violent."  After discussing the violent tendencies of our society, I began to tell the students that it's hard for us to see ourselves as more or less violent because we are living at the time and seeing our society as we want to see it.

When we study cultures of the past, sometimes we highlight negative, violent characteristics but when we study our own culture, it's hard not to immediately think of the positives.  But, 500 years in the future, when new cultures are studying the United States of America (of the past), they will note the negative characteristics like violent video games, sports, movies, television, etc.  This statement, of course, got the students concerned overwhelming with the thought of the United States not existing that far into the future.  I could've frightened them ever more and named all of the cultures/societies/empires that collapse extremely horrifically in LESS than 223 years (our current age) but I decided to hold that off for another day.  :)

Just a quick post.  Now I'm going to see what Ibn Tufayl says about tabula rasa...

PS... Heading to the Poconos this weekend.  Going to give the Android Blogger a whirl and maybe I'll post over the weekend!

Snow Day!

Namaste!

There is quite nothing like having a snow day in the middle of the week (especially a week where Friday is already a day reserved for Professional Development).  With one day of teaching left in the week, I can relax tonight.

A decent size snow storm hit us during the night, plows came in, snow shovelers came by and not much is left in the way of being "snowed in".   Needless to say, Angela and I spent the day inside with Dharma.   While Ange was clearing off our cars (she volunteered!)  I decided to whip up some home fries so we could have a nice relaxing breakfast.  Add a couple eggs, a couple slices of toast and it was a delicious meal!

We finally got a chance to watch Inception (which came in the mail about a month ago!) which turned out to be an awesome movie!  (Ange is unsure if she liked it or not...)  After seeing South Park's hilarious spoof on the concept of 'Dreams within Dreams', I knew that I had to see it and I was not disappointed.  What could have just been a strange trippy Sci-Fi movie (ahem, Matrix) turned out to contain a strong storyline, a great background and heart-racing action to the end.

In addition to a movie, I was also able to finish two books!  The first was Heroes of the Valley which was lent to me by a fellow teacher (who also shares a love for Young Adult Fiction).  The plot of this book involved Twelve Viking/Norse families who were the descendants of great heroes and the events that occur when two of these families get into a conflict that fractured the laws that these ancient heroes set down many years before.  I definitely recommend this book as it was quite a page-turner even though I was hoping to see references to Norse gods, but there were none (which made me sorta sad but I still enjoyed the book).

The second, a shorter book, called Siddhartha (How strange is it that at the time of posting the cost is $6.66...wow!) by Herman Hesse (who I happen to have read a lot of his book).  Just as this title suggest, it follows the path of a brahmin's (Hindu High Priest) son as he leaves his family to follow a path to Enlightenment.  Along the way, he meets the first Buddha, finds himself to be a cheating merchant, becomes a heavy gambler, fathers a son but eventually he able to achieve the goal that he set out for himself.  I also heavily recommend this book.  It is heavily laden in the abstract ideas of existence and the pursuit of enlightenment, but it's not a hard read.

Buddhism is a topic that gets brought up many times throughout the year as I teach and I find that the students are always so interested in the ideas of the religion.  For those of you who don't know, Buddha's teachings are based first and foremost on the idea that Suffering is EVERYWHERE.  (Seems like a pretty awful way to start a religion but I encourage you to look up more about Buddhism and find out what Buddha was saying about a human's existence!)

Going to finish drinking some tea, play with Dharma a little bit and then maybe start on my next read: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan.

From the Beginning...

So I spent Thursday night after work watching LOST, which is one of my favorite past times.  I decided to throw in Season One, which is probably my favorite season.  Even with this being my 6th, or 7th time seeing these episodes, I'm still moved by the events that occur.

SPOILER ALERT:  Don't read if you plan on watching LOST and not being spoiled...



The Pilot episode (aptly named, The Pilot), begins in what is a beautiful bamboo forest, continues into a pristine beach then erupts into a chaotic, fire-engulfed plane crash where life and death are battling for the lives of the survivors.  Jack, one of my heroes, responds to the situation and takes this opportunity to show courage. (While personally, even with a medical doctorate, I'd be heading into the forest!)

As the Pilot continues, we see a multi-ethnic community coming together after a horrifying and traumatic event.  Even with all of the tension, uncertainty, and the enormous differences in their culture, these people are able to survive together.

Something that I always reflect on while teaching is this fictional situation.  As a Social Studies teacher, part of my curriculum deals with Multi-Cultural Education.  In my mind, I'm preparing my students for a LOST-esque  situation.  What if Sawyer, Sayid, Jin, Michael, etc are not slinging around ethnic slurs and arguing on the basis of their differences and began their journey on the Island in cooperation.  (A lot less drama, yes.)  But think of what they could have achieved from the beginning had they understood their differences.

More about LOST, and Teaching later...