The 'Coca-Cola' of China

Wahaha--the organization that is hosting this summer program and built the beautiful school that I am teaching in--is basically the China equivalent of Coca-Cola Industries.  In other words, we are teaching in phenomenal facilities!

 I have a smartboard and air conditioning...and two students!  Yes, two!  It turns out that while this is indeed a fantastic program and the grounds are quite lovely, the school is still rather young and thus, there were only 14 students who applied to this session.  So, we have 8 teachers and 14 kids.  I'm with two high school students--a boy and a girl.  Their english is pretty solid and they seem to be keeping up with the material, but I've had to slow. way. down.  Good practice for someone who generally speaks a mile a minute!  Yesterday we began our first lesson with a discussion about the role that perspective plays in historical interpretation and why a good historian will look at a variety of perspectives to understand an event.  'But what if some perspectives are left out?', Jamie asked?  What a fantastic question, right?  So, in keeping with her question, I thought it might be cool to look at two groups in America whose perspectives were largely ignored, but who made significant contributions to the development of the United States-- Native Americans and African Americans. The goal will be to think about the role that history plays in shaping one's identity even if his or her people's perspectives are overlooked.

Today, we talked about Columbus' discovery of America and his treatment of the Taino people. We read aloud excerpts from his diary and asked ourselves, 'Who is his intended audience?' and 'What is HIS perspective of the peoples whom he encountered? We looked at what he said, but also what he didn't say and tried to make sense of why that might be.  We then asked, 'How might the Taino have interpreted this very same event?' From there, we delved into an overview of the impact of the meeting of these two cultures--the Spanish and the Taino, by reading a bit of Las Casas and watching a Native American retelling of the first encounter.  As the class drew to a close, I asked my students, 'Given what we know now, what are your thoughts about the fact that Americans celebrate Columbus Day?'  This led to a wonderful discourse about the difficulties but importance of remembering all history, good or bad. 'As long as we remember to think about perspective, right?' Yibo asked.  Indeed.

This afternoon, I will have all fourteen kids (ages 8-17) in the classroom, and I'll introduce African storytelling by retelling some of my favorite Anansi stories.  The kids will then ask to identify a value that they hear being emphasized in the stories and will draw a picture. I'll share them here in the coming days.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my colleagues, Fred and Kim teaching their students earlier today! Forgive the poor quality. These are iphone pix!