Class Reflection: The Americas

Our unit on the Americas has enlightened me as to just how complex and successful the Inca, Aztec, and Mayan civilizations were. From the roads of the Inca, which rivaled those of Rome, to the advanced calendars and mathematics of the Maya and Aztects. It is a wonder that they were so easily surpassed by the Europeans. It underlines once again the superiority of Guns. Germs, and Steel, which geography gave the Europeans.

Class Reflection

I don't think we give enough credit to the American Civilizations. I mean, and entire half of the world is reduced to less than 5% of our entire curriculum. I understand why. There is not enough information on them. I am still interested to be studying this new continent of America.

Class Reflection

Today's class was low-key. We read an article on the syncretism of Chinese culture in central and southeastern Asia. It discussed the standard syncretic process of cultural diffusion by trade with which we are all so familiar at this point.

Class Reflection

A Song Era Bodhisattva Statue

We are moving back to China again, to study the Song, Tang, and Ming Dynasties. This should be interesting. China has always fascinated me. That one civilization could last in tact for so long is massively impressive. I wonder what new innovations I will learn the Chinese were responsible. If on thing has left an impression on me it is how much many things I had though of as western originated in China. Gunpowder in particular come to mind.

Mongols Using a Bomb


Ming Dynasty Flintlock Weapons

Class Reflection

Unfortunately, I missed out last class. It was only a shortened period, and I was able to get the documents for the essay from another student. I think this essay is much easier and straightforward than our previous DBQ on Merchants in Christianity and Islam. That one required us to compare and contrast within a DBQ. This is a much more straightforward analysis.

Class Reflection

To all my faithful readers (aka Mrs. Dailey):

My first time writing in a while. I looked into Beowulf, and it seems to be of an obscure Anglo-Saxon origin. This underlines a main point about vikings - we really don't know. None of the raiders would have been literate. We have no sources outside the extremely biased and one-sided church writing. The vikings are one of the most fascinating and mysterious of European people. Something about them fascinates us. There are scores of movies and books about them. They have become a fixture in our popular culture. But we must separate fact from fiction. We must always consider point of view. The vikings wore no horned helmets, and were not exactly the barbarians we have been taught that they were.

Class Reflection

Our last class was interesting. I feel distressed about our failure to come up with anything good. I am drawing a total blank on this. I don't know why. I read the articles. For some reason we are all having trouble. Hopefully this will not show through in our essays.

Class Reflection

In response to the Question given to us in class: Why did people convert to Islam

I think that people converted to Islam for a wide variety of reasons. One may simply have been mob mentality. When the faith was spreading so rapidly and people saw its success, they decided they should join too. Pretty soon, everyone was doing it. Once Muslims made up a majority, it followed that many others would convert. As we saw in our quote in class, some people in the upper class converted to hold positions of power. In the new Islamic governments, Muslims were preferred to hold power. Refusal to convert would be a total sacrifice of power. To the lower class, the doctrines of the religion would have been appealing. Spiritual equality appealed to both men and women. As a merchant, Muhammad had a middle-class appeal also. If fact, merchants held highly in Islam. This is an interesting contrast with Confucianism in which merchants were considered evil leeches of society who profited from others work.

Reflection: Hajj Video

I thought todays video was interesting. It provided some very interesting insight into the Hajj. I must say, I found the American female convert to Islam to be extremely obnoxious. I found it to be very interesting that such a mass migration (the largest in the world?) occurs over such a small period of time every year. The number of people moved is mind-boggling. I also found the other rituals of the Hajj interesting. I was aware of the Kaaba visit, but not the ritual stoning and the other practices. It was a good learning experience. I think we should do more in-class videos.

Class Reflection

I think our discussion of the new time period was good. We establised some of the key big picture developments well:

• The Spread of Islam
• Globalization and Increased Trade
• Increased Agricultural Production
• Rise Of Transregional Mongol-Turkish Empires

I think that the idea of having us come up with our own questions for homework is interesting. It will be a nice change, and I hope it will open up some new perspectives on the text!

Class Reflection: NEW TIME PERIODIZATION!!!

We are entering a new time period. The post-classical era, lasting from 600 CE to 1450 CE. This is an era of which I know very little. I look forward greatly to learning about this time period. Wedged between the great classical civilizations and the middle ages, not much justice is done to this period. I am sure there is a lot of exiting new history to learn.

Class Reflection: Response to thesis

In response to the following thesis:

"Large conversions only took place when powerful political, social, or economic incentives encouraged it and even then it led universally to syncretism rather than outright adoption of foreign cultural tradition"

I think that this thesis is valid in almost all circumstances. People don't convert to a new religion on a whim. Religion is a major part of the lives of people who practice it, and they will not convert unless they are offered a good reason to. This reason could be political, such as the adoption of a religion by a leader. It could be social, such as the equality which Buddhism offered to Chinese women. It also could be economic. The part which I am not sure about is the word "universally" in the second half of the statement. While I am sure that it ALMOST always led to syncretism, the are exceptions to ALL generalizations about history. There have almost certainly been times in history in which there has been outright adoptions of foreign beliefs. During the rapid spread of Islamic faiths there were times when peoples completely adopted the Islamic customs. In most cases however we find syncretism. Certainly with the conversions of Europeans to Christianity we see the adoption by the faith of Pagan holidays and traditions. With Buddhism's spread into China many Confucian ideals were adopted, as well as with the "greater vehicle" (Mahayana) the transformation into a more acceptable religion. Judiasm was a faith that had very little conversion. As a result, the religion changed very little over time. This thesis provides a strong basis for understanding the spread of religions.

Class Reflection: Jesus and Buddah

While the figures of Jesus and Siddhārtha Gautama may seem vastly separated, the ideas they preached shared much in common, as shown by the activity in class today. It is not so surprising when one analyzes things. They were of course separated by half of a Millennium, and several thousand miles, but there situations were similar. Both searched for a reformed alternative path from the established religion, while embracing some of its earlier principles. For Buddha, this was Hinduism; For Jesus, it was Judaism. Both appealed to the lower levels of society by preaching a sort of spiritual equality. While these religions developed vastly separated, the circumstance surrounding them were similar.

Class Reflection

It has been a while since I have posted. In that time we have transitioned into a our third term. We have not looked at any new societies in this time, but have instead focused on learning a new essay format, DBQ. We worked first with a football example, familiarizing ourselves with the format. We then moved on to our first real essay, which we handed in just this week, on women's roles in China.

I like this new essay format. It is a nice change of pace. Everything you need is provided. The compare and contrast format was becoming repetitive, constricting, tedious, and monotonous. I also enjoy the primary source work.

Just very recently we have begun to look at the Bantu migrations. This is my first venture into African history, and I hope it will be a great learning experience.

Class Reflection

Addressing the last several classes:
These classes were pretty low key. Not much that I found worthy of refelection. I'll make a note of them here anyway.

January 15: We got back assessments today. Not much to reflect on.

January 11: Assessment today on Mauryan and Gupta

January 9: Mrs. Daley was absent today. We did a venn-diagram as prep for the Rome & Han Essay

Is Geography Destiny?, Part 2

I was working on my essay and considering the massive influence of Confucianism on Han society, when it hit me:

A feature not related to geography impacting a society in a major way! Outrageous!

Is geography solely responsible for Confucianism, or it there more to destiny after all?

Class Reflection

Today's class was interesting. I was particularly interested by our current events discussion at the beginning of class. We should devote 5 minutes at the beginning of class once a week to current events, linking them when possible to the current curriculum.

Class Reflection

Not much to report. We got back assessments today.