Native Americans protesting the oil pipelines through their lands... So... the second week of the new school year is over, eh?
It went OK. This time I did better in the culture class and worse in the first year introduction to culture and literature class because I could take my time more in the former and tried to do too much too fast in the latter. That is almost always my worst flaw: I try to cover too much too fast, especially in the last fifteen or so minutes, so the kids must have great difficulty following my lecture. In this case, I was introducing Native American history to them, beginning with the two big images of Indians in American culture (evil demons or ideal nature models), moving onto their terrible treatment by white Americans and the USA (disease, massacre, trains, land grabbing, etc.), and finishing with their still vibrant presence in America today (including some things on the recent pipeline troubles, as shown in the above photo). But I didn't leave enough time for the last part, alas... Culture class was about Easter, including the Christian and pagan meanings and symbols and features, etc. Interestingly, although Christmas has been big in Japan for a long time, and Halloween has recently become popular (though not as far as trick-or-treating), Easter is still mostly absent... Other classes went OK I suppose... I like my seminar (we added two new girls who last year were in Toronto, Canada, learning English and working etc., and they'll be great participants, and the regular members are fine and funny. The only problem might be students being absent for job hunting. Oh, and the small detail of most of the class (about ten people) wanting to write graduation theses, when usually I have just one or two ... I like my graduate school classes of course (my PhD student is shifting from Gothic to fairy tales plus Gothic, I think). And my two Eikaiwa type classes are mostly going OK. It's still early, but I like this school year a lot so far!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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