The streets of Kathmandu at night are really something. The prayer flags lining the streets in Thamel are a nice touch. Photo taken in March, 2015.
Hi everyone,
I enjoyed today's class, especially because of the interesting nature of what we were discussing. Here's what we did today in class:
I enjoyed today's class, especially because of the interesting nature of what we were discussing. Here's what we did today in class:
Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 21: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Knowledge LT 21: I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Soundtrack: "Mustt Mustt" by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Selected because this is a representation of Sufism (some consider this to be a branch of Islam), Explanation of the song can be found here.
AGENDA 5/4/18:
News Brief – Bob
ISIS and Sunni/Shia
More Religions/Atheism
Vocabulary Guide
ISIS and Sunni/Shia
More Religions/Atheism
Vocabulary Guide
Homework: Read the blog! Know your grade and how to improve it - Russian Revolution (found on this post), World War I work (found in this post) and finishing the Country Profile Project if you have not - revisions needed, as well. Next news brief: Josiah.
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News Brief: Bob had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: BBC.com - US accuses China of pointing lasers at its pilots from Djibouti base. We found Djibouti on our world maps and talked about this story for a bit. We then continued to talk about what people were up to outside of the class, including what people are up to over this weekend.
The next news brief was assigned to Josiah.
We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):
ISIS and Sunni/Shia: To start this section, I asked the class to brainstorm what we knew about ISIS, especially as we have been talking about the group in our news briefs for the entire year so far. I wanted to hear what we remembered and also maybe some assumptions. Next, I asked students to get out paper for notes on the rest of the class and I played this video from VOX, which does a great job of quickly explaining the rise of ISIS and what is going on in the Middle East:
I also talked a bit about the demographics in the Middle East, including showing this map of where two of the main sects of Islam live:
Specifically, I wanted to look in depth at the central role that the two main sects of Islam have in conflict, by watching this video:
The next news brief was assigned to Josiah.
We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):
ISIS and Sunni/Shia: To start this section, I asked the class to brainstorm what we knew about ISIS, especially as we have been talking about the group in our news briefs for the entire year so far. I wanted to hear what we remembered and also maybe some assumptions. Next, I asked students to get out paper for notes on the rest of the class and I played this video from VOX, which does a great job of quickly explaining the rise of ISIS and what is going on in the Middle East:
I also talked a bit about the demographics in the Middle East, including showing this map of where two of the main sects of Islam live:
Specifically, I wanted to look in depth at the central role that the two main sects of Islam have in conflict, by watching this video:
One of my main points with this is that we cannot stereotype "all Muslims" in many of the conflicts that the world is in, just as we cannot stereotype "all Christians" or any other religion. If you are really interested in learning a lot more about ISIS, I encourage you to read through this lengthy article: TheAtlantic.com - What ISIS Really Wants.
More Religions/Atheism: Next, we did a sort of blitz through a few other religions that students wrote to me they identified with (I think these are important to cover), along with Atheism (belief that there is no God or gods at all).
Here are the resources we looked at as a class, as students took brief notes (there will be a few questions about these on the test):
Shintoism (based in Japan, focused on ancestral spirits).
Jainism (based in India, focused on nonviolence and sanctity of life).
Taoism (mostly found in China, based on concept of yin and yang).
Sikhism (based in India, focused on one God, rejection of caste system).
Finally, we ended by watching part of this video about Atheism, which is the belief that there is no God or gods, and that faith, being unscientific and not testable, is impossible to prove:
I thought the above videos and articles did a pretty good job explaining the points of view of some important philosophies in a short amount of time. Thanks for hanging in there with me as we looked at all of these!
Vocabulary Guide: At the end of class, I passed out a vocabulary sheet to study for the quiz. Please note that there will also be a question or two based on some of the religions we talked about today in class, too! This guide is intended for you to help review your Religion PowerPoint notes. Here it is:
Vocabulary Guide: At the end of class, I passed out a vocabulary sheet to study for the quiz. Please note that there will also be a question or two based on some of the religions we talked about today in class, too! This guide is intended for you to help review your Religion PowerPoint notes. Here it is:
Be aware that Google Drive makes the sheet two pages, whereas the copy I passed out in class is just one page. Study the vocabulary and your notes from the beliefs we went over today! Next class, we will play PowerPoint Jeopardy to review, then take the religion test the class after that.
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