Today I was a little lost in the conversations about mystical Islam and South Asia. There is a lot of history there that I really don't have a lot of background knowledge on, which would have helped my comprehension and would have facilitated my making the connections to our Peace & Revolution theme. While the panel this morning was very interesting, it was hard to hear and see the seated panelists. I would have liked to have heard more from Dr. Patel then we did. I struggled to find enough connections to our theme and useful material for my classroom.
The presentation by Mallick was short but great. I look forward to exploring the archive for solely personal reasons. No one has ever offered me such a resource before and I can't wait to find some connections with in it. Even though my adoptive parents brought me back to my birth country twice and remain connected to many people and the culture they experienced there...there is relatively little I know about day to day Bangladeshi culture, politics or history. My father and mother know a lot of this information, but I've been quite the typical USAmerican raised child in that I've not really picked their brains for more authentic bits of information. It could be there is little dialogue about Bangladesh because there is always potential for questions about birth-parents--to which there are no real answers to. But the good new is that our family is planning a trip to take everyone to Bangladesh by 2015!
The afternoon session was a lot of fun. I really liked the chance to get up and interact with everyone. I wish that it had been an all day workshop though because it felt a little crammed in. I could totally see myself using some of those activities to get my kinesthetic active learners involved and excited about learning and to test my intellectual pencil/book learners ability to "learn out side the box." When I was younger I loved fun opportunities to express my creativity and imagination. Now I enjoy pushing myself to take risks and embarrass myself a bit because the humility grounds me.
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