Monday 8.6.12
First day thoughts: I was curious why I was accepted to
participate in this conference. Everyone else, besides my new friend Erica,
seems to be teaching history in some way or another. Here I am, an ESL teacher.
What can I contribute? Then, after returning home and discussing with my
husband, I realized (because he reminded me) that for almost every country
mentioned today, I can connect the information presented with a face and a name
of a student. In the classes I teach, I have formed very intimate connections
with most of my students. When you speak of the lost boys of Sudan, I remember
yelling at one to do his homework. When you name the different Arab “Springs,”
I can name a person for each country. I can remember his or her writing about
the experience. And so it goes with the other countries mentioned… With each
abstract thought, I have a personal memory. I felt some comfort in this very
personal connection to the topic of “Revolution,” so now I also feel a part of
this 2012 Summer Institute even if I really joined because the title was
“Teaching Peace…” I didn’t even realize that “Revolution” was part of the title
until the materials were sent to us.
It is interesting that you were motivated to participate in the institt6ue based one Peace...the thing that motivated me was Revolution! We need to conceptialize a reality outside the path we are going. I find it difficult to wrap myself into the gel of Americanism, yet we are all products. How can we transfer a critical understaning of reality within the myth?
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