|
|
JISHOU, HUNAN — This test is what I inflicted on my Western Culture students this morning. How well can you do on it? No looking at your textbooks, cell phones, or the Internet.
——————–
Western Culture and Civilization
NAME_______________________________
Student ID ____________________________
2008 G1 and G2
First test, Ancient Greece, 22 October 2010
IDENTIFY THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE AND PLACES:
1. Athens
2. Sparta
3. Troy
4. Achilles
5. Odysseus
6. Aristotle
7. Plato
8. Eratosthenes
9. Sophocles
10. Aristophanes
TEST CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (Use your own paper for these, please):
11. Ancient Greece fostered the first known republic and the first known democracy in the world. Where were these political experiments, exactly? Give a brief description of how each system of government was organized.
12. Socrates was one of the earliest and most influential of the ancient philosophers. What were his core beliefs?
13. Give two examples of the Greeks’ contributions to mathematics and science. Discuss each one briefly.
14. What was the basic story or theme of Homer’s Iliad? Of Homer’s Odyssey?
15. Why is the civilization and culture of the ancient Greeks so important to the West?
BONUS POINTS: Match the Greek god or goddess to his or her attributes.(10 points maximum)
| 1 _____ |
Ares |
A |
The first woman |
| 2______ |
Aphrodite |
B |
Creator of the first man, bringer of fire |
| 3______ |
Zeus |
C |
The god of war |
| 4 _____ |
Hades |
D |
The goddess of the harvest |
| 5 _____ |
Poseidon |
E |
The messenger god |
| 6 _____ |
Herakles (Hercules) |
F |
The king of the gods | Possibly related posts:
[Cross-posted at the Daily Kos, where it was just rescued from diary oblivion.]
JISHOU, HUNAN — Classes have been in session for two weeks now. It’s taken me a while to build a head of steam for blogging. Been a little busy, as you will see.
As was the case last year, I am teaching 16 classes a week (that’s eight groups of students for 100 minutes at a go), but with some changes in subjects and students. This term, I am teaching oral English to the freshman and sophomore undergraduates majoring in Business English, and Western Culture and Civilization to the juniors in Business English.
None of the juniors have oral English classes anymore, which befuddles me, but apparently It’s the Way Things Are Done Here™, according to fellow foreign teachers at other schools. The Business English students have a course in public speaking, but the English education majors — who will presumably be teaching English — have no more English language classes. More about that later.
Previously, my writing classes were the biggest consumer of my prep time, what with reading essays and diaries and plotting more ways to get my students to write English. This term, it’s the Civ class that takes the prize.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — I am one happy camper tonight, because I discovered how to circumvent China’s blocking of Picasaweb. The solution was right there in front of me, if I had bothered to look.
In their ineffable wisdom, the wonks at Google allow you to upload photos to Picasaweb via email. All you need to do is go to Picasaweb’s settings and set up a secret email addy. Then you can emails to that address with photos as attachments. The subject line is the name of an existing album.
Sweet!
Because China is blocking Picasaweb and Blogger, both Google services, I have had a hell of time uploading to my Picasaweb albums. For a while, I could upload using Picasa 3, the desktop application, then mysteriously uploads would constantly fail. Either the uploads would stall, or I would get the message, “This account is not enabled for web albums.” First, I suspected a bug in Picasaweb (like THAT would ever happen!), but it appears some service or port is being blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
I can use the latest version of Ultrasurf (v.9.98) to climb the Great Firewall, and access Picasaweb to edit photos and such, but uploads still fail, either from Picasa 3 or on the website itself. Timeout problems, or connection problems because of the proxy service.
So, as they say, RTFM. I went to the help pages, and lo! You can email your pix to Picasaweb. Duh. I should guessed that.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — One of my Facebook followers left me a message, complaining that she hadn’t heard much from me lately. So, this one’s for you, Angela!
The spring term ended here on July 15, but I gave my exams much earlier than that, on July 1 and 2. While my students prepped for their other exams, I read their research papers and composition exams. For a solid week. After reading several second and third drafts of the papers, I finally handed in my grades on July 14.
But I was not entirely free yet. The parents of some of the students I had been tutoring during the fall and spring wanted me to continue their lessons for the rest of July. Fortunately, not everyone wanted the summer classes, so I only had eight students in all, and most of them could come to my apartment for lessons. Some days I taught for three hours, others for four; and Sundays I was free.
I’ll tell some anecdotes about these kids now.  Me and some of my primary students; from left, Julie, Sally, Marike, Jane, Shawn and Billie Marike is 9. Her daily schedule during the summer included an hour of violin lessons, two hours with me, and two hours of writing (calligraphy) lessons. She did not get a midday nap. (During the school year, Marike had “panda eyes” when I would see her on Sunday mornings.) One of our summer lessons was a two-person dialogue about shopping. I thought it was pretty easy, but our insistence that Marike (a shy girl) do the dialogue with her friend made her break down in tears. She was just too tired to put up with it, she said. For the next lesson, we played Scrabble, which was less intimidating and the kids really enjoyed.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — So, I’m staying another year here. As it was last year, the decision was an easy one to make.
Logically speaking, it doesn’t make too much sense. Jishou is a small city, with few (Western-style) amenities. It takes at least two hours to get to the nearest airport. And Jishou University is an also-ran in the rankings of China’s institutions of higher learning.
My friends in bigger cities in China have encouraged me to look elsewhere for teaching jobs in China. One said, “The pay will be better, and the students will be more excellent.”
Yes, and no.
No question about the pay. If I moved to Beijing, or even Changsha, I could probably double my pay pretty easily. Of course, my expenses would also increase, and I’d have the hassles of dealing with big-city life. (Changsha has 5 million people. Beijing has 22 million, making NYC look like a small town.) Big cities have higher costs of living, so it’s questionable whether moving would increase my net income to make moving worth it.
I’ve lived in small cities for the last 32 years, two that were minuscule (60,000 population each), one just a bit bigger than Jishou (800,000) and another of 2.3 million. While it is generally true that living in a small community means a small salary, the trade-offs compensate for the comparative lack of dollars, or yuan.
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — I think one of my students just came out to me. Or maybe the student was just sharing about a friend coming out. Hard to say.
My students have to keep diaries, which they hand in about every other week. I read them, make lots of red marks in them, and hand them back a week later (usually). Most of the entries are pretty mundane, but occasionally a student will reveal his or her deepest emotions, worries, troubles or thoughts. I usually respond by writing something in their diary, since I assume the student is attempting some kind of dialogue that may be less embarrassing than talking face to face.
Since I’m sworn to secrecy on this particular matter, and all the other personal items in the diaries, I am going to be deliberately vague here. I teach about 300 students, none of whom will likely see this post, but gossip transcends space and time. I am leaving out a lot of details. I am not going to say whether the student is male or female. I will refer to the student only as A., a letter which has no connection to A.’s English or Chinese name.
(Note to my Chinese students abroad using Facebook. Please DO NOT talk about this article with anyone at JiDa. 谢谢阿!)
Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — I am in the midst of reading the first drafts of about 70 term papers, but I wanted to take time out to write about a couple of cool things that happened today.
One of my former students here in China is getting married next week. This was no big surprise, since she told me it was going to happen sometime this year. Today, when we went to lunch, T. threw me a couple of curve balls.
First, she’s pregnant — one of those happy little accidents that sometimes proceed marriage. Despite the conservative culture of China, being pregnant just before marriage is no big deal, as long as the husband-to-be is still in the picture. The funny thing was, when I accidentally ran into the two of them downtown yesterday, I thought to myself, “T. looks pregnant.”
Now, she’s only three months along, and not showing yet. (T. is very petite, and has not gained weight, so her size was not the reason for my hunch.) But, she was walking a little like a pregnant woman — her shoes were the problem there, she says — and her dress was similar in design to a maternity dress, gathered under her boobs. Purely accidental, T. says; it was a summer dress, and anyway she still has a tiny waist. Despite being wrong about all the obvious visual clues, I was still pretty impressed I had guessed correctly.
Possibly related posts:
|
Recent Comments