Moksha: Equating versus Relating

I had multiple students point out that I haven't posted anything in 10 days.

I make no apologies.  Teaching takes a lot of time.  :)


We're moving from Gandhi and the Indian independence movement into the study of Hinduism.  (This seems like a natural progression since Gandhi was Hindu.)

One of the (minor) struggles I've had in teaching is getting students to relate, but not equate.  And sometimes, I don't even want them to relate two things - but they do.

Many of my students are Christians.  Many of those who aren't Christian are at least familiar with Christianity because they live in Northern Indiana.

So, when they hear about avatars: Hindu gods that come to earth in the form of humans - many draw comparisons to the Christian belief in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  But Christians wouldn't say Christ was an avatar - they would say he is God (or the Son of God.)  Maybe students could relate the two, but definitely don't equate the two.

In Hinduism, Shiva is the destroyer.  In Christianity, Satan is the destroyer.  But Shiva is not Satan.  In Hinduism, Shiva is not even evil.  Here, I'd like students to neither relate, nor equate.

Christians believe in heaven.  Hindus believe in Moksha.  Moksha is not heaven.  Again, noting the similarities is fine.  Equating them is not.

When I hear students equate, it usually sounds something like this, "Oh... so Moksha is the Hindu heaven?"  Or "Oh... so Shiva is the Hindu version of Satan."

No.

Moksha is the Hindu afterlife, but it's not the "Hindu heaven."

Maybe, if I have time tomorrow I'll give you a better description of Moksha.

If you want extra credit for reading and discussing the blog, write a couple sentences telling the difference between relating and equating.

Have the adult you read the blog with sign the paper.

Turn it in tomorrow.

Reincarnation - Google Drawings

Although we're now disucussing the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, we spent some time yesterday figuring out how google drawings work.  I'm sure there will be a lot of ways I could use them in class.  As with everything, there's a lot of potential - if I could just figure out how to access it.

Students could make diagrams, flowcharts, posters, etc... from various topics we've studied throughout the year.  I had them start off with the reincarnation cycle.  I didn't take it for a grade, because we were figuring it out together.

Some students shared with me what they did.  I'll put those up here for you to look at.  Tell me what you think.

If students want extra credit, they should have read and discussed the blog with an adult.  Which of the diagrams do you like the best?  Why?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of each one?  If you were in class today, you could tell them a little bit about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.

Write down your thoughts from the conversation on a scrap of paper.  Have the adult you read and discussed with sign it.  Then turn it in tomorrow for extra credit.

It took Gandhi (and the Indian National Congress, etc...) a long time before they gained independence from the British.  I'm not expecting to fully understand google docs or drawings overnight.  But I want to be sure to use whatever tools I have at my disposal in order to be the best teacher I can be.

  (As long as those tools are genuinely enhancing the education of my students.)

Review: Pictionary

We've got a lot to review for: ISTEP, our Hinduism/Buddhism Quiz, and the Year-End Final.

We'll use a variety of styles to review.  Today, I gave students a couple minutes to look over their notes - especially some of the charts we've filled out throughout the year.  Then, we started the game.

The students were in groups.  Each group had 2 dry-erase boards.  Every group starts the game with 3 points.  One member of each group came up to me.  I wrote down a word - a term, concept, idea, name, etc... that we've learned this year.  (Today, I focused mainly on Hinduism and Buddhism, but I threw in a couple other items as well.)  The students went back to their desk and drew a picture of what I wrote.  Other members of the group tried to figure it out.  They couldn't shout out the answer, though.  They had to write it down and hold it up on the second dry-erase board.  The first group to hold up the correct answer earned 2 points.  The second group to hold up the correct answer earned 1 point.  Every other round or so, I'd choose 1 student to draw in front of the whole class on the SMARTboard.  Scoring was the same - 2 points for the first group with the correct answer, 1 point for the second.

Every once in a while, I'd ask students a bonus question.  It is offered first to the group with the lowest score, then works its way up to the group with the highest score.  For instance, after they drew a picture of "suffering," I asked them why I would have them draw that picture.  What did it have to do with social studies?  Or, after drawing "the middle path" I asked them to recount the story of Goldilocks.  ...And for an added bonus question, I asked why I would ask them to recount that tale.  Anybody?  Anybody?

Occasionally, students would complain that I should let everybody try for the extra credit questions.  I told them that they could change their strategy.  They could play for last place in order to get the questions...  Why not try that?  :)

The winning team got Jolly Ranchers.

That was our day in class.  If you weren't here, you missed out.  You totally would have been on the winning team.

If you want to make up the participation points, play the game here.  (Or, if you want extra credit points, you can play it.)  Write down what you think each of these pictures are supposed to represent.  Before you judge on artistic ability, remember that in Pictionary, one must draw fast.  If you don't know the answer, you have to give a guess.  Ask your parent (or whoever you're reading with) to guess for one before you give the answer.  They'll probably be wrong, since they weren't in here.  Write their guess next to your guess for at least one picture.  If they want to try all of them, that'd be great.

When you're done, turn it in tomorrow.  Make sure your name is on it.  Here are the pictures;

Suffering: The Pink Eraser

Buddhism and Hinduism have many similarities.  They both believe in karma, dharma, they both believe in reincarnation, and that there is an end to the reincarnation cycle - at least for the individual soul.

It's worth noting that even though the religions share these similarities, they don't hold identical beliefs on any... for instance, even though dharma relates to rules and order and teachings, the concept is different between the two religions.

Hinduism and Buddhism are similar much like Islam and Christianity are similar.  They share some concepts, (both Christians and Muslims believe in one God, trace their roots back to Abraham, believe Jesus Christ was a prophet...) but those practicing the religion would not claim they were the same.

One major way Buddhism differs from Hinduism is that Buddhism deals primarily with suffering.  Siddhartha Guatama (the founder of Buddhism) taught that suffering comes from desire.  Buddhism tries to point out how to end suffering.

I think we see this concept played out pretty clearly in children.  How many of us have seen a child throw a fit at the check-out line because they want a candy bar and the parent won't give in?  (In this case, the parent is also suffering, because they want the child to stop throwing a fit...)

I thought about this the other day when my middle daughter Gwen lost her pink eraser.  This was a big deal because it was given to her by one of her best friends at school.  (Maybe her best friend?  ...Kindergarten friendships are sometimes difficult to keep straight.)




Or, here's my youngest daughter.  She's sad because she wants her mommy:




I have a video where I'm crying because I wanted Notre Dame to beat Kentucky, but I've been advised against including it.

In all three cases, people were suffering because they wanted something, and they didn't get it.  What do you think?

If you want the extra credit for reading and discussing the blog with an adult, discuss this with them:  Buddhism teaches that everyone suffers, and that everyone suffers due to desire.  Do you agree?  Why or why not?  Is it possible to end suffering?

When you're done, write a short paragraph about your discussion.  Then, have the adult you discussed with sign the paper.  (Make sure your name, date, and hour are on it.)

Turn it in tomorrow.

Lakshmi Tatma

We've been writing quite a bit in here lately.  We don't spend a lot of time on it - maybe 15-20 minutes once a week.

Yesterday, students read an article on a girl born with 4 arms and 4 legs.  After they read it, they had to put it away and write a summary of the article without looking back at it.

Today, students graded the summaries.

Here's the article.

It's been a while since that story first appeared, so I wondered if there was an update.  Turns out there is.  Here it is, in case you're interested.

The story ties in with a lot of our social studies content.  For instance you've got the religious aspect - a girl being born with extra limbs in a country with a religion that often depicts deities as having extra limbs.

You've got family and cultural values.

Standard of living comes up often - the family lived on $1 a day.

The fact that we can hear about this story here in the United States is a testament to globalization.

We also worked on maps of India.  There may have been 5 students out of 150 who did not compete this.  If you are one of the 5, make sure it's turned in tomorrow.

If you want extra credit for reading and discussing the blog today, write 3 beliefs of Hinduism on a piece of paper from memory, then have the adult you read and discussed the blog with sign the paper.

Make sure your name, date, and hour are on it.

Then, turn it in tomorrow.

In case you're wondering, I hung up all the civil disobedience pictures.  Doesn't the hallway look much nicer?

Caste System

Well, things got pretty heated today - let me tell you.

We've been studying Hinduism and are currently focused on the Caste System.  Yesterday we read an article and watched a video on Dalits - the group formerly referred to as Untouchables.  (There is a lot of readily available information on this group of people.)

The main point of both the video and the article is that the caste system, although illegal, still influences India today. And, the Dalits are heavily discriminated against.

I draw parallels to discrimination in our own country - that even though we have anti-discrimination laws, many groups still face discrimination here.

Today though, we looked at the Indian Social Structure Pyramid (also called the Caste System Pyramid) and I asked the question, "Is there a caste system at CJHS?  If so, what does it look like?"

(Here's the Indian Social Structure Pyramid, by the way:)

I received many answers, but the two that came back most often dealt with authority and popularity. 

In the authority version, the principal or superintendent is on the top, and the students are on the bottom.

In the popularity version, you've got the popular kids at the top, and the unpopular kids at the bottom with various "castes" making up the pyramid, determined by the author/artist.  (Are "Preppy Kids" at the top?  Athletic?  Artistic?  Intelligent?)   ...This is where the class got heated.  Some students contended this was a Hollywood contrivance - that we're all more complicated than this.  True enough, there are kids who are involved in athletics, music, the arts, etc...  So, where would they go?  Others said that yes, it's overdone by Hollywood, but cliques still exist in Jr. High.

I don't have time to mention all the ideas that came up: castes by grade level, or one that had the students at the top, because everything is about them.  Concord is a student-centered school.  We're here to meet the needs of the students.  (While that may be true, I don't think it address the social structure of our school.)

What do you think?  If you've read and discussed this with an adult, write down a paragraph based on your discussion.  Write down thoughts pertaining to India's former (remember it was outlawed in 1947) caste system and the social make-up of CJHS.

Then, once you've written the paragraph, have the adult you read and discussed with sign the paper - proving that you've read and discussed it.

Simplify, Simplify

I don't teach Thoreau when I teach civil disobedience... but he's there of course - hiding, just behind Gandhi.

So, I feel like it's appropriate to use his quote for the title of today's post - even if I'm not taking his advice to simplify.

I took his advice in the classroom - or I tried.  That is, I tried to make it simple in there.  There are a lot of deep and difficult concepts when teaching about God or gods; about the supernatural, and what various cultures believe about it.

A couple years ago, I published my "Plenty to Discuss" post, which is one of my most frequented posts on the blog.

In it, I discussed what we are as people - and ideas that different religions hold to.  And I shared this picture:

The 3 Ways a Person is Viewed

I'm not going to go into everything I talked about there, but I want to point out how over-simplified it was.

All the religions we've studied so far hold that there is a "View 3: A TRUE You."  It's not how you see yourself, it's not how other people see you... it's how or what you really are.

But in a theological sense, even this is confusing.  Am I who I was at 5?  At 25?  No, I'm not.  Not mentally, not physically.  The cells in my body have regenerated.  (In Crash Course World History 36, John Green criticizes "Me From the Past" saying.  "Oh, Me From the Past, You're an embarrassment to our family.  Also to all our other selves."  I also like the quote from Elliott Smith, "People you've been before that you don't want around anymore - they push and they shove and won't bend to your will...")

So, in light of eternity, what is the "True View" of a person?  Is it the person they were when they were 5 or 50?  Is it the person they were at their death?  And if there's a God, or karma, how does it deal with that?  What do Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus believe about this?  And is it important?

It's also worth noting that "View 2: The Way Others View You" is more complicated than it's made out to be.  ...Because, I've had students who thought I was great, and I've had students who (mistakenly, right?) thought I was boring or mean.  And we lump them into the same group of "The Way A Person is Viewed by Others..."  It's not static, because we're all individuals.

It's a lot to think about...  But I try to take Thoreau's advice in class.  I try to keep it simple.

As was the case last time - and every time - there's plenty more to talk about, but it's the weekend.  If you want extra credit, you were supposed to read and discuss this blog with an adult.  If you did this, write a couple thoughts from the post on a scrap of paper.  Then, have the adult you read the blog with sign it.  Turn it in when you return to school on Monday.  See you then.

Thoughts on Hinduism

I know I said I would link to an old post today... but I find it's also nice for me to type out what's going on.

Maybe I already talked about them on here.  If you find these same stories in a different post, well bully for you!

Some thoughts:

Good gods, bad gods:

Growing up, I always thought of Hinduism as having "good gods" and "bad gods."  For instance, Brahma - the creator, and Vishnu - the preserver were "good gods," and Shiva - the destroyer was a "bad god."  I'm not sure whether this idea came from what I was taught of Hinduism, or from applying my Judeo-Christian culture/ world-view into the context of Hinduism.

For instance, in Christianity, God the Father is the Creator.  And He is good.  Satan destroys, and he is bad.  Technically, I'd argue he's the worst.  Literally... the worst.  Jesus says in Matthew, "Don't fear anyone who can destroy your body, rather fear the one who can destroy your soul." 

So, maybe I thought Satan destroys... destruction is bad... Shiva destroys... Shiva is bad.

But that's not the approach Hinduism takes.

I told the kids it's more like this.

Think of a gallon of milk.

The milk is created.  And that's good.  Your parents go to the store, and buy it.  They put the gallon in the fridge, where' it is preserved.  And this is also good.

Now, I have a 2 year old daughter.  Sometimes we give her a sippy cup of milk.  And sometimes she loses it.  There have been times we found the sippy cup days later.  Have you ever smelled spoiled milk?

We destroyed whatever was left in that sippy cup.  Poured it down the drain and washed the cup before the stench filled the house.

And that was a good thing.  The destruction was good.

Shiva destroys when it is time for something to be destroyed.  And it's a good thing.  And Shiva - the destroyer is also the re-creator.

To all my Hindu readers out there, I know that this is a vast over-simplification.  And I realize that - just like Christianity - there are many different beliefs in Hinduism.  If anybody ever wants to leave comment or thoughts, or clear anything up.  Please feel free.

In the mean-time, if you're in my class and want extra credit for reading and discussing my blog, discuss the milk analogy with the adult you read the blog with.  Write 2 or 3 sentences telling me whether you guys agree with the analogy.  Then, have the adult sign the paper.

Turn it in on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Hinduism: Some Concepts

It was another great day here in Social Studies Land.  We're continuing our discussions of Hinduism.  Some concepts we discussed:

• Samsara (Reincarnation)
• Moksha (the escape)
• Caste System
• Karma
• Dharma
• Judgment and grace
• How should we categorize Hinduism?  Monotheistic?  Polytheistic?  Pantheistic?

Classes today were great, as long as students didn't get too side-tracked on the dress code issues.  (This is me getting side-tracked for a moment: remember this, students that are reading this - we're all on the same side.  Sometimes that's difficult to see, but we are.  Don't let your frustration or anger cloud that.)

If you want the extra credit, read and discuss the blog with an adult.  I would discuss the bullet points.  Adults, ask the students what they remember.  If they don't remember anything about them, click on them.  I've linked them to older posts which go into more detail.

When you're done, students, write two sentences about the discussion in today's class.  If you have any questions, write them down.  Then, have the adult you read the blog with sign the paper.

Categorizing Hinduism

We started the quiz today after I gave students a little bit of time to study.  Well, I gave them a little time to study, and then I gave them a mini-review lesson on Hinduism.  This question appears on the quiz: "How would you define Hinduism, polytheistic, monotheistic, or pantheistic?"  I realize that leaves the door open to students saying, "well I wouldn't define it in the first place..." or some such answer - but I let them know that it's a trick question and that they should give reasons why Hinduism sort of fits all three categories.

I put the following on the board:

I mentioned that it's easy for people from our culture to think of Brahma as the "good" god and Shiva as the "bad" god - since Brahma creates, and Shiva destroys - but that Indians don't think of it like that.  Because their culture believes in reincarnation, the universe is also following a path of birth, life, death, and rebirth.  Shiva destroys in order to allow Brahma to start creating again.

So, we discussed how Hinduism could be viewed as polytheistic - because they obviously worship many gods.  Then I posted these pictures:

I mentioned that the three gods (and really all the Hindu gods) made up Brahman - the eternal spirit/essence/god of everything.  If those gods are actually a part of God - then that would make Hinduism monotheistic right?  Because Hindu worshipers are actually worshiping Brahman - singular.

Then I posted this picture:

I made the point that during creation Brahman becomes part of everything, and everything is part of Brahman.  As such, that would make Hinduism pantheistic - since Brahman is inserted into creation...


I think the point I was getting at was - so often we answer quickly without giving much thought, when oftentimes more thought is necessary.

What is it: polytheistic, monotheistic, or pantheistic?  It's complicated.

If you want the extra credit for reading today's blog entry, discuss the blog with an adult.  When you're finished, write your name, and the two things you discussed on a piece of paper.  Have the adult you discussed it with sign the paper.  Turn it in in the extra credit tray.

Plenty to Discuss

I love this curriculum.  I love my classes this year.  We took notes today - which we hardly ever do.  In spite of this, most classes had some really great discussions going on.

We started out by discussing the various ways to view a person.  I stated that there are at least three.  There's the way you view yourself, the way others view you, and the "true view" of you...  We discussed these in depth.  I generally ask the students how many agree with the statement, "I know myself better THAN anybody else knows me.  I know my thoughts and motives.  I'm the only person that's with me 24-7.  I know myself best."  The majority of students agree with this.  Then I ask them, "how many of you know someone who thinks they're really cool - but they're actually not maybe as cool as they think?"

Again, the majority of hands go up.  "Interesting," I say.  "Can you have it both ways?  I mean, you're saying that you know yourself better than anybody else knows you - but you're also saying that you know others better than they know themselves.  Somewhere somebody's mistaken."

It makes for some pretty interesting discussion.

We discuss what makes up a person:

Once again, we had some great discussion.  (Is that all there is?  Is there a such thing as a soul?  Is all of this stuff for real?...)

This is one of my reasons for having the blog...  I'm teaching about Hinduism, but these questions come up naturally.  I want to make sure you know what I'm teaching, and I want you to know the questions that your kid, or nephew, etc... has.

Hinduism teaches that there is a soul.  So we continued talking about the Hindu view, the caste system, and reincarnation:

I was encouraged by the students today.  They were very respectful throughout the lesson.  Obviously, being a public school there are a variety of faiths and ideas that are brought into my classroom.  Throughout the day, students listened appropriately to what others had to say and asked insightful questions.


In order to get the credit for the homework tonight, students are required to discuss this blog post with the adult they read it with.  After you've read and discussed the post, write two complete sentences in response to it.  Then, students, have the adult you discussed the post with sign the paper.  (Make sure your name is on the paper as well.)