Hi fellas,
this semester is very special for me. It is the first time that I went abroad for academical reasons. Obviously it was not the only reason for me to visit Australia. I love travelling and to experience other cultures and different ways to live. In Germany we do not really hear a lot about Australia. Actually what we hear is about beautiful beaches, hot weather, surfing, gold coast, dangerous animals, the Great Barrier Reef, and Aborigines. This unit is not my first encounter with literature about Australia but the first time with literature written by Australian and Indigenous people. The first time my interest about Australia especially Aborigines started was caused by the book “Dreamcatcher” from Marlo Morgan. It is about a woman from the US who participated a three months ritual walking-tour through the bush as a guest in an aboriginal tribe. She describes this journey as an emotional enrichment and spiritual change. I am keen to learn more about this special and old culture in different ways. In the first weeks in this unit I felt that I learned a lot which made me more curious about the history and their way to live, treat and see the nature. This literature class helps me a lot to understand things in an other unit at Strathfield “Indigenous Culture” which deals with the indigenous understanding of the world and provides a lot of insights into their culture. Another main point of this unit is to make teachers aware of the heterogeneity of cultures.
This class is not my first literature class. As a teacher it is important to bring literature closer to students in a motivating way. Hence I participated in a young adult literature class. Connecting to the topics acceptance and learning about other cultures I have to mention the graphic novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang. It is a great book to raise students interest and to encourage them to deal with other cultures and to gain empathy and understanding. This brings me to the next thing I learned this week. Combining literature with pictures, movies, and songs is a terrific way to raise interest and to get involved in an emotional way. I will definitely do this in my further lessons. Dealing with the history of Indigenous people in this way gave me deep impressions what happend in the past and how people think about it today. Especially interesting was the description by Judith Wright “The Mountain Has Its Own Meaning” because I really like to view nature in a way which is not utilitarian. This made me remember the following picture which perfectly shows how some people treat our world.
http://crxnium.tumblr.com/post/106978146513/weve-put-a-gun-to-the-head-of-our-mother-earth
Maybe you want to write me your interpretation of this image in the comments.
See you soon and enjoy the Easter time,
Carlos Gomez
carlosgomezbravo 