Member of the Month

KilaTsunami
October, 2024

Online

Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!

Cultural Anthropology: Question for experts/high schoolers

profile picture
bangarangmules
Posts: 5065 - Karma: 84
Hey guys, I am currently student teaching in a high school setting, and I decided to ask my cooperating teacher if I could pick up a unit in her cultural anthropology elective class (not required). She said that would be great, and she said I could pretty much teach anything...whether it is a my dream history unit, or just anything related to cultural anthropology.

So for anybody who has studied cultural anthro before: Any interesting topics/subjects that you might suggest?

Any high school students: If you were taking this class what would you like to learn about?


Notes: The class is grades 10-12, about 15 students, and she has already done several topics like: sex/gender, marriage, family...etc.

If anybody could help me come up with any great topics I would greatly appreciate it. I've never taken any anthropology classes, but if I could get an idea of what people are interested in I'm sure I could really get creative and have a lot of fun with it.
Apr 1 2012 5:59PM
0 0
profile picture
bangarangmules
Posts: 5065 - Karma: 84
Also the unit could be anywhere from 5-10 days long.
Apr 1 2012 6:00PM
0 0
profile picture
Parrish
Posts: 8695 - Karma: 1,008
Frankly I feel retarded for not remembering what anthropology was straight away.
Apr 1 2012 6:01PM
0 0
profile picture
iFlip
Posts: 4543 - Karma: 19,132

A fascinating subject would be on matriarchal societies, and the debate as to if one has ever existed. The Amazons are the classic example, yet they are a myth. There are a number of other examples including the Cherokee (true, but not a truly matriarchal society), the Dahomey in Africa (Female warriors, as close to Amazons as there have ever been), and the Gabra Nomads of East Africa (Look at the book When Men are Women).

This subject should be interesting to both male and female students, and should ignite some healthy debate. I also believe it will motivate your students to do some research, as the common sentiment is that there must have been at least one case of a female-run society. Unfortunately there has not been a single true case, but do not disclose this to the class immediately.

Apr 1 2012 6:08PM
0 0
profile picture
bangarangmules
Posts: 5065 - Karma: 84
This sounds very good, I'll have to check and see if she taught this yet, because I would definitely be interested in teaching this.

Any other ideas just in case? You guys are awesome.
Apr 1 2012 6:18PM
0 0
profile picture
bobs
Posts: 4801 - Karma: 868
i took a college course that was semi interesting. There's a lot of good parallels between the mayans and egyptians even though they supposedly never "met." It brings up some good debates if all knowledge is shared and passed from culture to culture or if cultures can evolve independently and humans are predisposed to certain trends.
Apr 1 2012 6:32PM
0 0
profile picture
Rachy
Posts: 4355 - Karma: 2,761
Ok... Most interesting things I learned in college (as an anthropology major)

On the topic of marriage - different types, can talk about how people can marry ghosts, cows, their deceased's family members, can look at what marriage is in other cultures, how they are compared to american marriages. In nepal, women have multiple husbands, keeps the population low. The Nuer's marriages are complete based on protecting cattle. The dowry's involved in muslim marriages and how people murder their wives and so forth when dowries aren't fulfilled. Crazy shit.

On the topic of the pacific islands. You can go into linguistics cause their are hundreds of languages, you can talk about pirates, the bottleneck effect (this one island has tons of people with 6 fingers), the awesome cheif from Fiji that ate over 800 people.

On the topic of death. You can talk about rituals, how/why people first started burying the dead as a way of getting rid of the smell rather than anything religious, how the yanomami creamate their dead and eat the ashes in banana soup and then can't say the deaceased's name once the soup is finished. You can talk about the catacombs in france. Vodoo and Sanataria in the US/islands.

On the topic of mental disabilities and insanity. How other cultures treat the insane, worship it, kill it. Shits crazy. You then get to go into medicine men and so forth.

On the topic of the first people in North America. How they most likely came into the US. The conflicts and theories involved. How they likely survived things like the MCA. How they started making tools. How they spread into central america. The anasazi lines and so forth.

Another super interesting one (that you kinda need to be careful with, but can be insanely interesting to every single person in class) is evolutionary psychology and the cultural and scientific understanding of beauty and attraction. You then get to talk about things like lily feet in japan, neck rings in africa, embeding stones in teeth for the maya, fake tits, makeup... and so forth. But then you get to talk about the science of it and how the more symmetrical your face is the more attractive you are. How women's hips are different from mens for child birth which is why men like big asses and so forth. It just gets a bit touchy cause you start talking about how women's lips are comparable to their vaginas and why in some culture women's boobs mean nothing but in the US they are idolized and R rated.
Apr 1 2012 7:08PM
0 0
profile picture
bangarangmules
Posts: 5065 - Karma: 84
+k to everyone in here, this is great. I really appreciate the help!
Apr 1 2012 7:14PM
0 0
profile picture
Spinoza
Posts: 12763 - Karma: 3,846
do you like it?   Anthropology is the only big/assumed sort of class i never took.   I should have taken it first year instead of waste-of-time sociology
Apr 1 2012 8:28PM
0 0
All times are Eastern (-5)