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Yesterday for history we did history
Dec. 9th, 2014 08:59 amEverybody's feeling well, so we managed to finally do another full day of school, something we haven't managed since Thanksgiving what with everybody having teeth pulled and being sick and having more teeth pulled. They wouldn't have done school had they been in school either, but I wasn't feeling happy with that.
So we talked about the rise of herders. Now, as a segue into the later topic of "Herders and farmers: They don't get along" I brought up Cain and Abel, a story they were totally ignorant of. I said "Wow, we're going to really have to work on this, you need some more cultural awareness". They said they're not taking that this year. Ha ha ha - no, no, no. Cultural awareness, we need to work on that.
But anyway, as I pointed out, the conflict between herders and farmers is quite literally one of the oldest ones in the book. And by "the book" I mean in this case "the Bible", but it's definitely not the only one.
The takeaway that Ana got from this is "Um, is it just me, or is God kinda acting like a... well... a jerk?" Thank you, Ana, for that insightful contribution to interfaith dialog, and yes, he kinda is, but oddly enough that's not quite what we were talking about this time.
After that digression we returned to the main theme: Herders and farmers, they don't get along. Indeed, I went to google to illustrate that point, and I found several relatively recent news articles about conflicts between herders and farmers. (That's "recent" in comparison to the fact that we're doing ancient history, but the point is still valid.)
As I told them, and will continue to tell them, if they learn nothing else in our study of ancient history that should be the takeaway: Herders and farmers, they don't get along. You can sum up entire cultures with that pithy phrase, if you end the conversation quickly enough once you've done so.
So we talked about the rise of herders. Now, as a segue into the later topic of "Herders and farmers: They don't get along" I brought up Cain and Abel, a story they were totally ignorant of. I said "Wow, we're going to really have to work on this, you need some more cultural awareness". They said they're not taking that this year. Ha ha ha - no, no, no. Cultural awareness, we need to work on that.
But anyway, as I pointed out, the conflict between herders and farmers is quite literally one of the oldest ones in the book. And by "the book" I mean in this case "the Bible", but it's definitely not the only one.
The takeaway that Ana got from this is "Um, is it just me, or is God kinda acting like a... well... a jerk?" Thank you, Ana, for that insightful contribution to interfaith dialog, and yes, he kinda is, but oddly enough that's not quite what we were talking about this time.
After that digression we returned to the main theme: Herders and farmers, they don't get along. Indeed, I went to google to illustrate that point, and I found several relatively recent news articles about conflicts between herders and farmers. (That's "recent" in comparison to the fact that we're doing ancient history, but the point is still valid.)
As I told them, and will continue to tell them, if they learn nothing else in our study of ancient history that should be the takeaway: Herders and farmers, they don't get along. You can sum up entire cultures with that pithy phrase, if you end the conversation quickly enough once you've done so.
