An old fish and lots of Europeans (then and now)

Malindi is a Swahili city.  Like the other cities (Lamu, Mombasa, Zanzibar) of the Swahili Coast, there is a rich history of interaction with the Indian Ocean.  You can see the Arabic, Islamic, and Indian influences in the architecture and the food.  But Malindi seems to be a bit more European than the others.

The main museum is called the House of Columns, and it's a great example of Swahili architecture.

When you first walk enter the museum, there is an exhibit the coelacanth that was found in the harbor in the early twentieth century.  I had never heard of the coelacanth until yesterday, but I now know a lot more.  Instead of simply narrating the story of finding a coelacanth, the exhibit is set up with signs that pretend to be  a talking fish asking you to guess what he/she/it is.  The exhibit was a bit weird because it felt like an exhibit designed for a five year old, but it lacked the other sorts of things exhibits for kids have.

On the upper level, there were rooms full of an exhibit on Vasco da Gama.  But instead of having any artifacts or items, there were simply about twenty posters narrating the story of Vasco da Gama being the first European to sail directly to India.  The odd thing about the posters is that they were written from an Eurocentric perspective.  Da Gama "discovered" the route to Europe - despite non-Europeans sailing across the Indian Ocean for over a thousand years in 1498.  Da Gama also got around the "Muslim stranglehold" to reach India, which seemed an especially odd description in a museum in a Muslim town.  Not a single poster looked at da Gama's voyage from a non-Eurocentric perspective, other than to mention briefly the help that Ahmad ibn Majid, an Arab navigator, provided him in sailing across the Indian Ocean to reach India.

There is also a Vasco da Gama pilar that he set up at the southern edge of the harbor in the early sixteenth century, so Portuguese sailors could find Malindi again.  Other than a few busloads of school children who quickly visited and left, I was the only person at the pillar.  It was the same experience at the beautiful little Portuguese chapel, which was also built in the early sixteenth century.

But despite the prehistoric fish and Vasco da Gama, the main attraction in Malindi seems to be the beach.  The town has been overrun by Italians.  Most of them seem to shuttle between the beach, the tasty Italian restaurants, the mozzarella cheese shop, and the gelateria.  The history of Malindi may seem to be ancient to most of its visitors, but you can still get a good espresso.

When donkeys bray

The first thing I noticed about Lamu is the incredible beauty of the old town.  As the boat approached the shore, an amazing city straddled the shore.

I stepped out of the boat, and the sound of donkeys braying filled my ears.  There are no cars or buses, so donkeys become the main means of transportation.  And like the persistent honking of New York City taxi cabs, the braying of donkeys is everywhere in Lamu.  It was a bit odd at first, but I quickly became used to it. Everywhere I turned, there were donkeys.  They wander around the streets of Lamu like cows in Indian cities.  They stop in the middle of the road.  They wander up to restaurants.  And often they are loaded down with bricks, food, or other assorted items.

The lack of cars and donkeys wandering all over the place make for a slow pace of life in Lamu.  No one seems to be rushing to get anywhere.  Instead, everywhere I turn I see people relaxing and talking with each other. This is a city made for wandering about.

Expectations

Today I woke up in Nairobi, and the first thing I heard was Denise Williams' "Let's Hear it for the Boy." it wasn't what I was expecting, but traveling is often not what one expects.

Over the next three weeks I'll be traveling down the Swahili Coast. I plan to be blogging more and posting lots of photos. You can expect to read, but probably not much about Denise Williams.

Teaching about Economic Inequality

It's been well over a year since I last posted, but it's about time to resume....

I was struck by an article in the Guardian's Comment is Free about economic inequality.  It doesn't seem like a surprising topic for a paper such as the Guardian.  What grabbed my attention is the author of the article: Kenneth Rogoff.  I don't usually associate Rogoff with leftist economics or columns in the Guardian.  (Although after checking, he has published a few other articles in the Guardian.)  

Rogoff's arguments are not remarkable or unique.  In fact, he says a lot of things about the global economy that many people would agree with as being problematic:

Within countries, inequality of income, wealth and opportunity is arguably greater than at any time in the last century. Across Europe, Asia and the Americas, corporations are bulging with cash as their relentless drive for efficiency continues to yield huge profits. Yet workers' share of the pie is falling, thanks to high unemployment, shortened working hours and stagnant wages.

This trend is one that is a major part of my modern world history course.  In teaching tenth graders about world history, I'm less concerned in discussing the battles of the World War or the details about the lives of famous people.  Helping students to understand how the world has become so economically and politically integrated and the consequences of that integration seems far more important.  From day one of the class, I encourage students to think about the world they live in and how it functions and to ask questions about how this world came to be.

One of the key steps in helping students understand the modern world is analyzing the effects of the Industrial Revolution.  Trying to teach a sixteen year old about the global nature of industrialization is not the easiest task.  And few topics are more challenging to teach than Karl Marx and the origins of Communism.  Students have lots of preconceived ideas about Marx and Communism.  Most of those ideas are wrong, but that just reflects the broader American understanding of Marx.  Despite the generally negative American stereotype of Communism, most students are still excited to learn something about Marx.  That excitement disappears after a couple of pages of excerpts from the Communist Manifesto.  Imagine what goes through the head of that sixteen year old when she or he reads:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes.

Still, I know that I need to teach Marx.  You can only imagine my pleasure when I read Rogoff actually highlighting the importance of Marx:

Writing in the 19th century, Karl Marx famously observed inequality trends in his day and concluded that capitalism could not indefinitely sustain itself politically: eventually, workers would rise up and overthrow the system. Outside Cuba, North Korea and a few leftwing universities around the world, no one takes Marx seriously anymore. Contrary to his predictions, capitalism spawned ever-higher standards of living for more than a century, while attempts to implement radically different systems have fallen spectacularly short.   

Yet, with inequality reaching levels similar to 100 years ago, the status quo has to be vulnerable. Instability can express itself anywhere. It was just over four decades ago that urban riots and mass demonstrations rocked the developed world, ultimately catalysing far-reaching social and political reforms.

Reading Rogoff has reminded me about the importance of challenging students to look closely at the world we live in and to ask difficult questions about why the world is the way it is.  And hopefully, those students might try to change things.

Cosmopolitanism in Paris

I've been fortunate in that I've spent much of the last ten years traveling all over the world.  I've been lucky enough to visi much of Asia and Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Central America.  Despite my fortune, I've never visited Paris.  I've been to Charles de Gaulle airport many times for transfers, but I never left the airport.  Part of the reason that I've never seen Paris (or any of France for that matter) is that I've always had opportunities to travel other places.  But at the same time, I was always slightly reluctant to visit Paris.  For so many Americans, it is the place they want to visit, and I've never been one to do what everyone else does.  And when people describe what they like about Paris, they say things about how "French" or "European" it is.  Another reason for my reluctance has been that I simply knew I would visit Paris some day - Paris isn't going anywhere. 

This past weekend, I finally visited Paris.  In four days in Paris, I managed to eat plenty of bread and cheese, as well as Lebanese, Thai, and Chinese. I drank more than a few espressos.  Vanessa and I saw some of the sites that everyone raves about: Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, the Louvre, and the Champs-Elysses.  I saw the Eiffel

Image by bramhubbell via Flickr

Tower in the distance, but I never got too close.  We were fortunate to visit during the festival in Montmarte, and got to drink fresh, local wines on the steps of Sacre Coeur and look out at the city.  I understood why everyone loves Paris - it is beautiful and amazing.

At the same time, Vanessa and I visited the Institut du Monde arabe, which had two amazing exhibits going on. One was a special collection called "the arts of Islam" that had an amazing diversity of Islamic art from all periods until the early twentieth century.  There was also an entirely different exhibit on contemporary Palestinian art.  It captured the rich contemporary artistic culture of Palestine that so few people see, instead of the ubiquitous notion of Palestinian being linked to terrorism.  And then we made it to the Grand Palais to see "De Byzance à Istanbul," to see an incredible new exhibit that showcases the history of the city from its early neolithic foundations to Constantinople the capital of the Byzantine Empire through the Ottoman and present day Istanbul.

We finished off the four days with a little nod to stereotypical France, sitting on our balcony eating brie, chevre, pears, and figs with freshly baked bread, while drinking red wine. 

The four days sounds like a whirlwind on paper, but we actually weren't too busy.  There were lots of moments sitting around and just taking in Paris.  By the end of the trip, I realized how comfortably "classical" Paris coexists with this incredibly rich and culturally diverse Paris. This isn't necessarily surprising, but it's not what one expects on a trip to Paris. It's what made the trip so special, and reminded me how easy it is to make assumptions about people and places.  But as I begin to look closely at everything, I can see how my initial impressions can't fully make sense of the complexity of a person or place.  I should have guessed that Paris would surprise me based on my other travels, but for some reason I just kept assuming that Paris couldn't be as great as everyone says.  I now want to return and see more.

First Days and Worlds of Possibilties

Today was the first day of classes. Nothing really ever gets taught on the first day - it's more just a day to hand out syllabi and course introductions, meet the students, introduce myself, and make it possible to jump right into full on teaching on Monday.
At the same time, I was realizing how much can be accomplished in a different way on the first day. I've begun to focus more on the possibility of what can be learned over the course of the year and less on the nuts and bolts. I realized that like so many teachers, I used to get hung up on making sure that students know the rules and are ready for real classes to begin. But with each year of teaching, I have begun to realize that some of my best days of teaching are when I focus less on the main idea and let the class wander more. Students start thinking about material in new ways. There's less worrying about making sure that all the details get covered and more emphasis on the processes of thinking and learning. Students start to do what Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed describes as "problem posing education," which allows them to shape the learning process more. It's a better way to begin the year than a day "banking education."
A few years ago, another teacher told me about a quote from Dune, which describes the learning process in such a great way. In my world history classes, it's the first thing my students look at today. Students, hopefully, begin to see that learning is a process, and it's one in which they have so much control over. I also just like the idea of starting of with a quote from a science fiction novel.

Many have marked the speed with which Muad' Dib learned the necessities of Arrakis. The Ben Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the others, we can say that Muad' Dib learned rapidly because his first training was how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more find learning to be difficult. Muad' Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

- Frank Herbert, Dune

Switching gears

It's been almost a week since I've left India and came back to NYC. It's not really possible to summarize my trip in a few sentences, yet I keep trying to do that over the last few days. When I tell people that I spent four weeks in northern India, people want details. And although I can tell them about amazing views of the Himalayas, beautiful Buddhist monasteries, and rides on local buses, none of those things really capture what made the trip so wonderful.
Good trips are more than the sum of the things you do. There was something special about this trip in the way that I was able to truly get out of my NYC bubble and find a place where I was so mentally and spiritually at ease. I keep thinking about how I can keep that feeling here in NYC. If anything, I don't want to switch gears now that I'm back in NYC. I want to stay in the same mental place I was in Ladakh even if I'm 8,000 miles away. Now the challenge begins....