Welcome to the seventh time that I am leading a Hamline class to Greece. A study abroad course provides students with some unique opportunities. They can experience firsthand the monuments, people, and cultures they learn about in a book; something that no class learning can duplicate. Students can also experience another culture and learn, albeit in a limited way, how other people live and organize their societies. By learning about other people and cultures students also are better able to look at their familiar culture from a different perspective. When this year’s students return home the right question to be asked is not “What do you think of Greece now that you have been there?” but rather “Now that you have been abroad what do you think of the US?” Even after many trips, I am not tired of two observations: 1) Our students’ reaction when they come face to face, for the first time, with famous monuments they have heard about so often. 2) The wonder of seeing Greece through the eyes of our students. Their comments and observations make me rethink my views on a subject I thought I knew well. The purpose of this course is to examine the evolution of the Greek culture and people from the ancient times to the present. While we will be dealing with historical eras seemingly different from each other (archaic, classical, Hellenistic, Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern) we will be also looking at connections between those periods and how the people in question viewed and reacted to their past. Finally, we will be looking at the modern Greek state and society and answer the question: Is history a positive force or can it be a “dead hand” that does more harm than good?
Welcome to the seventh time that I am leading a Hamline class to Greece. A study abroad course provides students with some unique opportunities. They can experience firsthand the monuments, people, and cultures they learn about in a book; something that no class learning can duplicate. Students can also experience another culture and learn, albeit in a limited way, how other people live and organize their societies. By learning about other people and cultures students also are better able to look at their familiar culture from a different perspective. When this year’s students return home the right question to be asked is not “What do you think of Greece now that you have been there?” but rather “Now that you have been abroad what do you think of the US?”
ReplyDeleteEven after many trips, I am not tired of two observations: 1) Our students’ reaction when they come face to face, for the first time, with famous monuments they have heard about so often. 2) The wonder of seeing Greece through the eyes of our students. Their comments and observations make me rethink my views on a subject I thought I knew well.
The purpose of this course is to examine the evolution of the Greek culture and people from the ancient times to the present. While we will be dealing with historical eras seemingly different from each other (archaic, classical, Hellenistic, Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern) we will be also looking at connections between those periods and how the people in question viewed and reacted to their past. Finally, we will be looking at the modern Greek state and society and answer the question: Is history a positive force or can it be a “dead hand” that does more harm than good?