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I have discovered that I love writing blogs. They lend themselves to always sharing fresh information. I have, however, discovered a drawback in that older posts tend to be easily forgotten or buried. As a result, I have decided to create an index of a few of the key topics that I have written on during the last two years. Here are some of the more popular posts grouped by topic area…
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on integrating theory into introductory social and cultural anthropology courses. Many teachers also had questions about how to integrate more basic, yet important, concepts into their courses. Some of these concepts are linked to theoretical schools and perspectives, others are a little more basic. For those teaching the IB course, the syllabus begins with a list of core terms and ideas – agency, community, comparative, cultural relativism, culture, ethnographic, meaning, process, qualitative, social reproduction and society. Because the subject guide has coupled these terms with explanations that seem to look a lot like definitions or encyclopedia entries, the temptation is for students to attempt to memorize set definitions for each of the core ideas. However, this would be the wrong path to take.
Teachers and students may want to check out Palomar College’s online anthropology tutorials. Similar to a glossy introductory textbook, the tutorials can be a great way to convey some basic principles of the discipline. However, the tutorials also share many of the same weaknesses of introductory textbooks in that they lead students in the direction of memorizing definitions, rather than thinking critically about anthropological issues. As long as they are used wisely (avoid the quizzes at the end) these can be a wonderful resources!
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