Credits
Bibliographies & Photo Credits
- General Silk Road Sources
- Travelers
- Transmission of Technology
An Institute in Asian Studies at Bangor High School
This program, designed by Bangor history teachers, Ryan Bradeen and Bill Ames, examines the geographic, chronological and cultural scope Asia through four perspectives or roads: by examining geography and cultural diversity, by investigating cultural contacts via the Silk Road trade, by looking at Asian philosophy and faith and by considering Euro-american interaction with Asia over the last two centuries. This study focuses on China. By comparing China with other major cultures of Asia and Euro-American culture, the program establishes a cultural spectrum of Eurasia. In essays, discussions, presentations, lectures, textual materials and multi-media documents, students explore this spectrum and apply knowledge gained to fundamental and vital questions concerning the role of Asia in the world and the relationship of Asian nations to the United States.
In our changing times, Asia has emerged as a region of paramount importance. Through our widely inter-connected economic and political systems, the problems of Asia are becoming, increasingly, our problems. Also, as the face of the nation comes to include rising numbers of citizens of Asian descent, it is our responsibility to educate all about the heritage of these peoples so as to facilitate informed dialogue and understanding among our population.
Four Roads of Asia engages students in a wide variety of learning experiences designed to broaden their historical knowledge, deepen their analytical skills, foster independent learning and initiative, and develop technical skills to evaluate and present information in organized, concise and powerful ways. The program requires of students significant commitment outside of the classroom, particularly in the acquisition of fact-level knowledge through reading and completion of assignments. Students are expected to participate as junior contributors and researchers of the Institute, building Institute resources with their research materials and their own products.
Above, this
year's 4Roads class puts the finishing touches on the Sand Map project
undertaken at the beginning of the year. (Their costumes are part of
senior Homecoming activities.)
Each student researches a province of China, investigating its geogrpahy, ethnic diveristy and agricultural productions. Students create a large map of China on a wooden bed with a grid of nails pounded into its surface. Paper strips weaved through this grid allow students to outline their provinces. Students fill their province with a grain produced in that region such a rice, millet or soybeans. They also create covers for their province which depict the region visually and summarize it statistically.
The Sand Map is an example of many non-electronic types of projects which the 4Roads class undertakes in the course of the year.
What this means is that students must design three-dimensional structures in edible architecture which represents their religion’s basic beliefs and characteristics. In addition, they prepare brief summaries of the religion, glossaries of terms and schematic diagrams which explain the design of their sculptures. They also prepare 10-minute presentations in which they explain the important philosophical and historical developments of the faith they have researched.
The project is an excellent exercise in symbolic thinking. In a world permeated with symbols, the ability to decode and create non-verbal representations of ideas. The project forces students to consider how to use size, color, shape and location to convey information, in this complicated relationships at the heart of the philosophy they researched. And by limiting the possible elements to edible ones, students must also consider other qualities, such as texture, smell and taste as well as the symbolic associations possessed by food products
After the presentations are finished, the guests and students feast on the food sculptures and the assembled potluck of vaguely Asian dishes.This is an excellent end to our year together, giving students one last chance to shine and faculty one last chance to see this crop of excellent seniors before graduation.
The 2000 – 2001 4Roads
students at Bangor High School are an excellent cross-section of Bangor's
students. These 14 students come from a variety of backgrounds and
interests, but work together with a collegiality and good spirit born of
life in northern Maine.
I consider it an honor and pleasure to work with this group of students each year. I look forward to opportunities to take this group into public since one can trust that they will be superior representatives of our school and community. One such foray into the public eye was a December field trip to an exhibit on Japanese daily life in the 1870's at the Maine State Musuem and the Maine maritime connections to Asia at Penobscot Marine Museum.
The two visits combined to show students the everyday lives of people in Japan and Maine during the 1870’s. Students also saw the goods that Americans desired from Asia; demand for Asian teas, silks and luxury goods sent hundreds of ships around Cape Horn and across the Pacific. Many of these ships had been built in Maine; many of the sailors were Maine men. Asian studies students recognized, that although Maine is geographically furthest from China and Japan, that their state has as long a relationship with Asia as any part of the country.
Top / Home / Teacher Section / Bibliographies / Instructor / Section Authors