tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post6362022310919285759..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: Experiential Learning: Teaching Race, Religion, and EthnicityPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-83080038956671266222014-04-21T09:16:59.294-06:002014-04-21T09:16:59.294-06:00Peter, your assignment sounds fantastic. I've...Peter, your assignment sounds fantastic. I've thought of something similar for my urban and suburban history course because it's an upper level course. Enjoy your class and let me know how the project goes! Perhaps you could post about it?Karen Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05298655303333943968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-84692152063030206462014-04-19T06:45:50.441-06:002014-04-19T06:45:50.441-06:00This sounds like a great activity, and a timely on...This sounds like a great activity, and a timely one for me as I design an experiential assignment for my History of World Religions class, which I teach next Spring (at a regional state university with only a fledgling religious studies minor and no RELS faculty). This is a survey course focused mostly on acquiring a surface knowledge of a broad range of religious traditions. This assignment, however, pushes students beneath the surface as they explore the life of one specific religious community. Through textual research, participant-observation, and oral interviews, students will meet group members, listen to the stories they tell about themselves and their community, and look at how they identify themselves in relation to the “outside world” and other religious groups. One of the goals of the assignment is to foster empathy or social knowledge through which students come to see the world at least partially from the perspective of the people they are studying. This requires bracketing our own values and assumptions, active listening, openness, personal reflection, and curiosity, all of which we practice in the course generally. I'm anxious and excited about the assignment. Like you, I'm a historian (early American, actually) not an ethnographer, so I have a lot to learn about participant observation and look forward to reading the Studying Congregations book.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06220203190236239148noreply@blogger.com