Pat’s Polemics

My wife never got to work on time. In 30 years as a professional, she was always about 10 minutes late. As a teacher, she (Continue Reading)

Lance wrote: “Careful…many traditional language teachers dismiss the “culture” in TPRS novels because it’s not packaged like a history survey course. I’m glad your community (Continue Reading)

I’ve had some ugly encounters on this listserv regarding cultural practices which they condemn based on the cultural and religious prejudices. I offered urls of (Continue Reading)

As I ride down the street listening to the complaints on the radio about attacks on Christianity, I pass church after church; in some neighborhoods, (Continue Reading)

Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography, which I’m just starting, should contain a narrative of her time before the Senate when she made a remark about a “wise (Continue Reading)

I took longer to put this up than I meant to, but here are the quotes from American Nations by Colin Woodard…… my comments follow. (Continue Reading)

Where does the true culture of a ……….. culture, lie? Or is it of a nation, of a country, of a people, of a language, (Continue Reading)

Those of us raised in a Western culture like that of the U.S. have problems understanding why people don’t just turn themselves over to our (Continue Reading)

I don’t recall if I put this url to a video of little girls doing a traditional dance in West Africa. Here it is. Those (Continue Reading)

Holidays offer a chance to the teacher to introduce students to an element of the culture they are studying. Most of holiday activities in the (Continue Reading)

The season opener was a disappointment as they tried to get too much in, but this episode was great, setting us up for all kids (Continue Reading)

An article in the NYT lays out the course of events eroding the Gullah or Geechee culture of this country’s southeast coastline. Descended from slaves, (Continue Reading)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgyZV7ydmg&feature=relmfu This is another short piece, taken from a movie, showing a number of cultural facets: dancing, music, dress, mating customs, humor, etc. Not knowing (Continue Reading)

The history of the U.S. has been presented as The Move West, Westward Ho! Western Expansion, Go West, Young Man! The Frontier Thesis……. all to (Continue Reading)

When Melville Herskovits embarked on his massive study, The Myth of the Negro Past, to document the fact that much of the behavior of African-Americans (Continue Reading)

Here we see a  possible moment of cultural change. The French seem to be beginning to question deeply held values regarding privacy and sexual behavior, (Continue Reading)

A wikipedia article on translating modern terms for modern musical genres caught my eye. Words like rock, rap, blues, jazz, rock and roll, etc. were (Continue Reading)

I am reading the article on teaching culture in the latest issue of The Language Educator, the popular organ of ACTFL. As I read it, (Continue Reading)

A judge has just struck down the controversial components of the notorious Arizona anti-immigration law, SB1070. I heard that in the middle of a discussion (Continue Reading)

Last night I went to a wedding. Very, very nice (and very, very expensive). Young couple, about 200 guests. Everyone was very nice, the ceremony (Continue Reading)

This was posted by my friend, Brian. It is the sort of cultural exploration I wish I saw more of. Of course we want to (Continue Reading)