Unit Rationale

        My cooperating teacher changed six weeks before my student teaching began due to a promotion, and I was reassigned from teaching ancient Europe to Southeastern and Eastern Asia.  Without a firm academic background in this field, and the knowledge that about a quarter of my students' families came from SE Asia, I began to research the current debates and issues of the historical community around these regions.  I came to the realization that little has been written about SE Asia for student curriculum.  Historian Michael Aung-Thwin (1991), writes: “The study of Southeast Asia as an academic discipline[at the University level] in the United States began only about thirty years ago. Indeed, some history departments still do not recognize Southeast Asia as a legitimate field (p.575).  Furthermore, most of the high school curriculum that does exist portrays Southeast Asia as a passive recipient of foreign culture.  Tapping my own travel experience, I chose to center our first unit around the awe-inspiring ruins of Ankgor Wat.  Further research showed that this was a great way to portray Southeast Asia as a proud civilization and originator of cultural and artistic achievements.  It allowed me to show my students a proud and independent Southeast Asia before going into analysis of colonization and dependency.

 Aung-Thwin, Michael (1991). “Spirals in Early Southeast Asian and Burmese History" Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Vol. 21, No. 4 (Spring, 1991), 575-602.

Continue