Thank You Mom and Dad for Spreading Religious Knowledge!

I felt so....dark after writing my post on Secret Combinations that I had to follow up with nice bit about religion and how it also is spread by folk knowledge.

Typically, when religion is brought up, we usually resort to consulting holy books such as the Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon etc. While these print materials may be of great importance, when they are the only sources considered, often times they result in irrational Bible bashes. Often times, we forget the original essence of religion. Think back, way back to when you were a kid, who first introduced your religion or beliefs? Was it a book? Most likely, it wasn’t. More likely it was your parents, or friends.

When you consider ancient times, where print was not readily available. The primary responsibility of keeping religious traditions alive lay within the family. When considering the Bible, the religious traditions of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and so forth were all kept alive, not from books, but from strong family values. This proves that religion is a folk knowledge it must be taught and practiced on a personal level rather than institutions. Also, in the book of Mormon, Helaman’s 2000 stripling warriors obtained such strong testimonies, enough to vanquish the armies of evil, all because simply their mothers taught them (Alma 56:47). The seeds of testimonies begin with the source of original folk knowledge.

Another interesting tid bit I researched was about the early Massachusetts colony in the New World during the mid- 17^th century. Due to their unwavering commitment to religion, a large part of their culture centered around the parents teaching their children religion. In fact, in 1642, the colony passed a law that required parents to school children in the Bible and morality. The link to this interesting article is found here: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2246/Moral-Education.html

Then, to even further my point, there was a Pew Forum Religious Knowledge survey done a year ago that concluded that those who knew more about religion admit to having meaningful religious discussions with family and friends. See http://pewforum.org/other-beliefs-and-practices/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey.aspx

Now, I’m not saying that religion can’t be learned from holy books (I love the Book of Mormon), but honestly the strongest religious realizations don’t come from hard copies. Religious truth and traditions are spread when people earnestly share their testimonies, and seek knowledge from the Spirit.

Water

I emailed Prof. Burton and asked if we had to do a blog post this week, and he said there was no specific assignment but we were expected to post about something that pursues the learning outcomes and is relative to the units we are in between, folk knowledge and oral knowledge. I decided to do one last post on folk knowledge, and I decided to go to the list and find the topic I was least interested in, learn and subsequently blog about it, and I thought that maybe then I would gain a greater interest in and appreciation for it. So here goes: Water.

CREPES!

I had a really hard time finding something I thought I was really good at that would also be worth teaching to others. But then it came to me-- CREPES!

If I know how to do anything, I know how to make scrumptious crepes. Not to brag, but I've never had better crepes than the ones I've made with my own hands. With crepes, the technique, handiwork, and texture are more important than the actual recipe. Just choose a generic recipe (like the one below from foodnetwork.com), and then I'll work you through the handiwork.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (preferably whole)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon melted butter (plus more for cooking crepes)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Personally, my favorite crepe toppings are cooked frozen blueberries (in their own juice, with just a pinch of sugar) and whipped cream.

The directions online say to "put the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Gradually whisk in the milk, melted butter, and vanilla. Cover and let chill in the refridgerator for about an hour."

Heat an 8-inch skillet or pan on medium-high heat. Melt a bit of butter in the middle, swirling it around as it melts so that it covers the whole pan.

Now here's the tricky part: ladle the absolutely LEAST amount of crepe batter into the middle of the sizzling pan. Pick up the pan by the handle and, using gravity, manuever the batter around the pan until the batter covers the pan in an extremely thin layer. You'll only want to leave the crepe for, like, twenty seconds... just until the crepe turns a golden color... you don't want to burn it. Being very gentle (you might need two utensils), turn the crepe over and cook.

And there you go! The perfect crepe.

More on the Mother Tongue

I just came across this in a textbook reading I have for English, and it was pretty cool.  It's by this African-American female professor and feminist, Gloria Watkins, who goes by bell hooks in her writing, about women's concerns with teaching Women's Studies in a university setting.  Read more about bell hooks here.

Miles and Miles of Spirals (almost a rhyme?)

Kelly learning a "3 Point stance" (thanks to Tanner
for his help)

If I thought I was out of my comfort zone learning to braid hair, I can't imagine what these girls were feeling learning how to play football. It's interesting that in today's world of tolerance and gender equality, football remains one of the few sports with no womens' teams at the high school or collegiate level. Why is this? Do we assume girls are weaker than boys and can't handle the physicality of football? Are we afraid to let them compete in any form of football besides "Powder Puff" games or the "Lingerie Football League"? I wanted to break these traditions and teach girls how to play low down, gritty, real football.

Knowledge Cubed

Have you ever heard of Feliks Zembdegs, Nipat Charoenpholphant, or Che-Ting Chu? Well you should have because they are currently the top 3 ranked Rubik’s cube solvers in the world. 5.66 seconds sounds pretty intense, right? And so this is the tale of my quest to solve a Rubik’s cube.

Let's...Rumba!

Hold one, two, three, four and one, two, three, four, and turn open fan and pose! That was basically the essence of my teaching experience today. I started ballroom dancing in junior high and ever since then dance positions, rock steps, and pivots have been etched into my subconscious.

Recently at BYU, I’ve been taking a Latin style ballroom class and currently we had learned a rhumba routine. It’s a slow, smooth, romantic, that requires methodical foot dragging and subtle hip twisting. So I called up one of my female partners and we organized a time to teach a few of our friends the basic steps.

We met in the activity room of our dorm, I tuned some Michael Buble and we proceeded to demonstrate “new yorkers”, “fans”, and “la cucarachas”. Slowly, our friend’s faces dropped with confusion, but yet their eyes lit with anticipation to learn how to dance. My partner and I first taught them how to walk to the rhythm. Rhumba is interesting because you don’t start on beat one as you would in swing or cha-cha: you start on beat two and pause on beat one. At first our friends were confused, but gradually s they figured out how to keep the beat and move in time with their partners. I was so proud! There’s a great satisfaction to teach a skill to others. They most likely will forget the steps by tomorrow but nonetheless, they will carry that knowledge of ballroom dance for the rest of their lives.

Its interesting to switch from the vantage point of the learner to the teacher. What’s even more surprising are the similarities between the two. The most striking similarity is the amount of humility required. If a learner is prideful, they risk missing critical information and the teacher is rendered useless. When a teacher is prideful, them the learner gets annoyed and the transfer of knowledge is disrupted.

I was grateful to have another teacher their helping me out. She knew skills, such as the lady’s steps, that I couldn’t teach. With the combination of her knowledge, we were both able to teach more effectively than we could have alone. Knowledge doesn’t have to be taught via one person, sometimes tag-team teaching is more effective. Like our civilizations class. The two-person teaching method really invigorates the learning atmosphere.

Ballroom dance is a folk knowledge that creates strong bonds between two people. When two partners nail a routine, there’s a sort of mutual excitement and sense of companionship. I will always relish my ballroom dancing knowledge, and hope I can have more opportunities to teach others so that they can have that same connection I’ve felt.