1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:14,640 Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast exploring the topics of business, education, 2 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:16,160 technology and design. 3 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:17,600 I'm your host, Mr. Jason. 4 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:23,960 Join me weekly as my team and I produce content that's informative, positive, fun and uplifting. 5 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,440 Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders and inspirational stories 6 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:30,040 with an international flavor. 7 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:34,000 This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International 8 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:39,560 Community School of Bangkok. 9 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:41,880 Hello everyone and welcome back to our show. 10 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:46,000 I'm Mr. Jason and I'm joined by my co-host today, Primi. 11 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:51,320 We also welcome our special guest, Mr. Andy, a multi-talented and uniquely gifted speaker 12 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:52,320 and educator. 13 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:57,520 We'll get into some of his history and journey from early jobs and careers until now, where 14 00:00:57,520 --> 00:00:59,440 he's an experienced history teacher. 15 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:04,420 We'll also be discussing some significant events in history that have shaped the world 16 00:01:04,420 --> 00:01:06,160 as we know it today. 17 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,680 But first, let's hear the quote of the day and get some headline news. 18 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:12,240 Our quote of the day comes from Leon Brown. 19 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:13,240 He said, 20 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:18,760 History repeats itself endlessly for those who are unwilling to learn from the past. 21 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:23,820 This quote emphasized that history can repeat itself for those who refuse to learn from 22 00:01:23,820 --> 00:01:25,160 the past. 23 00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:30,920 They fail to recognize the patterns and lessons that can guide them towards a better future. 24 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:35,620 By neglecting history's warnings and insights, they become trapped in a cycle of repeating 25 00:01:35,620 --> 00:01:38,720 the same mistakes again and again. 26 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:43,800 We can break free from this cycle by acknowledging the past and learning from it so that our 27 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,200 path forward is full of progress and growth. 28 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:48,880 And that's our quote of the day. 29 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:52,360 And now onto some historical news you have probably never heard of. 30 00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:55,280 Our first historical news piece comes out of Australia. 31 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,160 I bet you've never heard of the Emu War? 32 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:00,880 Well here's what happened during the Emu War. 33 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:06,680 Emus in Australia were destroying large amounts of crops after an unusual migration in 1932. 34 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:09,480 Farmers were allowed to shoot the emus to protect their land, but there were just too 35 00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:10,920 many of them. 36 00:02:10,920 --> 00:02:15,720 Three members of the Royal Australian Artillery decided to bring along two machine guns with 37 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:18,040 them in an attempt to hunt the emus. 38 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:23,640 However, the operation was a failure and the emus evaded them every single time. 39 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:27,160 Thus marked the victory of the emus in the Emu War. 40 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:31,520 Our second news piece is about a disaster that happened in Boston, Massachusetts. 41 00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:33,000 And you've probably never heard of it. 42 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,040 No, it's not the famous Boston Tea Party. 43 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:41,200 In 1919, a storage tank containing 8 milliliters of molasses burst, sending waves of sticky 44 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:44,940 and sweet syrup into the streets of northern Boston. 45 00:02:44,940 --> 00:02:48,840 The wave of molasses measured several meters high and traveled at high speeds, destroying 46 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:50,880 buildings and trapping people. 47 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:55,160 It then hardened in the winter cold, making rescue efforts even harder. 48 00:02:55,160 --> 00:03:00,440 And our final news piece is about the River Thames frost fairs. 49 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:06,040 During a period of harsh winters wind in the UK, people organized fairs on the frozen river 50 00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:11,960 Thames where multiple events took place, such as sledding, skating, horse racing in place. 51 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:17,400 Even King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I had gone to visit some of these fairs, going 52 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:23,880 about and purchasing goods from the many vendors set up on the frozen rivers. 53 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:28,660 In this first segment, we welcome Mr. Andy and we'll hear a little bit about his journey 54 00:03:28,660 --> 00:03:33,640 from early jobs, lessons learned, and now what he's doing today. 55 00:03:33,640 --> 00:03:37,360 Bremie will start us off with our first question. 56 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:40,040 We'll start off with a few lighthearted questions. 57 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:43,800 Our first question is, which historical figure would you like to have lunch with? 58 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:45,600 And you can choose anyone. 59 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:46,640 Anyone. 60 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:48,960 That is a great question. 61 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:52,760 Almost for sure, my answer is going to change depending on when you ask me, depending on 62 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:53,840 what month or what year. 63 00:03:53,840 --> 00:04:02,940 But I think right now, the person that comes to mind would be Martin Luther, the reformer. 64 00:04:02,940 --> 00:04:08,440 Such an interesting individual and had recently been studying the Reformation. 65 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:15,440 And I just think he'd be the kind of guy that would be a really enjoyable conversationalist. 66 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,040 And it would be a lot of fun to kind of hang out and hear him. 67 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:22,480 He might be a little bit annoying, to be honest, but it would also be really interesting to 68 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:24,920 hear him because he's kind of a passionate individual. 69 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:26,800 All right. 70 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:32,640 So the next question is, if you could go back in history and tell your past self just one 71 00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:35,200 thing, what would it be? 72 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:43,400 To be honest, I think that what I would tell myself was to have more patience with my children. 73 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:49,120 I think that's one of the things that I often think back and regret the most, which kind 74 00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:50,120 of funny. 75 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:56,000 It is an historical lesson in that it's only something I've realized as I've gotten older 76 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,320 and I think back about certain experiences. 77 00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:03,320 But man, that is definitely one that I wish I could tell myself. 78 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:04,320 Yeah. 79 00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:10,800 And now moving on to your own personal history, what were some of your past jobs and work 80 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:12,080 experiences like? 81 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:14,080 Oh, thanks for asking that. 82 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:15,600 I have had a lot of jobs, actually. 83 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:19,640 Yeah, I'd love to hear about them. 84 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:24,200 The first one that I actually, one of my very first jobs was as a gymnastics coach. 85 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,240 Oh, wow. 86 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:33,000 So I was a gymnast, like a recreational gymnast, and then I thought I wanted to try to compete. 87 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:41,720 And so I went to a club that had a competition team and I tried out and I got a spot, but 88 00:05:41,720 --> 00:05:46,720 I had to make a decision because it was going to be a super long period of commitment, like 89 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:52,400 each day that I would have to go and train and it would kind of take over a little bit. 90 00:05:52,400 --> 00:05:54,520 So I decided not to do it. 91 00:05:54,520 --> 00:06:01,440 And instead, where I was learning, I started coaching and I still would work out and enjoy 92 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,160 learning, but I started coaching. 93 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:09,720 And then from there, I ended up coaching kind of for a long time, actually, and then through 94 00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:16,520 high school and then later after college, I started coaching again when I was in graduate 95 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:17,520 school. 96 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:23,080 But this time it was in like a gym where they had some really good competing, like competitive 97 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:26,400 athletes that would travel around the nation and compete. 98 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:31,840 And it was an amazing learning experience because I was working with people who like 99 00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:34,000 that's their profession. 100 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:38,500 And it was really amazing how much I didn't know. 101 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:44,680 But also one thing that it helped me develop all of the years of coaching gymnastics was 102 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:49,880 how to manage groups of people, groups of students, actually. 103 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:55,600 And one lesson that I'll never forget is one of the coaches that I worked with, he also 104 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,480 actually happened to be a PE teacher and he would just come in and coach a certain team 105 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:02,600 like a couple of times or like most nights of the week. 106 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:04,960 But it was just like he had a special team and he coached. 107 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:11,680 And I remember him saying, Andy, no one pays for their kid to come stand in line. 108 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:16,040 And it was like a philosophy of like, how do you manage this group of people, even if 109 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,760 there's lots of people around, you know, they're there to learn and they should be given the 110 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:22,880 experience to work. 111 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:27,840 And I think that's really stuck with me even in my teaching, like to have people just kind 112 00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:32,480 of wait that waiting in line is not a very healthy or good way to manage people or to 113 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:33,840 help them learn. 114 00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:37,760 So that was something that was an important lesson. 115 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:43,520 Another job that I had, I worked for, I was the operations manager for the Los Angeles 116 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:48,880 office of a corporation called Quest Drape. 117 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:53,920 And we set pipe and drape and no one has ever heard of it, but almost everyone's seen it. 118 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:59,600 So if you've ever watched a political figure speaking on TV, usually when they're at like 119 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:07,040 a hotel or conference center, you'll see they're almost always in front of like a blue drape. 120 00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:11,400 Or if you see like a big event, like one that comes to mind, like when Coca-Cola released 121 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:13,920 Coke Zero, they'll have these huge screens up. 122 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:17,820 They'll be in a big theater like this one event we did, which was at the Hollywood and 123 00:08:17,820 --> 00:08:18,820 Highland Theater. 124 00:08:18,820 --> 00:08:22,640 It's called the Dolby Theater now, I think. 125 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:27,880 It used to be the Kodak Theater, but we would go in and set drape between the screens and 126 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:29,800 behind the stage. 127 00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:33,760 And it was an awful job actually. 128 00:08:33,760 --> 00:08:35,000 It's not that it was an awful job. 129 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:36,840 It just wasn't really my personality. 130 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:42,560 And so it was one of those situations where we were excellent at it. 131 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:49,160 The corporation as a whole was, and we had a return client rate that was unheard of in 132 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:50,920 the industry. 133 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:56,640 But that was mainly because, I mean, you were taught you pretty much don't ever say no. 134 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:04,120 And even if it was unsafe or not possible, you figured out a way to do it so that it 135 00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:05,480 was safe and possible. 136 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:09,000 And if it wasn't quite what was expected at first, you had to learn to convince them that 137 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:10,840 is really the best way to do it. 138 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:15,240 So it taught me to work with people in new ways. 139 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:16,920 And you had to be really patient. 140 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:18,320 But I was actually the operations manager. 141 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:22,920 So I was also operating crews of people and things. 142 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:26,480 So that organization level was good for me. 143 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:30,760 But the demand on the managers was enormous. 144 00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:32,080 It was exhausting. 145 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:35,240 And it took me away from home regularly. 146 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:38,720 It was the first cell phone I ever had was given to me from work. 147 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:44,040 The first laptop, I think, was given to me by work. 148 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:48,720 But it was just ways that you could try to work, that you worked all the time. 149 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:52,760 And so it was a good learning experience. 150 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:56,480 And it was actually an amazing way that God provided for my family at the time. 151 00:09:56,480 --> 00:09:58,120 So in that way, it was a blessing. 152 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:02,720 But it also helped me to realize this is not what I want to do forever. 153 00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:06,680 So it kind of encouraged me to get back into teaching again. 154 00:10:06,680 --> 00:10:10,840 All right, so this transitions well into the next question. 155 00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:15,000 Can you tell us a bit about your personal journey into education and why you decided 156 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:19,200 to focus on teaching and specifically the subject of history? 157 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:21,960 Yeah, this is one of those funny stories. 158 00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:28,240 So because I had had so much experience working with kids, working with students as a gymnastics 159 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:33,360 coach, and then I worked at the Y and I would work at sports camps and things occasionally 160 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:35,000 over the summer. 161 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:36,600 And I also came from a big family. 162 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:43,160 So either my sister or myself, we were babysitting our kids or friends, families, this kind of 163 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:44,160 thing. 164 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:46,540 I was so burnt out on working with kids. 165 00:10:46,540 --> 00:10:51,440 And I can remember our oldest son who I adopted. 166 00:10:51,440 --> 00:10:53,800 So the timing is kind of odd here. 167 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:59,520 But I can remember I went into the school, the classroom where he was going to school 168 00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:03,160 and I picked him up and he was in first grade, I think, at the time. 169 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:07,560 And I remember walking into the classroom and thinking, I never want to do this. 170 00:11:07,560 --> 00:11:11,000 Like I, yeah, this is awful. 171 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,400 And yeah, so it was quite some time. 172 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:19,720 So actually I went to I went to seminary, which is usually people who go to seminary 173 00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:26,000 are going to be like, like ministers or like kind of professional church leaders, like 174 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:31,440 pastors and I knew I wasn't going to be a pastor, but I wanted to I wanted to go to 175 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,480 school and study and I loved it. 176 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:39,600 And I can remember thinking afterwards, actually, while I was there, I remember hearing these 177 00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:43,440 guys one one was like a doctoral student at a different university, but he was teaching 178 00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:44,820 some classes there. 179 00:11:44,820 --> 00:11:50,600 And some of the other guys were talking and and they were saying, you know, if I if it 180 00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:55,880 ever changes and I'm not working full time in like pastoral ministry, I really think 181 00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:59,600 like the most amazing job would be a history teacher. 182 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:01,520 And I remember thinking about that. 183 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:06,680 And then the the the seminars and the classes that I took that talked about the backgrounds 184 00:12:06,680 --> 00:12:10,440 of like the New Testament and the backgrounds of the Old Testament. 185 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:12,700 I mean, I just I love those. 186 00:12:12,700 --> 00:12:19,640 Those just kind of like inspired me to like think this is so amazing to better even it's 187 00:12:19,640 --> 00:12:24,480 just a little bit to better understand what life was like or what was happening in the 188 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:29,440 world at the time that these things that we are so familiar with happened. 189 00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:32,040 It just sheds a whole new light on it. 190 00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:33,360 And I loved it. 191 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:35,680 And so I that stuck with me. 192 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:43,880 But then I ended up actually teaching P.E. at school, my first teaching job in at ICS. 193 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:45,840 But I don't know if you knew Mr. Darren. 194 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:48,700 He used to be the headmaster of ICS for a long time. 195 00:12:48,700 --> 00:12:50,360 This was forever ago. 196 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:53,960 So I'm going to say like maybe 1999 or 2000. 197 00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:55,060 He was a history teacher. 198 00:12:55,060 --> 00:12:58,880 And I remember we were having lunch one time and I mentioned that it would be great to 199 00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:00,100 teach history. 200 00:13:00,100 --> 00:13:04,360 And he said, you know, Andy, you'd make a great history teacher. 201 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:05,600 I don't know why he told me that. 202 00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:06,600 Like I don't know why. 203 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:08,040 Like where that came from. 204 00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:10,480 But again, it stuck with me. 205 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:14,840 And so then over the years, when I got back into teaching later, it was teaching elementary 206 00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:16,280 school. 207 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:18,040 But I kept that in mind. 208 00:13:18,040 --> 00:13:21,240 And I think I just needed some time to grow and mature. 209 00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:23,960 And then I when I got the opportunity, I jumped on it. 210 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:25,880 And I have never regretted teaching history. 211 00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:26,880 I love it. 212 00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:28,200 Absolutely love it. 213 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:34,280 And it's been one of those like great choices and amazing experiences to have students that 214 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:36,940 I get to talk about history with all the time. 215 00:13:36,940 --> 00:13:40,720 So we know that history, there's different subjects of history. 216 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:45,320 So what are some of the classes of history that you teach and do you actually have a 217 00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:46,840 favorite class? 218 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:47,840 Yeah. 219 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:52,840 So currently I'm only I only teach two courses and they're both world history courses. 220 00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:57,560 And one is called Advanced Placement World History. 221 00:13:57,560 --> 00:13:59,320 And I love that class. 222 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:03,740 I love it because of the depth that we get to go in the way that students are challenged 223 00:14:03,740 --> 00:14:09,280 to grow and to think it is an exciting, super exciting class. 224 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:11,560 And it's way worth the effort. 225 00:14:11,560 --> 00:14:15,520 So students, you see this this growth in them throughout the year. 226 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:19,520 So at the beginning, they're a little bit miserable and they don't mind telling you. 227 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:20,520 And it's hard. 228 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:24,160 And I even told them at the beginning, there's just no way around this. 229 00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:29,520 And by the end of the year, I hear comments frequently like, I can't believe it. 230 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:33,600 I've read this entire textbook or they'll come back to me. 231 00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:39,640 Students will come back to me in years later on and say, hey, Mr. Andy, I use the skills 232 00:14:39,640 --> 00:14:42,640 that I learned in that class and all of these other classes. 233 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:44,200 And it's just stuck with me. 234 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:50,800 And I that really excites me because I feel like they've they've grasped some some understanding 235 00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,960 about how to think about the world that's impacting what they do if they're studying 236 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:58,560 engineering, if they're studying literature, it doesn't matter. 237 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:03,160 It gives them an opportunity to kind of think differently about people. 238 00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:04,160 I love that. 239 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:10,640 And I definitely really like last year when I started, I was like, no, 20 pages each weekend. 240 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:15,080 But then at the end of it, like I love that I really and I feel like I I did like learn 241 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:16,600 a lot so much. 242 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:20,800 And then all the skills that come with it to like synthesis and then like everything. 243 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:21,800 So yeah, definitely. 244 00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:22,800 It was an experience. 245 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:23,800 I'll give you that. 246 00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:24,800 All right. 247 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:25,800 I'm glad to hear that. 248 00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:26,800 Yeah. 249 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:27,800 Yeah. 250 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,960 OK, now on the same idea of favorites, if you could choose to live in a specific time, 251 00:15:31,960 --> 00:15:36,800 period or era in history, which one would you choose and why this one's going to be 252 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:37,800 good? 253 00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:39,320 I always disappoint people with this question. 254 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,120 Sorry, I'm just going to tell you ahead of time. 255 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:46,320 There are so many like moments in time that I am so fascinated with. 256 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:51,240 Like I would love if I could go and experience maybe for a little while. 257 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:52,240 Yeah. 258 00:15:52,240 --> 00:16:00,920 Certain eras like the early, early century CE or the early modern era of, you know, like 259 00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:06,280 that that time of great change, like during the Reformation that brings like an immediate 260 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:09,420 and important impact into our world today. 261 00:16:09,420 --> 00:16:11,740 It would be so fascinating to see that. 262 00:16:11,740 --> 00:16:15,480 But to be honest with you, it would be dangerous and it would be difficult and hard and life 263 00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:17,680 probably wouldn't be that great. 264 00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:20,960 And I'm so thankful for modern medicine. 265 00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:26,760 And I really think that I would not want to live any other time than now. 266 00:16:26,760 --> 00:16:31,880 I mean, not if I had to go and stay forever because I feel like, yeah, it's easy to have 267 00:16:31,880 --> 00:16:32,960 a romantic view of it. 268 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:38,440 But the reality is that it would be most likely I would not be an elite and I wouldn't have 269 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:42,800 access to, you know, the basic. 270 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:43,800 That's right. 271 00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:44,800 Yeah. 272 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:49,480 And I think we live in a pretty amazing time for the most part. 273 00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:51,240 It would be fascinating. 274 00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:54,400 Maybe if you could go and see for a day, maybe. 275 00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:55,400 Yeah. 276 00:16:55,400 --> 00:17:00,040 I am curious, though, if you were able to go back for a day and visit a specific period 277 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:01,040 in time. 278 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:02,040 Yeah. 279 00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:04,000 Which would it be? 280 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:05,800 I am really interested. 281 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:11,960 I would love to kind of visit the like like what is today, Turkey. 282 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:17,560 So like on the Mediterranean, just some of these these these old cities. 283 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:24,280 Yeah, would be so fascinating to see that kind of mixture of that like Roman and Greek 284 00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:30,160 life, but with peoples that are maybe partially that or not that at all and all living together 285 00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:31,600 and that mixture. 286 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:36,980 And then just to visit some of the early Christian thinkers that are so impactful for the later 287 00:17:36,980 --> 00:17:39,960 development of ideas. 288 00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:40,960 It would be so cool. 289 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:43,240 I think that would be pretty amazing. 290 00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,160 That's the Silk Road comes through there as it does. 291 00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:47,160 It sure does. 292 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:48,160 Yeah. 293 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:49,160 And it's right there. 294 00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:51,160 And that's one that comes to mind. 295 00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:56,240 I mean, there are a couple of other instances that would be really fascinating to see, but 296 00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:58,420 not to have to stay very long at. 297 00:17:58,420 --> 00:18:04,880 So like some of the locations where revolution broke out during the Atlantic revolutions 298 00:18:04,880 --> 00:18:09,760 would be really fascinating to see and meet people and recognize the diversity that was 299 00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:12,160 happening in all of that change. 300 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:14,240 It would be really cool. 301 00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:19,360 But again, it would be really risky to stay at either time. 302 00:18:19,360 --> 00:18:21,920 OK, well, shifting a little bit. 303 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:25,980 Here's more of a specific question about your teaching methods. 304 00:18:25,980 --> 00:18:29,960 Is it difficult to incorporate, encourage diverse perspectives into the teaching of 305 00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:31,440 historical events? 306 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:37,200 I'm not a history teacher, but I assume it would be somewhat difficult, like incorporating 307 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:38,840 different perspectives. 308 00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:40,440 It is super difficult. 309 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:46,520 And what makes it really challenging is that I teach survey courses, meaning that we have 310 00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:48,260 to span. 311 00:18:48,260 --> 00:18:54,920 We have to sacrifice depth for like width, if you will, for like the amount of material 312 00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:59,360 we have to cover, which makes my subject very difficult. 313 00:18:59,360 --> 00:19:05,760 And it's currently sort of a debate among academics in this area of world history. 314 00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:12,760 Like how do you manage to create a story like a narrative when you have so much of the world 315 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,980 to cover in so little time? 316 00:19:15,980 --> 00:19:22,200 So that makes like really understanding the diverse perspective super challenging. 317 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:27,880 And that's why usually historians, this is changing a little bit, but usually they focus 318 00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:35,520 on a single region or field of history, often even a certain time period, almost always. 319 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:41,520 And then later in life, when they've been working for a long time, they begin to expand 320 00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:42,520 and explore. 321 00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:48,320 Like a lot of our major world historians today actually were educated and focused and trained 322 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:52,040 on a specific field in a different way and then later grew into it. 323 00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,560 Now there are, it is changing a bit because of the popularity of world history and you 324 00:19:55,560 --> 00:20:02,080 can actually just focus on that, but it makes for this diverse perspective really challenging. 325 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:08,560 And so we as world history teachers have to rely on the authors that do go deep and we 326 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:14,020 have to try to pull that in and say, okay, what was it like for women in this era? 327 00:20:14,020 --> 00:20:19,400 What was it like for a minority group living in that region that I talked about, say modern 328 00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:23,460 day Jerusalem at the time that the Ottoman Empire ruled that area? 329 00:20:23,460 --> 00:20:27,060 Because you'd have people of different ethnic groups and religious groups. 330 00:20:27,060 --> 00:20:28,760 And what was that like? 331 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:36,560 Or what I just recently conducted some research on Jewish people in England during the time 332 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:43,620 of King Edward and he's the first European king to expel the Jews from a whole kingdom. 333 00:20:43,620 --> 00:20:50,440 And so that's called social history when you're studying what was it like for the Jewish people 334 00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:52,440 living in that culture. 335 00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:58,880 And then of course I was looking at it from like kind of motivations or reasons for that, 336 00:20:58,880 --> 00:20:59,880 but it intermixed. 337 00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:06,360 So, yes, sorry, it is difficult to kind of get those perspectives in. 338 00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:10,720 One follow up question to that, how important is the curriculum in helping to do this? 339 00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:16,400 I know you talked about that you have to cover a lot in a very short period of time. 340 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:20,640 And I think he even talked about pulling in like other authors and stuff, but is that 341 00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:25,280 curriculum something that you can kind of like change a little bit or what's that look 342 00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:26,960 like from a teacher standpoint? 343 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:32,960 So actually this is the cool thing is as a history teacher, we kind of have the freedom. 344 00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:38,640 We're working with concepts, ideas like historical developments, but the history of those historical 345 00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:40,480 developments is complex. 346 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:45,980 So we have the opportunity to draw on various sources to use in our classes, but it's important 347 00:21:45,980 --> 00:21:48,280 that we don't mislead students as well. 348 00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:54,480 So one way I try to explain this or show this to the students is we look at the Mongols 349 00:21:54,480 --> 00:22:00,480 when they're creating an empire and we'll read modern historians and ancient accounts 350 00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:04,820 of that and try to determine what's the deal here? 351 00:22:04,820 --> 00:22:05,900 Are they horrible? 352 00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:10,680 Are they like an awful destructive force in world history or are they actually beneficial 353 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:13,760 to the progress of world history, at least in the long term? 354 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:18,040 And students have to recognize, oh man, there's different perspectives on this. 355 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:21,880 Even amongst people writing today, there was different perspectives amongst people writing 356 00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:23,760 in the time of the Mongols. 357 00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:28,840 And so the demands that they realize, I probably shouldn't use the word demands, but encourage 358 00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:33,600 them to realize that this is complex and kind of messy. 359 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:34,600 Absolutely. 360 00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:37,360 Yeah, that's history. 361 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:40,260 And here's our last question for this first segment. 362 00:22:40,260 --> 00:22:45,140 For you personally, what historical event or events have had a significant impact in 363 00:22:45,140 --> 00:22:48,400 shipping your perspective on life and other things? 364 00:22:48,400 --> 00:23:00,680 So I've been challenged by certain individuals who had a strong grasp on the importance of 365 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:07,520 studying and learning and trying to kind of pursue excellence, as well as the idea of 366 00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:13,640 being sort of honorable to live to have integrity. 367 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:19,920 So in other words, I'm a Christian and so I think that it's important that I have integrity 368 00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,840 as a way to try to be honest with others. 369 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:31,680 And so certain individuals have kind of impacted me on being humble, but being diligent. 370 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,600 And so that impacted me when I was working jobs I didn't like, and that's impacted my 371 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:37,520 work in jobs that I do like. 372 00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:42,840 That it's worth the effort just because it's a way to do something excellently. 373 00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:46,400 And maybe, you know, I know everyone's in different circumstances at different times, 374 00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:48,460 but that's something that's been impactful for me. 375 00:23:48,460 --> 00:23:56,360 And then just recently, I've been learning about or I was about half a year ago studying 376 00:23:56,360 --> 00:24:01,040 the Reformation in the early modern era, the Christian Reformation. 377 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:11,680 And it's astounding to learn about the change in history and how many sort of legends is 378 00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:16,480 maybe the wrong word, maybe myths I should use that we believe about that time and what 379 00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,160 was taught. 380 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:23,160 And when you spend some time in that era and with those individuals and with people that 381 00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,720 have studied them, you recognize, oh, wait, a lot of what I've believed or been taught 382 00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:32,720 some myths, even from what these individuals said, and it's developed over time. 383 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:37,720 And so again, it's reinforced that studying that era has reinforced the importance of 384 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:44,400 having humility and not demanding I know or I'm right, but recognizing that I have a lot 385 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:49,520 to learn, even if I'm maybe a little more familiar with a certain period of time than 386 00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:50,520 others. 387 00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,320 But that's had a kind of a big impact in me. 388 00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:53,540 All right. 389 00:24:53,540 --> 00:24:54,540 Thank you so much. 390 00:24:54,540 --> 00:24:56,040 And that ends our first segment. 391 00:24:56,040 --> 00:25:02,400 We'll be right back after this short PSA announcement about a famous Thailand fruit festival. 392 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,400 If you like fruit, listen up. 393 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:12,280 One, two, three, four. 394 00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:17,600 Fruit festivals in Thailand during February are an exciting time for both locals and tourists 395 00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,440 to indulge in the abundance of delicious and exotic fruits. 396 00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:27,640 Known for their vibrant colors, unique flavors, and mouthwatering sweetness, Thai fruits are 397 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,040 an integral part of the country's culinary culture. 398 00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:36,320 One such fruit festival is the durian festival, which celebrates the king of fruits. 399 00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:40,360 Durian is renowned for its pungent aroma and creamy texture. 400 00:25:40,360 --> 00:25:45,440 During this festival, visitors can sample a wide variety of durian types, each with 401 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,880 its own distinct taste and texture. 402 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:53,880 Attendees can also enjoy durian-themed desserts, snacks, and even durian-infused beverages. 403 00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:59,760 This festival also showcases the use of durian in some traditional Thai cuisine and desserts. 404 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:08,000 So if you have never tried durian before, Thailand is the best place to visit. 405 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:09,600 We are back with part two. 406 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,640 In this segment, we'll be having a discussion with Mr. Andy about the concept of history 407 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:15,340 repeating itself. 408 00:26:15,340 --> 00:26:17,920 Does history really repeat itself? 409 00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:23,360 And to keep this conversation going, we'll come up with four main historical themes. 410 00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:25,960 Premi will introduce the first theme. 411 00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:30,960 The first topic or theme under the idea of history repeating itself is intellectual and 412 00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:32,800 religious history. 413 00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:37,840 So to get us started, our guiding question for this first theme is, how have some recurring 414 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:42,680 patterns in intellectual and religious history shaped current events on faith and reason? 415 00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:43,680 This is a big question. 416 00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:45,400 I'm a little intimidated with it here. 417 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:52,200 Let me start by saying this is a good question about does history repeat itself? 418 00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:58,280 As probably a lot of listeners have heard or been told that we study history so we don't 419 00:26:58,280 --> 00:26:59,960 repeat the mistakes of the past. 420 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:05,080 But the very first lesson that I give to my students is that I'm going to ask you that 421 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:11,000 question on a test, and if you tell me that, you will get a bad grade on that. 422 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:17,960 We don't study history in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past because society's 423 00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,320 never really stopped repeating the mistakes of the past, if you will. 424 00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,520 But the question about history repeating itself is really somewhat philosophically complex 425 00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,240 because history is the story of people. 426 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:37,920 And people are individuals and they're influenced by various factors and the decisions that 427 00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,080 they make are impossible to predict. 428 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:51,600 So when we say it repeats itself, I think we mean like, oh, we see sort of cycles in 429 00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:58,520 the rise and fall of government systems or political systems, or we see like the spread 430 00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:03,160 of religious faiths at different times and over different places, and those things don't 431 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,000 seem to stop. 432 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:11,040 And I guess I would argue it's probably because they're about people and we're human beings 433 00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:16,200 and so we have similarities regardless of the era in which we're living. 434 00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:21,800 So for social and intellectual or intellectual and religious history, I'm really keen on 435 00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:26,280 this because I love the history of thought and the way people think about things and 436 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:32,400 how that's traveled through time and impacted or been expanded upon over time. 437 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:37,440 And it has definitely impacted current views on faith and reason. 438 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:44,320 So one of the beautiful things about studying history is that it gives us insight into peoples 439 00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,360 that we don't know or that we don't know well. 440 00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:55,600 And in our world today, some hot topic faiths are going to be Christianity and Islam. 441 00:28:55,600 --> 00:29:00,740 But when you have an opportunity to study about the developments of those religions 442 00:29:00,740 --> 00:29:06,020 and you learn about historically maybe how they've spread, who's embraced them, who's 443 00:29:06,020 --> 00:29:11,360 rejected them and why, it gives you insight into the way people have been brought along 444 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:12,560 and what they might think today. 445 00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,600 We have to be careful not to stereotype the way those people think. 446 00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,960 That's really important because again, they're all individuals. 447 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:27,960 However, those faith systems have like doctrines of belief and by understanding them and how 448 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,840 they've developed, it helps us to understand people a little bit. 449 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:39,200 And so sometimes we're careless and sometimes our people that we see in the media or on 450 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:44,640 TV or political leaders or what have you are occasionally careless as well in the way they 451 00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:49,400 sort of stereotype peoples that are others, if you will, the way they talk about other 452 00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:50,680 people. 453 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:55,120 And so I think it gives us some insight when we see the development of religion and intellectual 454 00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:59,260 thought over time of how people have grappled with ideas and how they've influenced the 455 00:29:59,260 --> 00:30:00,560 way we think today. 456 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:07,480 So easy for us to understand on a basic non-threatening level is the idea of enlightenment thought, 457 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:11,120 intellectual history, all of us, the way we think today is or at least the way we think 458 00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,560 at ICS and in many countries. 459 00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:20,760 They have ideas that people are responsible for their choices and for their behaviors 460 00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:25,760 and what they learn and that they should have the freedom to be able to make those choices. 461 00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:30,560 And this idea of freedom of choice and like religion, so crossing that intellectual and 462 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:41,360 religious themes is really an idea of this era, of the modern era, if you will, and that 463 00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,480 people are and should be given that right. 464 00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:50,320 We call it now, people will call it a natural right or a God given or an alienable right. 465 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,160 These are different ways I hear of it. 466 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,260 But that hasn't always been the way people have thought about that. 467 00:30:55,260 --> 00:30:59,980 And so it's really helpful for us to get a grasp on the roots and to see how it's changed 468 00:30:59,980 --> 00:31:05,000 over time to give us a responsible outlook in the present. 469 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,600 That's really good to just point to the fact that history is full of humans. 470 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:15,920 And so the human is part of that element from the past to the present and the future. 471 00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:16,920 Okay. 472 00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,120 So now we're into our second topic and theme. 473 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,460 It is social and cultural history. 474 00:31:22,460 --> 00:31:27,920 And our guiding question for this theme is how have major social and cultural changes 475 00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:32,400 shaped community identities and what can we learn from them today? 476 00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,840 Okay, this is a great question. 477 00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:42,500 The social and cultural history is super important and changes in cultural history that have 478 00:31:42,500 --> 00:31:48,760 led to the cultures that we experience today are many and complex. 479 00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:55,160 And so being able to kind of focus on how they developed helps us better understand 480 00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:57,260 why people behave the way they do. 481 00:31:57,260 --> 00:32:01,500 So this is sort of one of those main reasons for studying history that I tell students 482 00:32:01,500 --> 00:32:06,080 is that it enables us to understand societies and peoples. 483 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:08,200 Why do they behave the way they do? 484 00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:13,700 And we can learn that from studying the culture and society. 485 00:32:13,700 --> 00:32:21,220 And it also gives us kind of the life of history, like so much history we think right away, 486 00:32:21,220 --> 00:32:24,640 can I name all the presidents of the United States or all the prime ministers? 487 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:25,640 All the wars. 488 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:27,480 That's right, all the wars. 489 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:33,640 People will talk about the great men of history, but that is such a small snapshot of what 490 00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:38,280 reality was for so many people within those times and places. 491 00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,440 And so the study of the cultures, the study of the societies of the various eras just 492 00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,620 fill out a picture that provide a better insight. 493 00:32:46,620 --> 00:32:51,500 And sometimes we get maybe even a clearer insight into why things were done than even 494 00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:57,480 individuals had in that time period because we can draw now on so many sources from that 495 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,600 era that people in that era may not have even had. 496 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,960 So I think we have a responsibility to spend some time thinking about it and trying to 497 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:05,400 understand people better. 498 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,360 Yeah, absolutely. 499 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:08,880 And I want to remind you of what you said earlier. 500 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,720 I love how you say history of thought, right? 501 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:14,360 Like how people have been thinking or evolving. 502 00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:15,360 I love philosophy. 503 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:16,360 I love this. 504 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:17,360 And yeah, absolutely. 505 00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,520 Yeah, I think that's a really good point because I feel like a lot of times when you study 506 00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,920 history, it's like the important people in history or the important wars, right? 507 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:30,600 But less so how society functioned back then or different societies or different cultures. 508 00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:33,880 I feel like that is often overlooked when you're learning history sometimes. 509 00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:34,880 So absolutely. 510 00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:38,600 Okay, and now on to our third theme. 511 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,200 Is on the same topic of history repeating itself. 512 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,960 What's technological revolutions? 513 00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:48,520 Our guiding question for this theme is, have technological revolutions transitioned to 514 00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,360 human societies and what can they teach us about navigating the future? 515 00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:59,480 So technological change or technological development is actually a key theme that the students 516 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:06,220 in my class have to think about in each era of history because along with the interactions 517 00:34:06,220 --> 00:34:13,880 of societies, there has been exchanges of culture, of thought, of learning, but there 518 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:18,060 has also been an exchange of technology. 519 00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:24,880 And technology has continuously developed and gotten, what's the word I'm looking for 520 00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:29,280 here, more complex and sophisticated. 521 00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:34,560 And so even from earliest times, we see technology developed to solve problems. 522 00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,960 And people, when they interact, they spread that. 523 00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:44,660 So there are big moments though that we focus on as eras of technological change. 524 00:34:44,660 --> 00:34:47,560 And we can think of like the age of exploration. 525 00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:53,020 Like why is it that all of a sudden individuals from Western Europe could get on a boat and 526 00:34:53,020 --> 00:34:54,880 travel around the world? 527 00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:59,320 Well they were only able to do that from learning that had developed for a long time. 528 00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:04,680 And then they put together these tools, these technological advancements to create even 529 00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,840 more technological advancement. 530 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:11,600 So a ship that they used would have tools like a compass and an astrolab. 531 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,080 It has certain sails like a square sail. 532 00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:16,560 That's right, exactly. 533 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,440 And then the ship would be designed a certain way so they could go places that people couldn't 534 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,440 easily go before. 535 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:26,560 All of a sudden they could do things that the majority of the world couldn't do or do 536 00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,360 as easily and it gave an advantage. 537 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:31,800 We constantly see this change. 538 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,680 So then we'll see again moments of great change like during the Industrial Revolution where 539 00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,120 technology will fundamentally change people's lives. 540 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:48,020 It leads to urbanization and it leads to a new way of work and family life and everything. 541 00:35:48,020 --> 00:35:52,440 So in our present day, we're experiencing technological change. 542 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:59,360 Unfortunately we're seeing it happen so rapidly we hardly have time to respond to it. 543 00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:05,600 And so what I think is healthy is putting the humanity back into our perspective. 544 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:11,360 And you're going to easily get a ton of people who kind of preach messages that are scary. 545 00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:14,640 It's changing so fast it's going to overcome this or overcome that. 546 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:16,680 People have often been afraid of technology. 547 00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:20,240 So even during the Industrial Revolution people fought against it because they thought it 548 00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:21,880 was taking away jobs. 549 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,360 And we see the same thing happening now. 550 00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:26,840 We think about AI and say, wait, I can get that to write that for me. 551 00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,320 Do I need to learn to write? 552 00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:36,080 But because we're dealing with people, they're the change makers and they're the creators 553 00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,960 of even the technology and we have a responsibility to use it wisely. 554 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:47,400 And so in my perspective, the way we think about it, instead of letting it drive us with 555 00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:53,740 fear, I think it should help us to be proactive in approaching it in a fashion that helps 556 00:36:53,740 --> 00:36:59,400 us to improve maybe our interactions with others, but maintains that human driven purpose 557 00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,040 and aspect behind it. 558 00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:02,040 Okay. 559 00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,360 This brings us to our fourth and final topic. 560 00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,000 And this theme is about the rise and fall of empires. 561 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,160 That sounds like a video game actually. 562 00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,400 So the theme is the rise and fall of empires. 563 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:18,000 Our final guiding question on this theme is what are some things that cause empires to 564 00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,580 rise and fall? 565 00:37:19,580 --> 00:37:24,040 Are there patterns and what does this tell us about today's world powers? 566 00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:25,040 Yeah. 567 00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:31,320 So this is actually one of those topics that maybe fits the idea of repetition or cycles 568 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,040 in history so well. 569 00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:38,940 So there are actually some historians that have created a model that they believe articulates 570 00:37:38,940 --> 00:37:43,800 like a cycle, a rise and fall of empires. 571 00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,720 But there's also other thoughts about the rise and fall of empire. 572 00:37:46,720 --> 00:37:51,280 So there's traditional thought, like in Chinese perspective, about the mandate of heaven and 573 00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:56,240 about an empire or a dynasty having the right to rule and losing that right to rule and 574 00:37:56,240 --> 00:38:00,480 it being intermixed between earthly and heavenly authorities. 575 00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,520 And really even in Western thought, I think there's even been that perspective. 576 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:09,640 So probably the most famous example would be the fall of Rome because people love to 577 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:14,380 talk about why did Rome fall and what happened, whose fault was it? 578 00:38:14,380 --> 00:38:17,560 And so there's so much written on that. 579 00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:23,280 But I guess if we were going to try to pinpoint certain principles that often accompany the 580 00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:28,400 rise of an empire and then like the collapse of an empire, there does seem to be certain 581 00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:34,440 attributes like an empire can't rise unless there are certain, there are state forms that 582 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:39,840 have resources and military technology that can support that empire. 583 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,040 And so that sort of encourages the rise of an empire. 584 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:49,120 There's almost, there's regularly almost always like an ideology that accompanies that empire. 585 00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:53,840 That might be a religious thought perspective or it could be a philosophical perspective, 586 00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:58,520 cultural one, but that often helps to unify the empire. 587 00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:03,800 So even empires by definition govern over more than, it's different than our modern 588 00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,140 day perspective of a nation state. 589 00:39:07,140 --> 00:39:09,280 That's very modern. 590 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,920 Empires usually governed over a variety of people groups. 591 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:19,400 And so their legitimacy for governance is a little different than like nationalism, 592 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,760 which would kind of inspire modern nation states, people who share a similar culture 593 00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,080 and language and history. 594 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,480 But the empires, they would govern many people, so they'd have to be able to manage that. 595 00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:34,800 So they would have to have political forms that would manage these vast empires and they 596 00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:35,880 needed resources. 597 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,700 So they usually had to keep expanding. 598 00:39:38,700 --> 00:39:47,600 And then empires tend to get, I'm going to use the word lazy or corrupted, or there tend 599 00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,460 to be certain people that prosper more than others. 600 00:39:50,460 --> 00:39:54,240 And then once they gained that prosperity and that wealth and that power, it's hard 601 00:39:54,240 --> 00:39:55,640 to get rid of. 602 00:39:55,640 --> 00:40:00,960 And they occasionally lose sight on some of the principles that helped them achieve that 603 00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:02,400 success. 604 00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:08,640 And so that can contribute to the fall, overextension, the inability to deal with people from outside 605 00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,080 of the empire. 606 00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:15,200 And it causes weakness and collapse and the cost of it and the lack of continued resources. 607 00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:19,140 These are some of the normal sort of explanations. 608 00:40:19,140 --> 00:40:23,840 And I think we can identify them in many empires, whether they fit everyone. 609 00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:24,980 I can't say that. 610 00:40:24,980 --> 00:40:27,680 It's probably unlikely that you could define that for all of them. 611 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,240 But that seems to be sort of a regular pattern. 612 00:40:31,240 --> 00:40:37,680 So in today's world, I think it's really important that people think carefully in... 613 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,520 We're divided by nation states, right? 614 00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:43,820 And people that are outside of that nation state, we kind of look at differently. 615 00:40:43,820 --> 00:40:48,780 So our policies on immigration, our policies on resource use and where we're getting those 616 00:40:48,780 --> 00:40:55,560 resources are important to think about for the stability of our present countries because 617 00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:59,300 they create turmoil and they create conflict with other peoples. 618 00:40:59,300 --> 00:41:02,880 And we have to figure out how to do that well, how to do that responsibly as we interact 619 00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,840 and govern at least a portion of humanity. 620 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,120 Also, very good. 621 00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:12,400 The thing that will never change, and I think you'll like this one, Mr. Annie, is paying 622 00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:13,400 tribute, right? 623 00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:14,400 Taxes. 624 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:15,400 Oh, that's right. 625 00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:16,400 That's right. 626 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,120 That's something that will never change in the rise and fall of empires. 627 00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,280 All right, we're going to shift gears a little bit. 628 00:41:21,280 --> 00:41:26,560 So thank you, Mr. Andy, for helping us understand those topics and themes as it relates to our 629 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,840 question, does history repeat itself? 630 00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:34,640 Now to end this last segment, we've asked Mr. Andy, along with Premi and I, to help 631 00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:36,900 read a list we've compiled. 632 00:41:36,900 --> 00:41:41,640 We all know that history is full of bizarre and often overlooked events that can seem 633 00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:43,760 almost unbelievable. 634 00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,040 Events that have not repeated, at least that we've heard of. 635 00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:52,000 So with that in mind, and without further ado, we present the top 10 weirdest historical 636 00:41:52,000 --> 00:42:02,480 events not covered in Mr. Andy's history class. 637 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,760 Mr. Andy, you have the honor of starting us off with number 10. 638 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:12,520 All right, coming in at number 10 is the War of the Bucket in 1325. 639 00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:16,800 The War of the Bucket was sparked by the theft of a wooden bucket between the rival city 640 00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,600 states of Bologna and Modena in Italy. 641 00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:24,720 This theft led to a battle in which thousands died. 642 00:42:24,720 --> 00:42:31,800 And number nine is the Dancing Plague of 1518, a case of mass hysteria in Brasburg, Germany, 643 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,220 where hundreds of people danced uncontrollably for days without rest, leading to numerous 644 00:42:36,220 --> 00:42:39,980 deaths from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion. 645 00:42:39,980 --> 00:42:44,120 And number eight is the Great Stink of 1858. 646 00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:48,760 This was a period of time in London when the smell of untreated human waste in the Thames 647 00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:55,120 River became so unbearable that it led to significant investment in the city's sewer 648 00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:56,480 system. 649 00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:58,480 And number seven also happened in London. 650 00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,960 It is the Beer Flood of London in 1814. 651 00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:07,120 The rupture of a brewery vat sent a wave of beer pouring through the streets, killing eight 652 00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,320 people and destroying several houses. 653 00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,520 Yeah, wow. 654 00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,260 And now onto number six. 655 00:43:14,260 --> 00:43:18,000 It is the Kentucky Meat Shower of 1876. 656 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:23,220 This event occurred when meat pieces fell from the sky in bath country Kentucky. 657 00:43:23,220 --> 00:43:26,940 This phenomenon has never been fully explained. 658 00:43:26,940 --> 00:43:32,120 And coming in at number five is Operation Cat Drop in 1959. 659 00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:37,560 This was a campaign by the British and Borneo where cats were parachuted from the air to 660 00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:43,660 control a rat population that had grown following a campaign to combat malaria. 661 00:43:43,660 --> 00:43:48,940 Number four is the Green Children of Woolpit sometime in the 12th century. 662 00:43:48,940 --> 00:43:54,720 It is said that this was the appearance of two children with green-hued skin in Suffolk, 663 00:43:54,720 --> 00:44:00,500 England, who spoke an unknown language and ate only beans. 664 00:44:00,500 --> 00:44:04,040 And number three is the Pepsi Fleet in 1989. 665 00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:09,300 In a remarkable trade deal, PepsiCo became the sixth largest military power in the world 666 00:44:09,300 --> 00:44:15,040 for a brief time when it acquired 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer from 667 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,560 the Soviet Union in exchange for its products. 668 00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:23,200 Number two is the Great Moon Hoax in 1835. 669 00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:28,560 A series of articles published in the New York Sun falsely reported the discovery of 670 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:35,080 life and civilization on the moon by Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer at that time. 671 00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:39,840 Finally, the number one weirdest historical event not covered in history class is the 672 00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:43,720 exploding whale on the coast of Oregon in 1970. 673 00:44:43,720 --> 00:44:49,960 A dead whale that had beached itself was deemed too large to bury, and authorities decided 674 00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,800 to use half a ton of dynamite to dispose of it. 675 00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,360 The explosion sent whale blubber flying through the air, damaging property and covering by 676 00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:12,400 standards in the process. 677 00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:16,880 As we end this episode, I'm reminded of this thing my world history professor in college 678 00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:17,880 used to say. 679 00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:24,180 He basically said the best way to describe history is by defining it as his story. 680 00:45:24,180 --> 00:45:28,820 It's the idea that history and the stories recorded from the past were often shaped and 681 00:45:28,820 --> 00:45:33,400 narrated by those who had the power and means to do so at that time. 682 00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:38,620 I hope this episode encourages all of us to look deeper into history to find those missing 683 00:45:38,620 --> 00:45:43,480 stories, and in doing so, it may help all of us have an even better understanding of 684 00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,320 our past so that we can learn from it. 685 00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:51,500 And as always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international 686 00:45:51,500 --> 00:45:53,080 student production team. 687 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:58,800 Music and sound effects are a courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives 688 00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,680 sharing copyright-free images, videos, and music. 689 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,080 And we are signing off until next time. 690 00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:24,000 Be your student, and incorporate it, because your voice matters.