Salon!

Unit 1 – Folk Knowledge

Self-Directed Learning: It is really interesting for me to go back to my very first post, and realize that I had come full circle! My idea in this first post about beans and lacto-fermentation was all about listening to your forefathers' advice in regards to health. Because in this day of technology, we often feel like we have all of the answers and forget to look backwards for solutions. This is precisely what I wrote about in my very last post! It is interesting how I discovered this idea in the beginning of the semester and kept applying it and making new connections as we learned new material in each of the different units. Anyways, I'll get off this soap box, I'm sure you area ll sick of hearing about it! Hahaha…So onto another topic of discussion…I remember having a hard time trying to find new topics of oral language to write about, which ironically this struggle opened my eyes to a thousand ideas I would have never thought of, like managing time, putting on make-up, etc. It was fun to go about my daily routines and have my mind would make new connections which often stemmed back to folk knowledge. This was by far my favorite unit!!!

Others’ Blogging: It was fun to read everyone else's blog posts about the things that they learned and the ideas that have stuck with them through oral knowledge and traditions. For example, how Brianne had learned how to recycle all of her life, and then when she moved, she was determined to bring recycling to Utah! It really hit me how much oral traditions matter to people. It has something to do with origins, with family ties, traditional roots. Fascinating!

Collaborative Learning: Like Alex said, it was a huge learning experience to learn from others' comments on claims you make. It helped you to rethink your thesis, to open your mind to new ideas, and even…dun dun dun…question your own oral traditions!!! Not only did others' comments on your blog posts help stimulate new ideas, but so did reading other people's blog posts. For example, when James wrote about trumpets, and how their sound initiates a response in all of us, it got me thinking about the scriptural reference to trumpets. If it weren't for his idea, I would never have had the thought that sparked this self-directed learning!

Projects/Activities: I enjoyed many of the projects in this class, but this units' project was my absolute favorite. It is often so much fun to teach people something you love to do, for example, soccer. I loved it! It was so much fun, although frustrating, it was a hilarious experience. There is something about sharing and passing on skills from yourself to another. Also, being encouraged to go and learn something new really helped me to realize how important that is to do on a daily basis! Because everything you learn, although perhaps not applicable in the moment, will most likely applicable one day. (I spoke about this in my last blog post as well). It taught me to look for learning in every area you can, and ask people often to teach you something new! They will love it!


Unit 2 – Oral Knowledge

Self Directed Learning: Learning abut the Middle Ancient Egyptian language and culture was so difficult! Because there is so little information on this specific little niche of Ancient Egypt! It also was a struggle to understand how to learn about the oral language when we barely knew anything about their actual written language! But this struggle to understand and wrap my mind around this idea led me to some ideas that were so new to me, of which I am immensely grateful for! I mean, who would have thought to look at the way these ancient people wrote and how it might shed light on the way that they spoke?! It is hard to wrap your mind around the fact that some cultures may have spoke in prose, because it is SO different than us today! But learning this really helps you to remember to try your best to keep things in context! This also really opened my mind to how important the logistics of creating and preserving a language is! The Ancient Egyptians had two forms of writing: through logograms and phonograms. This made it incredibly difficult to preserve their language, and so much of their history is lost due to that. I applied this idea of oral language to creatures other than people in my Loneliest Whale post. It made me think just how important communicating with people creates connection; something that all mammals yearn for.

Others’ Blogging: It was fun to see how many similarities there were between the different cultures' languages! For example, the Maya hieroglyphs (Brianne's culture) were so similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphs! I couldn't believe how two different cultures from completely different parts of the world would have such remarkable similarities.

Collaborative Learning: The others in my group REALLY helped me understand the difference between oral language and written language (the thing I had been struggling with). Alex specifically helped me understand with his comment: "It's also a problem I struggle with when talking about these ancient civilizations...all our knowledge we have of them has been recorded. That's where we find our information. So unless somebody has specifically written about this culture and it's oral forms of knowledge, we have to make inferences based on songs, legends, etc…What helped me understand this unit a little better is that oral knowledge covers everything from language, to spoken poetry, songs, and other things like that. So we don't need to only focus on knowledge that has been solely transferred in an oral manner from ancient times till now. We can study a topic such as language as a form of oral knowledge, even though much of what we can learn about it is obviously written."

Something that Brianne opened my eyes to was her experience with the New Testament Videos; there is power and spirit behind words when they are spoken out loud. We have the ability to feel because we can sense the emotion through the intonations annd expressions like previously mentioned. I am sure everyone in the room today felt the power of the Spirit that was delivered through the spoken word.

Projects/Activities: The KingBenjamin speech did not really helpmeet understand oral language…but it did help me realize how HARD it is to memorize! Perhaps if it was culturally important for us to memorize, we would be better at it?

Unit 3 – Written Knowledge

Self Directed Learning: This was hard. This experience really helped me get into the books! It was probably my first time checking something out of the library (at BYU).