Physical/Biological Anthropology/A
Fire-Making Demonstration
Anthropology is
a remarkable discipline for its focus on the entirety of
humanity. By stressing the holistic and comparative aspects of
anthropology, I have found that my students are better able to
connect the discipline to their own lives. Instead of seeing
anthropological topics, theories and case studies as detached
from the life experiences of my students, I devise ways of
allowing my students to make connections to anthropology that are
their own. In this way they can invest in the ideas of
anthropology. For many years I have been developing an open-ended
project format in Physical/Biological Anthropology. The project
is flexible in that it allows students to specialize in an area
of the discipline that they appreciate. One year I had the
opportunity to witness a remarkable project that combined a class
reading on hominids and the use of fire with a student/s
expertise in mountain survival classes. The student/s
demonstration illustrated the complexity involved in fire
making/stressing both the cognitive requirements of hominids and
the physical skills needed to make fire. At the end of his
demonstration he even taught other students in our class the same
techniques.
Physical/Biological Anthropology/The
AAA/s Statement on Race
Some time ago I
had a very creative anthropology student who was interested in
sports. He was enrolled in my Physical/Biological Anthropology
course and one day told me about a controversy surrounding the
manager of the Chicago Cubs, Dusty Baker. He told me that he
wanted to look into Baker/s comments about race and sports and
analyze them in the context of the American Anthropological
Association/s statement on race and material we had been
considering on human variation and genetics. I encouraged him to
develop his project and what resulted was a creative and
unexpected connection between seemingly disparate aspects of
anthropology and popular culture. I have found that our
anthropology students can revitalize our understandings of
anthropology and the world if we are willing to listen to them.
Anthropology is
a remarkable discipline for its focus on the entirety of
humanity. By stressing the holistic and comparative aspects of
anthropology, I have found that my students are better able to
connect the discipline to their own lives. Instead of seeing
anthropological topics, theories and case studies as detached
from the life experiences of my students, I devise ways of
allowing my students to make connections to anthropology that are
their own. In this way they can invest in the ideas of
anthropology. For many years I have been developing an open-ended
project format in Physical/Biological Anthropology. The project
is flexible in that it allows students to specialize in an area
of the discipline that they appreciate. One year I had the
opportunity to witness a remarkable project that combined a class
reading on hominids and the use of fire with a student/s
expertise in mountain survival classes. The student/s
demonstration illustrated the complexity involved in fire
making/stressing both the cognitive requirements of hominids and
the physical skills needed to make fire. At the end of his
demonstration he even taught other students in our class the same
techniques. 
