Please read Chapter 11 and respond to the following prompts.
1. The first page does a great job of delineating between "book" learning and "life" learning. How is this accomplished? Ultimately though, does life bring understanding? (use only pg. 48)
2. Define "moiety." Don't worry if you struggle with it, Mr. Kelly didn't know it either.
3. What is a "Pom"? Look it up. Who does sit apply to in this chapter?
4. On page 51 who is "you people" and what are they looking for?
5. I think the following quote is really true. What do you reckon? "...I had not understood, just as I had not understood the words of the songs I had listened to this morning, though I would take them with me for all time" (52-53). I guess what I like about is that we often think we take answers or truth with us. But what really sticks with me is what I don't understand... How about you?
6. Who wrote the book? Does this come as a surprise?
7. Why is the Sickness Country called what it is?
8. What piece of news really caught Almut's attention?
9. Who are the Aborigines "hanging around the big cities" and why did they end up there?
10. What has cured Alma?
1. The first page does a great job of delineating between "book" learning and "life" learning. How is this accomplished? Ultimately though, does life bring understanding? (use only pg. 48)
2. Define "moiety." Don't worry if you struggle with it, Mr. Kelly didn't know it either.
3. What is a "Pom"? Look it up. Who does sit apply to in this chapter?
4. On page 51 who is "you people" and what are they looking for?
5. I think the following quote is really true. What do you reckon? "...I had not understood, just as I had not understood the words of the songs I had listened to this morning, though I would take them with me for all time" (52-53). I guess what I like about is that we often think we take answers or truth with us. But what really sticks with me is what I don't understand... How about you?
6. Who wrote the book? Does this come as a surprise?
7. Why is the Sickness Country called what it is?
8. What piece of news really caught Almut's attention?
9. Who are the Aborigines "hanging around the big cities" and why did they end up there?
10. What has cured Alma?
1. The author manages to delineate between book learning and life learning by putting Cyril in the story. Cyril has studied about the Aborigines all his life, and has obviously even written a book about it. Yet he knows that you cannot understand the lives of the Aborigines just by reading text. He says that it is pointless to read text because the Aborigines needed to be understood with life learning. I do think that life brings understanding though. There are many things we begin to understand as we age.
ReplyDelete2. The definition for the word “moiety” is half or one of the two equal parts of something. having
3. The word “pom” is Australian slang that means a British person who immigrated. This word probably applies to the old man Alma met while she was searching for the Sickness Dreaming place, who told her many things about the Aborigine.
4. The “you people” mentioned in page 51 refers to the curious tourists etc. who come searching to find something in Australia. The old man has lived in Australia for so long, he has ceased to become one of them, there fore he says “you people” although he is not Australian.
5. I agree with Mr. Phillips and I also think that it is same for all humans. I often feel very sad, and yet mystified to think that I will never know everything about the world around me. We humans are constantly looking for questions to ask and demanding answers. Yet when we encounter something that we cannot explain, we are fascinated and that feeling sticks with us.
6. The old man, Cyril wrote the book. I was actually guessing that Cyril might have written the book, but it felt it too unrealistic and therefore considered it to be a minor possibility. However, I was surprised to see that I was actually right.
7. The Sickness Country is called that because natural radioactivity (a lot of uranium) can be found there. However, it seemed to have been a very spiritually important place to the aborigines also.
8. The piece of news that really caught Almut’s attention was “Clan Elders Sing Aborigine to Death” because she believed that the elders had actually killed someone by singing, but it turned out that “Sing to death” meant an Aborigine was cast out of his own clan.
9. The Aborigines “hanging around the big cities” are those who were cast out of their own clans. They left because nobody in their community could have anything to do with them and were probably hoping to find another life in the big cities.
10. I am not sure but, I think the thing that has cured Alma is the realization that she doesn’t need to understand the Aborigines. She realizes that she can appreciate their artwork and music without having to know everything about them. And that realization cured her.
Zen
1.The book does a good job of delineating book/life learning because it says that by reading a book, you cannot really understand anything from it. I think it is saying that we have to experience everything in order to learn something from it. Life can bring understanding because we can learn while we are growing and living in our life time.
ReplyDelete2.Moiety means half, which came from moitie.
3.Pom is a British person in Australia and New Zealand, especially the one who is a recent immigrant. This applies to the man Alma met, who talked about the culture and the understanding towards books.
4.“You People” refers to people who came to Australia looking for the cultures and history where they see in books.
5.I agree with this too because whenever we have something we do not understand, it just sticks in our mind, and we tend to think about it for long. We keep those ideas in mind, and at some point, we remember them again and we are able to solve the answer to that.
6.Cyril Clarence, the old man who Alma has been talking for long has written the book. This is not much of a surprise because we could sort of guess that he wrote the book, since he have been talking about it very deeply.
7.The Sickness Country is called the way it is because natural radioactivity, uranium could be found. People think it is a sacred place. So whenever the place is being destroyed, it is said that something unfortunate will happen, which is radioactivity.
8.The news of “Clan Elders Sing Aborigine to Death” caught Almut’s attention. I think it is because she thought that people can kill someone by singing. But Cyril explained it and said that sing a person to death means to place someone out of community.
9.The Aborigines “hanging around the big cities” refer to people who have been placed out of their community. They ended up being there because they have been stealing someone else’s totem, or breaking a taboo. And nobody in the community is allowed to help them out.
10.Alma has been cured because she has understood that the Sickness Dreaming Place is not going to work out for her, and she distinguished that she cannot understand it. She learned that reading books won’t help her understand the culture. In fact, she has to live and learn through it.
1. The author uses Cyril, who studied the Aborigines, to delineate between book learning and life learning. Cyril mentions that reading books will not lead to much understanding of the tribes; with life learning, you are able to experience with both your body and mind which helps you learn faster. I agree with this from my personal experience in learning new languages; you can't really learn how to speak a language by only reading textbooks, you need a real life experience.
ReplyDelete2. Moiety, coming from moitie, means half of something.
3. "Pom" is a British immigrant, in Australian slang. This refers to the old man Alma met, while searching for the Sickness Dreaming Place.
4. "You people" is referring to the tourists who come to visit Australia, looking for culture and history, learned from books, that they expect seeing in the country.
5. I partially do agree and partially don't. People are always looking for new questions and their answers; each time there is a new question, we all desperately try to find its answer that feeling of trying to look for an answer stick with us all the time. However, to actually figure out the answer, we need past memories or knowledge that we already resolved. I would not say that those things will stick with us but we actually keep them in our mind constantly and subconsciously.
6. Cyril wrote the book. It did not surprise me that much since he knew about it so deeply that we could deduct a connection between him and the book, however at first, it might sound a little unusual.
7.The Sickness Country is called so because of uranium and therefore the natural radioactivity of the place. It is also a sacred and honored place for the Aborigines.
8. The news about the "Clan Elders Sing Aborigine to Death" caught Alumt's eyes since she thought that someone was actually killed by singing. However, then she finds out, from Cyril, that sing someone to death is to exile that person from the clan.
9. Those who are exiled are distinguished as the Aborigines who are "hanging around the big cities". Because they broke a taboo or a community rule, they could not stay in their clan anymore so hoping for a better life, they fled to the urban areas.
10. Almut realized that a book learning will not help her understand the Aborigine culture and that she does not need to understand it to appreciate their culture. That realization probably cured Almut, it made her feel lighter and more comfortable.