Project 4C

Culture is defined as patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Culture is stemmed from the Latin word "colera" which means to cultivate. Culture is believed to be passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes culture is prescribed "the way of life for an entire society." This projects fits into this definition of culture because we are studying the way of life of pre-Columbian culture, then colonial culture and will eventually be able to have a better understanding of contemporary Latin American culture.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

I learned from Cassie's blog some of the names of the time periods represented in the unique calendar sytem the Mayans created. They had names that represent a day, a week, a month and a year. I also learned that the Mayans had a name for a 20 year period of time. The Mayans celebrated after one of these time periods which is similar to the way we celebrate the millennium today. Freire can be applied to this topic because we can see how culture of the past affects culture of the present and eventually culture of the future. Freire made a effort to allow change for culture of the present by teaching people literacy and allowing them the ability to communicate and facilitate change. Freire's work is similar to the way the Mayans tought each other rather than modes of suppressing people that are present in some societies today.

I learned from Erik's blog that population prior to the arrival of the Europeans was about 15 million in Mexico's central valley. Even though much of the death was attributed to smallpox, a disease the indigenous people had no defense to, the population dropped to 2 million in 1550. I also learned that many people attribute the success of Cortes to La Malinche. Even though she was just a translator, she was thought as to be the 2nd most important factor after God. I think Freire applies to this information in this class in an extremely important way. The conquering of Mexico, I would argue, is extremely contrary to what Freire stood for. Freire was about liberating people through education. The way the Europeans dominated the indigenous people is again a form of suppression and contrary to the ideals represented by Freire's movement. Sometimes to figure out what one does want, in this case a form of liberation, one might need to identify with what one does not want, in this case suppression and work from there with both in mind.