Teaching intro to anthropology classes has been really fascinating over the last couple of years. It's also been pretty fun too. What I have always enjoyed is the fact that many students react pretty positively to anthropology, even if they thought it was about bugs or dinosaurs when they first enrolled in class. This happens pretty often--lots of students tell me they had no idea what anthropology was all about when they signed up for class. This happens, I think, because anthro classes often satisfy certain requirements, so students take the courses without knowing for sure what they are all about. Now, I can't say that ALL of the students who have taken my classes ended up liking anthropology, but at the end of the semester, many of them admitted that the course was a pleasant surprise.
So this makes me wonder about the reasons why students have not heard much about anthropology (this has more to do with the PR issues of the discipline itself), and how it might be possible to anthropologize--so to speak--high school a bit. How many high schools even offer anthropology courses? What would it take to add a more anthropological perspective to high school history, social studies, and even biology/science courses? Would this be possible, or is anthropology just too much for high school? Based upon the interest of students that I have taught, and my own memories of high school, I really don't think it's too crazy to think about teaching anthropology at that level. Anyway, this is just something I'm thinking about at present, and if any of you out there in internetland have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
