Enduring Cultures

Victor Bradley

7th Grade: Interdisciplinary Studies

Cascade Middle School

Sedro-Woolley, WA

What is Culture?

The Individual: Culture with a little C

• What we value, hold dear, celebrate, and find sacred

• Our families, our traditions, our customs, our past

• Our town, our jobs, our schools, our environment.

Culture With A Big C

• Regional Culture: Pacific Northwest

• National Culture: Living in the USA!

• Hemispheric Culture: North vs. South

• Mother Earth: The Global Village Interdependence, Connectedness and the World Economy

Connections:How Big C and Little C Fit

Together

• National culture defines the individual in many ways: citizen, voter, freedom lover, American!

• The individual is a unique expression of his or her background and traditions—collectively these individuals make up our larger culture, the big C, the USA in our case.

• Tolerance of differences and our diversity makes us greater collectively, our Big C stronger!

Enduring Cultures

No culture is greater than another. However there are cultures whose legacies and gifts to humankind have endured. Enduring cultures have withstood the test of time, their legacies are timeless.

What Makes an Enduring Culture Withstand the Test of Time?

• Great Achievements Acknowledged Through the Centuries

• Legacies, Architecture, and Arts that are still studied and honored today, generations even millenniums later.

• Enduring Stories and Literature that are still read and enjoyed today

There are enduring cultures in every age and every hemisphere!

• The enduring culture of North America

• Native American: first people, land of the 500 nations

• Legacies: native art, stewardship, diversity

Enduring Cultures: Middle America

• Aztecs: Legacy >>solar calendar

• Mayans: Legacy>>maize or corn

Enduring Cultures: SouthAmerica

• Incas

Legacy: architecture

& potatoes

Enduring Cultures: Europe

• Many of our culture’s custom, values, traditions, and ways of life originated in Europe

• Our systems of knowledge, science, & philosophy primarily originated in Europe

Ancient Greece

Pericles

Enduring Cultures: Africa

• Ancient Egypt: one of the earth’s original cultures that evolved along the Nile

• Incredible architecture: the Pyramids—eighth wonder of the world.

Djoser’s Step Pyramid

Enduring Cultures: Asia

• China: one of the earth’s oldest and longest lasting cultures

• Culture that actually invents many of the breakthroughs we claim to originate, such as printing press.

Oceania

• The aborigines of Australia

• The roundabout and talking stick