Humanities classes incorporate cultural events into curriculum

Laura Yang

Students attended Dalai Lama presentation and Cryano de Bergerac dress rehearsal

A room of 12,000 people sat in uniform silence as His Holiness the Dalai Lama reflected on Buddhists teachings from a golden, throne-like seating. The 54 MVHS students in attendance, seated at the very back of the Convention Center, witnessed the fluctuations of his voice and the movements of his arms as he spoke of humanity and equality.The humanities students attended the Dalai Lama’s teaching on “The Eight Verses of Training the Mind” at the San Jose Convention Center on Oct. 12 as an optional part of their cultural events curriculum.

The Dalai Lama speaks from the stage of the San Jose Convention Center as more than 12,000 people look on. Photo by Lobsang Wangdu/The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

“[It was inspiring] just to be in that room, to share that idea that we have all come together to hear this man share his ideas about peace and love for all humanity,” English teacher Stacey McCown said. “It was really amazing that that many thousand people were so absolutely quiet and calm. [It] was truly a centered calm that spread.“After studying the Dalai Lama as a religious figure, some students were surprised by how human he was.“When he sitting up there, we all stood up, [but] he just acted like a normal person. He [didn’t present himself as being] holy and he didn’t raise himself up on a pedestal,” senior JeeSoo Lee said. As the head of the Buddhist religion, the Dalai Lama and his teachings fell under the philosophy and world religions unit in the humanities curriculum. The field trip was part of the humanities classes’ curriculum pertaining to art, music, theatre, philosophy and religion.In addition, the Dalai Lama presentation qualified as one of three cultural events that humanities students are required to complete per semester. For example, last year, the classes went to see the “The Birth of Impressionism” exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco as well as the dress rehearsal of the opera “Otello”, based on the Shakespeare play “Othello”. This year, aside from going to listen to the Dalai Lama, the humanities classes also went to see the dress rehearsal of the North America debut of the opera “Cyrano de Bergerac” on Oct. 21. The humanities teachers hope that the cultural events will expose students to different art forms and experiences. “We always choose things that are fundamental to a basic education in the humanities,” McCown said. “Cyrano, for instance, has been translated into more languages and performed more often than any Shakespeare play; a lot of people don’t know that.”