{"id":12390,"date":"2025-07-02T14:13:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/?p=12390"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:09:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:09:52","slug":"sports-and-teotihuacan-my-journey-with-the-flc-in-globalizing-curriculum-2024-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/2025\/07\/02\/sports-and-teotihuacan-my-journey-with-the-flc-in-globalizing-curriculum-2024-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports and Teotihuacan – My Journey with the FLC in Globalizing Curriculum 2024-2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"by Melissa Markham, Adjunct Faculty, Humanities<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the 2024-2025 academic year, I participated in the Globalizing Curriculum Faculty Learning Community. We met virtually once a month to hear engaging presentations and discuss our own projects to globalize curriculum in our classrooms.<\/p>\n

The community focused on the UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals. I found myself most drawn to goals Quality Education, Gender Equality, and Reduced Inequalities, but I enjoyed presentations and discussions on a variety of topics. Two of the more memorable presentations were how popular culture in South Korea affects politics even here in the US. I hadn\u2019t expected a serious, scholarly debate about K-Pop, but there we were!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Image from IUCN.org.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Another focused on the difficulty of measuring and tracking progress on the different goals. The discussion highlighted differences in not just the measurement and interpretation of the goals but in cultures themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I joined the community because of my limited background in Global cultures. I have a BA and MA in Humanities and teach as an adjunct professor in the Humanities Department. My own education focused almost exclusively on Western Humanities and Western cultures. In the 20 or so years that I\u2019ve taught, I\u2019ve focused almost exclusively on White Western European and North American literature, visual arts, and music. The exceptions have been units on the origins and arts of Islamic Culture and the Harlem Renaissance. In 2021, I returned from a three-year break from teaching, wherein I focused on raising my two young sons, to realize that the world had changed in many ways. And I needed to change with it. It was no longer relevant or even responsible to focus on traditional White Western culture. It was time to open up my classroom to the world. Through my own study and efforts, I added new units to my syllabus, including discussions of Eastern Philosophy, painting, and poetry and an exploration of African culture through masks and the griot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When I learned about the Globalizing Curriculum FLC, I recognized a unique opportunity to further these efforts.<\/p>\n

During the year, I decided to focus my efforts on Latin American culture, especially Teotihuacan in modern-day Mexico. Teotihuacan is a stand-out city in ancient America, often referred to as the Rome of Mesoamerica because of its rich associations with and influence on many other cities in the area. Included in the study of the city are many topics for discussion such as human sacrifice, effigies, a unique architectural style, intriguing mosaics, a great goddess, and, of course, the feathered serpent. Topics for debate include knowledge that has been lost to history (such as why the feathered serpent wears a headdress) and, perhaps of greater interest to those in my classroom, the intersection of sports and humanities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ball courts are a common part of many Mesoamerican societies. The \u201cball game\u201d, which has no more specific name, appears to be much more than \u201cjust a game.\u201d In some cases, it may have been a sacred ritual that reenacted creation myths. Or it might be played between two city-states instead of going to war with each other. It was sometimes associated with ritual human sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Does that sound ridiculous to attach that much importance to a sport?<\/p>\n

In my more or less 20 years of teaching Humanities, I have never brought sports into a discussion\/lecture. But as a mother of three boys and wife of a soccer fanatic, I watch and hear about soccer all the time. After 20 years of marriage and watching my oldest son play for about 12 years, I finally even almost understand the offsides penalty.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I learned about the \u201cball game\u201d of Mesoamerica, I realized that sports affect our modern-day politics and global relations as well. After England lost the European Cup in 2020, there was an outburst of racism as disappointed fans blamed black players for losing the game. Controversy surrounded the World Cup in Qatar 2022 with allegations of human rights violations in preparation for the event. In 1934, Mussolini used the World Cup to promote his brand of fascism. And most tragically, in 1994, Andres Escobar scored an own goal as part of the Colombian Team that cost his team the game and the tournament. Soon after returning home, he was killed in a bar by an enraged fan.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the Humanities is the knowledge that the more we study a \u201cforeign\u201d culture, the more we realize how alike we are. There\u2019s enough exoticism to delight and surprise, but enough of the familiar that we recognize a shared human experience. The Globalization FLC brought me a greater awareness of the human experience in the world outside of my immediate purview and education, and handed me tools to explore further. I look forward to adding this topic to my curriculum and engaging my students in debates about it. As I brainstormed topics for my presentation and then researched Teotihuacan, I wondered where else I could go – a deeper dive into Mesoamerica, a visit to another ancient or modern culture, or a different approach altogether. Thanks to TLED and the Globalization FLC for this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Melissa Markham, Adjunct Faculty, Humanities During the 2024-2025 academic year, I participated in the Globalizing Curriculum Faculty Learning Community. We met virtually once a month to hear engaging presentations and discuss our own projects to globalize curriculum in our classrooms. The community focused on the UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals. I found myself most drawn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":12422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-faculty-learning-community","category-written-by-faculty"],"acf":{"carousel_content":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/06\/TeotihuacanSocial.png?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}