I had a very busy month (or two) since I was one of the organizers of Columbia’s graduate student conference on East Asia, which happened on February 6th and 7th. We had more than 100 presenters and a number of faculty members serving as discussants. We usually have a unique party in the library, too. If you are a grad student, and have not presented at our conference, you should apply to next year’s. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/gradconf/ will be the permanent web address for every year’s conference.
Anyways, I am working as a TA for a class called “East Asian Civilization: Japan” aka. “Japan Civ.” The class covers from the very ancient times up to present Japan. I was explaining the tax system of the 8th century, since it partially explains the coming of the Samurai in the 10th century in my sections the other day. I asked students “so, what do you think were the forms of tax in the 8th century? Can you guess?” Their answer: “Income tax? Inheritance tax?”
One of the things we have to do as teachers is to describe things in ways that students can understand. I have gotten similar questions here at Harvard. Remember, students are going to think in ways they have been taught to think, and it is our job to make clear that things worked differently 13 centuries ago.
It’s a very common problem, yeah. We’re so used to our own economic models that the hard-currency, land-based models are quite foreign, even to students with agricultural backgrounds. I was just talking about the transition from mercantilism to Adam Smith-style modern economics, and my students had the same problem: I had to point out that income taxes and sales taxes are a byproduct of the modern view of the economy; land taxes and tarrifs were the old way.
Any time I’m talking about premodern societies, I emphasize the agricultural side of the economy, try to make it clear where income comes and goes.
Feel free to do some conference blogging at FrogInAWell, by the way!
It’s difficult for people to imagine outside of their own experiences. These students probably were (subconsciously?) thinking of their own parents going to work 5 days a week.
When they answer “Income tax” you’ve got a great opportunity to get them to think outside that box. Ask the students where those people got their ‘salary’ from, and if they would get paid regularly, and who would do the accounts to show how much their ‘salary’ was, etc. After a couple of those question, hopefully some of the sharper ones will catch on and then start correcting the mistake for you. Once the sharper ones have helped the rest of the class, you could then include anything they missed out.
Thank you all for your comments. Just to be clear: I was not saying my students were stupid. Actually they all are kick-ass undergrads (especially considering what I was like 10 years ago). It is just funny because we can hear what their parents talk about through these comments.