We started the day with a discussion of these terms:
- Custom
- Tradition
- Ritual
For our purposes, a custom is an individual action you repeat, such as doing the same set of actions each time you play a sport or go on stage (my example was touching the outside of an airplane before I board and when I exit). A tradition is an action repeated over time, passed down from one generation to the next, like something your family does each year, or something a team or club does at the end of each season (an example is a special bonfire on the last night of the summer at a camp, along with certain songs / actions). A ritual is also a repeated action but one associated with a religion or ethnic group, such as a family lighting Channukah candles or going to church on Easter. You wrote about your own customs, traditions, and rituals, and we did a whip-around to share them.
Then we took time to read chapters 5 & 6, focusing on the Feast of the New Yam and the wrestling matches. I asked you to think about he customs, traditions, and rituals in the book, and what they are telling us about the Ibo. In what ways are their rituals similar to ones you know?
Tomorrow we will be meeting and reading in the library - see you there! (Oh, and I will be collecting your phones to help you concentrate on the book).
