A colleague recently wrote to me saying that he was:
…inspired by the topical discussion in the Neo-Confucianism book you co-authored and so I decided to structure my course on Neo-Confucianism according to a thematic/topical discussion instead of the usual historical or thinker structure. However, how does one mitigate the pitfalls of sacrificing historicity? Specifically, how much context or historicity should I provide?
I would love to hear any thoughts that folks out there have, either as it relates to teaching Neo-Confucianism or any other relevant subject. Justin Tiwald and I share some thoughts here about why we prefer to teach in a thematic way, and have collected a few teaching ideas here, but I am sure there are some great ideas out there. Please share!