Final Essay: Reflection on the Seminar Experience

One of the most productive and intellectually stimulating Professional Development that I have invested my time in is the USCI East Asia Studies Program. I have gained such remarkable insights into the history of East Asia and many valuable resources from professors and fellow colleagues in the program. My excitement and gratitude for what the program has given me, I am already beginning to reciprocate by participating in a colloquium at my school to share this professional development opportunity with other teachers.

Though much of the topics and materials are history based, I can still utilize the content knowledge and apply it to literature. History and literature affect one another in more ways than we normally realize so I will be incorporating more historical background to the time period of the literature in which my students will be reading. Eleventh grade English focuses on American Literature and very little is discussed of East Asia or the global world, however, I plan on incorporating Confucius philosophy of Self-Strengthening when discussing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.

Overall, the materials were so rich and yet nine days were certainly not enough to process and cover that was necessary. I would have liked to understand more about modern China, particularly after the Cultural Revolution, Korea prior to The Korean War and modern Japan. It was very difficult to keep abreast of the lectures and materials covered in the afternoon session due to the long hours of being in class. Perhaps the professors could integrate more technology into the presentation with short media/audio clips relating to the topics covered to vary the instructional delivery. Teachers are similar to students and our attention span is slightly more enduring, but not by much. These small considerations would improve the attention and focus on topics discussed.

Seduced, Stretched, Shaken, and Stirred
I felt seduced as the red and yellow of the University of Southern California would occur on a regular basis in my e-mail in-box. I could never ignore that based on my humble beginnings as a street rat from Philadelphia. How could I ignore the personal attention and obligation to my family? Internally I would often make excuses that I am far too busy, far too consumed, and already overly involved and never saying no to many of my academic interests and personal requests to be involved in various professional learning community activities. Despite this I kept on being drawn in. I called Xin. I believe she heard the angst and consternation in my voice. She encouraged me to reply. To be so young and so intuitive is a tribute to her incredible empathy and compassion which I believe should in life be paramount for us all. I have expressed this to her before, but she along with everyone at the Institute needs to know I am and will be eternally grateful to her for her encouragement.
I feel eel so fortunate that I succumbed. In the application process I thought I dug deep and relentlessly in examining my motivation for participation in the project…but I had really no idea how such a profound effect the Institute would have on me. My tears did not start or end at the eclipse of the Twilight Samurai. I know many of you heard my unrelenting sobbing when he returns home to her smile and open arms. I unabashedly cried and had no regrets about that. That was not the first or the last time I cried as a result of my experience at the USC US-China Institute. Many of those tears were not centered on that film but on other issues as well. Those issues are not limited to but definitely include how I have been stretched.
There were and have been tears of regret of our collective ignorance. (I am including myself in that respect) regarding this part of the world. There have also been tears of joy at being profoundly effected and robustly infected and emboldened to have some of the tools and preparation “to spread the word” (for the last two weeks, despite whatever I'm doing my thoughts in many ways rests in that part of the world)
I knew that this experience was going to be an intense academic experience. Little did I know it would stretch, shake, and stir me on a number of different levels regarding that part of the world and its people.
I sat spellbound as Clayton so aptly encapsulated the Chinese experience from Peking man to modern day China in such a brief time frame. It did not take long for me (10-15 minutes) to realize how little I knew. (Tears inserted) Regrets were abounding. The impact this continent has on the world is and has been understated. It will remain that way until The Western world feels their economic impact. Clayton’s grasp of the language and the voluminous underlying issues, the stories behind the stories, unraveled as a rich, delicious, and abundant discourse. Clayton is not just brilliant but a great orator who is not afraid of what he knows, but as a modern day Samurai more fearless about how he really feels about the subject and matters at hand.
Dr. Samuel Hirohito Yamashida’s teaching style accompanied by his passion about Japan’s progression to war gave me goose bumps (that sill are occurring at random)… that continues as I write today. His admonition that war is complicated speaks volumes. I was touched by the brief time I had to examine his tome and its opening quote:
“In this autumn of emergencies when life or death of the state is at issue the weak have become food for the strong” Tamuri Tsunejino (November 11,1944.) Those few words were enough for me to purchase the book.
I also liked How he juxtaposed 2 quotes one from Sakuma Shozan, 1855: “When I was 20 I felt related to one domain. At 30 I felt related to the whole of Japan. And at 40 I felt related to the five continents of the world. The other quote from the Analects of Confucius : “At 15 I set my heart on learning. At 30 I planted my feet firmly on the ground. At 50 I knew what the bindings of heaven were. At 60 I heard them with docile ear. At 70 I could follow the dictates of my heart for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.” How profound!

Dr. Jennifer Jung-Kim’s depiction of the Korean War and of a divided country and now progressing to a reunification really cleared some of my personal misunderstandings of early Korean history and the people of Korea as well. I never realized how sophisticated South Korea is in the area of shipbuilding and construction... I would’ve never guessed that Koreans were responsible for the design and building of that massive undertaking in Dubai. Another great revelation there had been comparative economic parity between North and South Korea and in recent years a resilient economic comeback for South Korea.
As a result of this experience I am stirred. I have shared before that I will take this message vertically to the respective English Language Arts & Social Science resource specialists at the district level. I will also share this horizontally with the Language Arts, Social Science staff, and elective cohort at the Lincoln Centre for the Arts as well. I will also take my experience and lessons learned to the work that I do in training of teachers and curriculum in the Preschool-12 setting. I have also made it a priority to train faculty at the graduate University level on not just eating fish but on how to fish in regard to East Asia and the delicious diversity it adds to this great world.
would have been an earthquake that leveled Los Angeles (and didn't affect the University) I would be oblivious. My daily routine of picking through five dailies and catching an hour or more of NPR, CNN, or PBS was altered significantly and I hadn't noticed. One of my graduate students who tried to reach me at the hotel or via cell phone called my wife with panic expressing the notion that I had been kidnapped or in the hospital with serious injuries. That is a tribute to the work you do at the Institute.
I knew that this experience was going to be an intense academic experience. Little did I know it would stretch, shake, and stir me on a number of different levels regarding how differently I now look at the world. I am so grateful to have been part of this meeting of the minds in those nine days I remain indebted to all of you at the Institute and the collective geniuses, not just displayed by the course instructors, but that displayed by all of my colleagues. I remain profoundly changed.
Together We Did,
Rand

During the conference, we were given different information, introduced to different resources, and were able to learn through the modeled teaching of three different professors different means of introducing information to our students. Throughout the conference, we were given a refresher course on Asia which encompassed different countries, cultures, and time periods. The teaching methods that I will include in my own practice would be the use of literature, poems, framing, videos, material from online resources presented to us in the class, and maps to teach the use of technical documents. I will be using Asia during the teaching of expository essays and persuasive essays by using different Asian historical events and other material as background to their essays. I believe that often times students are limited in their exposure to Asia and are only given that exposure through the relationship with the United States or European events. Ideally I would like to use videos for group discussions, opinion statements, academic vocabulary development, sentence structure practice, and using data to incorporate math. I would hope to be able to have students learn the importance of Asian study and diplomatic relations in the future through case studies and writing various essays. Often times, I find that I use the same redundant essay topics when I could introduce them to a new subject and accomplish the task of writing different essays. Point of View essays and thinking maps could also be utilized in writing samples for students well as analysis of Asian historical events.

The seminar had personal relevance for my own personal professional development in that I was able to glean from my colleguages different approaches to teaching my students as well as some innovative ideas. Ultimately it put a spotlight on my own personal lacking of using Asia when it should be clearly a bigger priority than it has been in any of my studies. I believe that this seminar has ingrained in my mind that Asian studies should be a bigger part of my own teaching and should be a more substantial part of my student’s studies. In regards to its place in English, my current assignment, I have various outlets and teaching focuses that can be easily adapted to include Asian studies, historical events, and small moments of learning of Asian cultures. Through careful planning and preplanning, students will be exposed and engaged in a multitude of Asian culture, historical, and political information.