Final Reflective Essay

For years, I have taught and studied with a focus on the United States being the center of the world. This is normal for any American like me who was been born and raised in the US. Nevertheless, after completing the East Asia Seminar, I will continue to practice my specialty in US History in my classes, predominantly US History and Government. Though I will continue to mention the domination and influence of the United States, Britain, and other European powers, I will also shift focus to the influence of East Asia, past, present, and future. The East Asia seminar taught me about the influence that Korea, China, and Japan had on the rest of the world. The inventions from Korea and China have especially caught my eye; previously I was not aware of how China and Korea had influenced the world with its inventions. In addition the seminar taught me about how Japan’s victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese war had a profound impact on people from Africa, Asia, and other non-white/non-European regions, and how people from those non-European regions cheered in celebration of the first non-European nation to defeat a white European superpower. I will also incorporate those East Asian countries’ economic impact into my lessons, mostly in the form of discussions tied to lectures. The recent economic boom of Korea(South) and Japan, mentioned in the seminar, will be tied in by discussing the industries and products from Japan and S Korea; this economic boom of course entails the automobile and electronics industries as well as the technological advances both countries continue to excel in. Finally, China’s present and future economic expansion, which I had learned from the seminar, will be tied to my American focused context. Along with the East Asia seminar, I will refer to an article from the monthly California Magazine. This article published years ago mentions that in the future the East Asia region will excel in its economy and influence, and thus the West Coast of the US(with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle) will become America’s region of importance and influence in replacement of the East Coast(with NYC/Wall Street and Washington, DC). Its interaction and accessibility with the past Western European powers made the East Coast America’s previous region of importance with Wall Street, DC, and the Ivy League schools in the vicinity. The shift in influence/importance from East Coast to West has already been reflected with West Coast academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley challenging, if not replacing the Ivy League schools, in importance and influence. I will urge my students to know the importance not only of China and East Asia, but to also know the importance of the American West Coast and its accessibility to East Asia. Though China and East Asia will be challenging, if not taking over, Europe/Euro Zone as the dominating region of the world, the West Coast of the US (my student’s own “backyard”) will excel just as much in its economy and influence. I will leave it up to my pupils, as students in the United States of America, to use this knowledge for their advantage as they enter a new century with East Asia and China taking the reigns of power and influence alongside the United States and its West Coast.

Final reflective essay
“I am a Proud Dragon”
School Impact:
As the principal of International Studies Learning Center, which is associated with the Asia Society to implement Mandarin in U.S. schools, I promote the Chinese culture schoolwide.
The tenth grade advisories focus on Asia. They include East Asia’s geography and culture. As a 10th grade class, they read the book Jia by Hyejin Kim and discuss the culture and geography of North Korea and China. Students also select and research an Asian country in order to have a booth for the Dragon Festival in November.
I encourage staff to travel and continue their professional development to inspire and prepare global citizens. My 32 teaching staff continues their professional development though our partnerships with the International Studies Schools Network, the UCLA International Institute and USC. In fact, 15 members have already completed this US-China Institute.
I would like my staff to have access to the resources and materials provided in this class because social studies middle and school teachers incorporate Asia in their curriculum; our world language teachers teach Korean, Japanese and Chinese language and culture; and other staff incorporate Asia to compare and contrast global themes as our vision is to “inspire and prepare global citizens”.
Everything from this seminar is relevant to our students depending on the age and course they are taking: from the social studies classes, to Asian advisory themes in the 10th grade, to research about the millennium goals and its world impact, which includes China. In fact, Mandarin is one of the languages spoken in the United Nations in New York City. The Chinese influence around the world is forever growing, from incorporating the teaching of Mandarin in K-16 schools in the United States, to the economy boom in China, to the technology and electric vehicles in South Korea and Japan.
Lesson:
We can use my lesson and handouts as a global seminar for all advisory classes. I would like to use the PowerPoint during a staff meeting and during orientation for students and parents.
In order to access prior knowledge and interest my audience, I will introduce the history of Our Dragon Mascot, Ming. This has two goals: 1) to educate our community about the difference between the Eastern and Western dragons and 2) to learn about the origin of our Mascot and the meaning of Ming.
The PowerPoint will introduce our school Mascot and its history. The same PowerPoint can be used by staff during advisory and then provide the first handout about European Dragons, which would help access students’ prior knowledge. The next day’s discussion could review the European Dragons and then present the Asian Dragons. The second handout will be distributed to assess the students knowledge about the dragons in four different ways: 1) Students first write their likes and dislikes. 2) Students compare and contrast European and Asian Dragons. 3) Students create their own ideal dragon- using a method of their choice- (e.g. technology, art, or cut and paste methods). Finally, students will create a plan to promote Dragon Pride among our school community.

Honestly, I was very nervous, and excited, to begin this seminar. I currently teach world history in which my units of China and Japan are at the end of the year, after CST's and when teachers are trying to get through the pacing plan. Consequently, not much emphasis is placed on these units and I teach just the "surface" of these units to meet the pacing plan time line.
However, it is my students who suffer from this time crunch and do not receive the exposure to these rich cultures and historical information. This, I’ve realized, is important for my students since they attend a school that is composed of 95% Latino students. When I began my unit on China they expressed their beliefs of the Asian culture, which was mostly based on stereotypes. They never knew that many of our resources/tools/ideas came from the Chinese. This interested them very much.
Through my participation in this seminar, I also realized that I lack confidence when teaching these units. I was very intrigued by much of the information and graphics shared during the seminar sessions. Much of the information given, along with excerpts of the readings, has been utilized in my classroom (especially that which pertains to Medieval Japan and Samurai!)
I am excited to use the knowledge, insights, and information gained to re-vamp my units. I also plan on sharing the resources provided to me with my colleagues at work. I know that they will also be useful to them, as we all struggle with the pacing plan time crunch! L
Thank you all for sharing and bringing up thought-provoking questions and sharing personal experiences. It truly made the class a more interesting and personal one.

[font=Times, 'Times New Roman', serif]This past semester has truly been an enjoyable and enriching experience. I’ve gained so much more from this class, both knowledge of content and how to be a better teacher, than I ever imagined I could. We have had the privilege of having Professor Dube, Professor Yamashita, and Professor Jung-Kim all share their expertise in their respective subjects. While I thoroughly enjoyed all the information I learned about this semester, it is only natural that I found the more MODERN history of each East Asian nation most valuable to my MODERN World History class. It is form these topics that we can still see some of the immediate effects even today. For Korea, I liked learning about “Korea Since 1945” – everything from the Korean War (I’ll always remember Professor Jung-Kim’s statement that it wasn’t over yet) to the Era of Globalization, and, most especially, the lecture on “What’s Happening in North Korea Today?” I have a large population of Korean-American students at my school and at times, I often feel like I’m doing them a disservice not having known as much about their country than what’s beyond the required material in the textbook. I now have the confidence to venture into further discussions to address the questions they so often have about the state of the countries today. As for Japan, I will certainly share the stories I’ve learned about Commodore Perry’s visit, as it is along allotted a mere 3-sentence paragraph in our book). I will share what I learned about 20th century Japan, particularly WWII era and beyond, focusing on their geopolitical issues and their relations with the U.S. (this can be done in both a U.S. and World History class). Finally, I’ve learned a great deal more information about Modern China that I will certainly use to supplement my lessons. I appreciate the resources we’ve received (PPTs, textbooks, etc). so much so that I utilized sections of the textbook in my lessons for this seminar. These all make great supplementary materials to California State Standard 10.9.4 about the International Developments in a post-war world (i.e. Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and Tainanmen Square Uprising (there WAS more than one!).

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[font=Times, 'Times New Roman', serif]Beyond the historical content, I look forward to using the material I learned to talk about other issues such as stereotypes. People, especially teenagers, tend to buy into stereotypes or make (sometimes insulting) generalizations about a particular group of people because they do not know any better. One thing that sticks out in my mind was when Professor Jung-Kim showed us pictures and described how Korea women were not historically quiet or submissive. That, along with Qin’s character in Last Train Home, break the traditional stereotypes of Asians (women, in particular), being docile, submissive individuals. I am also grateful for all the notes and movie suggestions we received during this course. I plan on typing out my notes for future use and checking out several movies from the lengthy list we received. Finally, one of best aspects of the class was the fact that the professors were able to share many “inside”(not found in textbooks) and personal stories from their education and experiences. As a young teacher, I can only hope to gain similar experiences through my own learning and traveling and have the opportunity to share them with my students [/font]
edited by cbacon on 7/6/2011

I will recommend this seminar to my History Department at Emerson (two teachers already took it and went on the China trip; Joel Rothblatt and Steve Perez) and any other history teachers I come across in my travels. The size of the class was perfect for me (a small group of educators and administrators who brought with them a vast array of experiences and perspectives.) I enjoyed the round table (oblong) seating arrangement and the snacks provided for us weary teachers arriving after a day of teaching. The professors were all great and I appreciated the variety of experts that taught us about Korea, Japan and China. I enjoyed the personal stories from the Professors about their experiences in these countries and the impact of various historical events on their relatives' lives. All the power-point presentations were welcome to us visual learners and the charts and maps and photographs enhanced the learning experience to a great degree. The readings assigned to us were good and prepared us for each upcoming discussion/lecture. Exploring, reading comments, and posting on this site under Recent Topics and Recent Posts was an additional resource for extending and reviewing topics discussed in the lectures. This added internet component served as an effective way to solidify our East Asia studies. I will use the information I acquired from this seminar in my classes in a number of ways; most obviously, I will be using the factual content that I learned about when I am teaching my Ancient Civilization class to my 6th graders, I now have a host of additional resources to share with my students from web sites, documentaries, novels, books, and my own notes from the seminar, the enthusiasm and intrique about East Asia, that was passed onto me by my professors at the seminar and my collegues there, will benefit my students because when the teacher is jazzed about the topic it can easily be contagious!
edited by mfraser on 7/8/2011

Thank you, cbacon, for your response. I can now go forward! You make a world of difference by your attention to detail!
edited by mfraser on 7/8/2011

It was one of the best professional development meetings that I have ever attended for the past ten years. Many topics that were presented throughout this seminar have been so helpful, informative, and valuable that I could integrate from my social studies lessons to daily discipline issues.

All the teaching materials provided on East Asia including East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Koguryo: A Glorious Ancient Korean Kingdom in Northeast Asia, and Korea for Kids as well as handouts and the seminar CD, “East Asia Since 1800” are excellent references that I could utilize continuously. Some of my favorites that I could incorporate to my lesson are topics such as, Four Major Schools of Thought, foot binding, Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points for Attention, Samurai and their interesting stories, Bushido, and “Top Ten Things to Know about Korea in the 21st Century” by Edward J. Shultz.

I now not only equipped with precious resources and in-depth knowledge on East Asian countries, but also have better understanding of my students’ behaviors and their parents’ expectations and responses. I greatly appreciate USC-China Institute for this in-service available to educators in Greater Los Angeles Area (where we have most Asian student population outside of these countries where they are originally came from) since the better you know about your students, the better you can educate them productively, efficiently, and effectively. I also treasure the time we shared topics in class and on the web forum, which gave me inspiration. I was so astonished and grateful by tremendous amount of teacher friendly website links and was encouraged by collaboration among the teachers and other public and private organizations.

Special thanks to Professor Dube, Professor Jung-Kim, Professor Yamashita, Ms. Jiang, Ms. Arteaga, and all the participating teachers for all your support during the seminar. Enjoy the rest of your summer vacation and best wishes in coming school year!

My Apologies, I submitted my reflective essay back in June 14, but did not realize it had to be done on this thread. Anyway, here it is...

East Asia Seminar
UTLA/USC Spring 2011 Reflection
I apologize in advance for my frankness, but if I am to discuss what I learned through this seminar I must begin by confessing to a change of heart about the peoples of Asia, particularly the Chinese. You see, as a result of the Free Trade and the globalization, small businesses and artisans in Latin America were forced out of their only source of income and were thereby either forced to migrate or to live in dire poverty because they simply found it impossible to compete with the fierce Chinese manufacturers. Consequently, my resentment against the Chinese grew every time I shopped and found the market shelves saturated with products originating from China. My personal views were evidently negative as a result of my ignorance of China’s rich cultural history, but most importantly, as a result of my being unaware about the fact that the Chinese, very much like the Mexican people, have been subjected to centuries of oppression and have thrived in spite of all the odds because they, like the Mexicans, are very laborious, patriotic, and sincere people. In fact, what I found striking similarities between the two cultures, which have given me a healthier respect and appreciation for the Chinese people’s endurance.

For instance, I found the case of Zhu Yuanzhang to be very similar to that of Benito Juarez, the first indigenous Mexican president, who like Yanzhang was a very controversial, nevertheless respectable man for being a self-made man who despite his very humble origins changed the country forever, not only by changing the constitution, but also by challenging the status quo and especially the foreigners who had left the country in shambles. I also found Mao’s doctrines quite fascinating and was very shocked by the striking similarities between the cultural revolutions in China and Mexico, specifically the massacre of the students at Tiananmen Square and that of the Plaza of Tlatelolco, which took place in Mexico City back in the 70’s under the exact same circumstances. I’m not surprised by the level of control Mao and his communist party had over his subjects because that is precisely what the PRI, the leading political party in Mexico, has done for decades – remain in power through manipulation and fear tactics.

Evidently, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Mexican and the Chinese have a lot in common and unfortunately I cannot address all the similarities in a small 500 word essay. All I can say is that I enjoyed this seminar tremendously and I feel privileged for the opportunity to learn about the Koreas, Japan and China. I found the lectures on the Jesuits in China, the Great Leap Forward (Land Reform & Marriage Laws) extremely fascinating, but I especially enjoyed learning about Zheng He (1371-1433), the only Muslim eunuch sailor entrusted with the task of exploring the world and the fact that his armada was the greatest in the world at the time and that it has been suggested that his armada actually explored a greater territory than any of the other “great explorers” ever did. I am especially grateful to Dr. Dube for his candidly responding to my sometimes very personal questions about his experiences in China. I am certain that my students’ attitudes and preconceived notions about south East Asia will change as mine did when I share all I learned with them. I strongly feel that one cannot teach literature without talking about the historical events that shaped the authors’ philosophical values and this class has certainly provided me with a strong enough historical background to do a better job at teaching about Asia the next time I teach my “Religions of the World” unit or the World Literature Class.