Message from jmallard

[Anonymous]

Learning about East Asia culture from the USC Us- China Institute was one of the most powerful cultural workshops I have attended throughout my teaching career. I believe there is so much to learn from the East Asia culture and although there are vast similarities from various countries that span throughout East Asia, there are also vast differences that I have learned about as well. I think in efforts of having our students be outstanding global citizens we must educate them and equip them with the knowledge and understanding of cultures throughout the world. I intend to incorporate East Asia into my teaching through reading informational text. With Common Core ELA shifts, our students must be able to read and answer and ask questions from more literature that is informational and has text complexity. Encouraging and exciting students to learn more about other cultures in a fun and engaging way where students can take ownership of their learning through planning their own trip to various countries throughout will help students to be successful in reading more informational texts that is now required of them. For this particular unit I focused on China, however I know that I can continue to build on their knowledge of China from this unit and have students to learn more about Japan and later compare and contrast the two which is a reading comprehension skill that is required of my second graders. After Japan, I can keep traveling and have students to continue to build on their prior knowledge to increase their cultural awareness. For my students, especially since I teach at the primary grade level, I feel that the ideas and issues that were raised during the seminar that are of the greatest relevance to my students are simply the traditions and culture that includes food, holidays and celebrations, language, early education, and family structures and values. These were the issues I feel are more so the foundations and my students will be able to relate to them and compare them to their own early lives more so.