Final Essays (due by June 22, 2012)

[Anonymous]

The East Asia Seminar reinvigorated my teaching as it allowed me to focus my attention on a vast region of the world I rarely have a chance to consider in my mostly Western oriented teaching of English Language Arts. Effective communication is integral to success in any field and a narrow world view must be expanded to stimulate lively discussions and critical thinking skills to tackle the most pressing problems we encounter as global consumers of 21st century living. This seminar redeployed my attention on the burgeoning reemergence of East Asia as a major player on the world’s stage.
As a valley girl who lives in the San Gabriel Valley and teaches in the San Fernando Valley I am always attuned to the diverse array of ethnicities that are often compartmentalized but sometimes fuse together in the most alluring ways. I am surrounded by faces, voices, food, art and music bequeathed by Latino and Asian communities alike. The greater part of my teaching career has been lopsidedly concentrated on incorporating elements of Spanish and Latin American culture. This seminar afforded me the opportunity to seek out multiple means of delving more deeply into the undeniable influence East Asia has on our myriad aspects of our daily life.
The historical connections were most fascinating to me and helped me understand the literature I have read from Asian writers at a deeper level, allowing me to make connections that had eluded me prior to this course. My favorite experience in this course was learning about and participating actively in the Chinese philosophy debates. The only school I had any familiarity with prior to the seminar was Confucianism but my understanding of it was shallow at best. Albeit nearly all of the philosophies would be considered ancient by my students who refer to anything that occurred in the previous millennium as “back in the day,” the principles and reasoning are wholly applicable to our world today.
The lesson plans I submitted for the curriculum project end with the beginnings of a new unit I would like to develop. The first reading is Ha Jin’s short story, “A Contract,” in which I could immediately visualize the application of the various Chinese philosophies. The protagonist of the story is confronted with a conflict of Confucian ideology clashing within the context of the need to fulfill duties outside of a purely hierarchical framework. My plan is assign readings on the four schools and have different groups of students analyze the dilemmas faced and resolved in the story from the perspective of one philosophy. I think this will allow students to multi-task by approaching literature not as a wholly separate entity but as a guidepost in a continuum of understanding about human nature in its complexity and in its simplicity.

[Anonymous]

Final Essay –East Asia from Origins to 1800
Sara Rodrigues

I caught the travel bug when I was an adolescent; I longed to travel the world. Of course, some of my wanderlust was just the desire to escape where I was and who I was, but that’s another story. I first travel to Asia when I was 19. I left the States with $200.00 and a round-trip ticket. I went to India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It took me nearly two years, and my fascination with the countries and cultures of Asia grew as I learned more about them. In college, I took history courses on the region, but for the past 20 years I have been too busy with work and family to continue my exploration of these exotic places. However, when I saw the seminar in the union’s newspaper, I jumped at the opportunity even though I knew it was a less than ideal time for me to take the course as my daughter was to marry in the summer , and that was a very demanding project. But I couldn’t pass up the chance, and fortunately, Ying Jia was very efficient and helpful in getting my application processed and notifying me of my acceptance. Shout out to Ying JIa – You’re awesome! Hope all is well in Korea!

From the first session in Pasadena Dr. Dube reeled me in with his vast knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject. Not only is he amazing in his academic knowledge, but he is a teacher in his heart and soul. I believe he does this work because he is passionate about his discipline and because he is passionate about teachers and students and their effect on the larger society. One of the things he said on that first night was, “If you are not enthusiastic about your students and the world at large, you should be doing something else.” Okay, that’s a paraphrase, but that was the idea, and I agree because what I heard was that teachers should be ambassadors to the world, life, knowledge, and hope. Children don’t need anyone telling them that the world is not an amazing place to experience and explore. I’m off on a tangent, but I am convinced that these underlying ideas and beliefs are a rich treasure that the Institute offers with open hands as does Dr. Dube. It was also a common theme in the participating seminar teachers’ attitudes, making me feel connected to the others. It is also what I will take back to my classroom, in addition to fresh ideas about incorporating discussions about Asia into my curriculum through current events and literature. I am already including it in my planning for next year.

So what makes a successful program? The people, the mission, the content – the US China Institute through USC’s got it all. Each day’s lecture flew by; always leaving me with the feeling of only scratching the surface of the topic. The lectures were further enhanced by the Power Points, readings, and anecdotes. One of the sessions that has stayed with me is the one where we debated the four different philosophies. Even though I was nervous about my participation in the discussion because I thought I did not know much about the topics except what I had read, I found that it informed me in a way that would not have happened in a lecture only format. That being said, I want to add that each session offered special content from the expertise of the journalists at USC to Dr. Yamashita’s extensive knowledge of Japan.
The US China Institute’s seminar has rekindled in me an excitement for travel and culture that I had unconsciously placed on hold. I am eternally grateful to have had this opportunity and look forward to further seminars - Thank you US China Institute, Dr. Dube, Dr. Yamashita, Ying Jia, and Xin.
edited by srodrigues on 7/20/2012

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Dear Colleagues,

Please post your final essays here. The essays are due for Clay and our review by June 22, 2012.

Best,
Ying Jia

[Author]

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