Reflective essay

[Anonymous]

Reflection on US-China Institute‘s Seminar
The US-China Institute Seminar during this past January-May provided a wealth of information, and strategies to use with my students. Top three items are: (i) locating China in the world map, (ii) dividing the class into four groups to discuss the Chinese philosophies, and (iii) presentations by journalists covering China, appropriately at the USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.
During the early days of the seminar, Prof Clayton Dubey did a fantastic job of comparing the neighborhood of United States of America to that of China. It revealed that China has about 13 neighboring countries to the mere two around the U.S. This is good strategy to introduce the topic of China to my middle school students whether in geography class or language arts. One of the conclusions made based on this was that it is likely that the more neighbors you have the more could be the problems.
In the second item of interest, our class was divided into four groups based on the major Chinese philosophical traditions. These were (a) Confucians, (b) Mohists, (c) Daoists, (d) Legalists. I am glad of my choice: to be a Confucian! We had one week to prepare our ‘briefs’ and explain and defend to the other groups why we were the ‘best’ to that time in China. It was a very interesting and enlightening experience where one could appreciate the Chinese philosophies. This activity could be modified and used for our secondary school students
The highlight of this program, the group presentation by three correspondents covering China in different media, reminded me of my journalist days in New Delhi, India. The presenters were: Rob Schmitz (from Marketplace), Ching-ching Ni (Los Angeles Times), and Mei Fong (Wall Street Journal). Their stories and experiences to get the stories were mind-boggling. For instance, Ching-ching narrated how she had to crawl through some narrow places to get a story. Mei Fong’s achieving her goal of getting ‘profanity’ onto the pages of Wall Street Journal! After the presentation, I could develop some connections with them In fact, one of these days hope to have them share their stories with my students.
Prof Sam Yamashita added an extra flavor to the seminar with his two lectures about Japan. In him, I also met an author of interesting stories about wartime diaries of ordinary Japanese.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

The seminar was a wonderful experience for me because I knew so little of Asian history and now I think the knowledge allows for better understanding of differences amongst cultures. Teaching is not my profession, but I do work with high school students and some of the information from this seminar is definitely something I could incorporate into my counseling curriculum. As a school psychologist one of my most rewarding yet the most challenging experience has been working with newly immigrated students from all over the world. I have always wanted to know more about the Asian cultures in order to better understand my students, but also in order to help them understand each other better. I would like to put together a counseling curriculum that provides students with the tools to expand their knowledge of others in a safe and rewarding manner.
One of my most rewarding assignments as a school psychologist has been working with newly immigrated students entering the US school system in the LAUSD, which happens to be in one of the most diverse places in the world.
Diversity as I have learned to experience it happens to be a wonderful thing, but for many of my students diversity is often a source of fear. Fear often evokes scary reactions, and I have seen students reject each other in hateful ways resembling the patterns that mankind has set as example through wars. Gladly so the reactions that I have observed for the most part amongst students are not hate or bellicose antagonism. The most common reaction that I see amongst students for each other in the face of not knowing much about other groups is isolation. Students often cluster with other students with whom they feel more affinity and when we have a group of newly immigrant students it is not uncommon to see Latino students forming their own group, Asian students in another and if you have African or European students in the same class, they will also group and form their own little click with those resembling they way they look regardless of the language being different.
While isolation or the forming of clicks is not as dramatic as confrontation, given the right or better said wrong circumstances the tension between students can grow so tight that any little thing can erupt into riot like events. At the very least it is sad to see the potential of experiencing diversity as a positive experience go to waste. One of the things I remember as a young student who had just arrived from El Salvador was feeling upset at the fact that most people thought I was Mexican, and likewise my Mexican friends were so proud of their incredibly rich culture that they were offended when not identified as Mexican. A few years ago, I was called to mediate between a group of Korean students and a group of Salvadoran students. The two groups were not only separating themselves and avoiding each other, they were using every little opportunity in and out of the classroom to call each other names and the fear of a physical fight was mounting day by day to the point that the issue was brought up to the administration by the teachers.
When sitting with the students to discuss the issue I found a very vocal group of Salvadoran students and a very quiet group of Korean students. It was very difficult to arrive to the core of the issue which basically was that Salvadoran students were calling the Korean students Chinos which means Chinese and the Korean students were calling the Salvadoran students Mexicans. That experience prompted my initial interest in learning more about Korean students and their culture, but even then I knew that in order to learn about Koreans I also had to learn about the Chinese. After day one of being a student in this wonderful seminar, I learned that in order to learn about the Chinese I had to learn about the Japanese.
Through this seminar I was able to learn a little bit more about the Chinese, the Japanese and Koreans. These three groups are not all that Asia represents but it is a very good start and I plan to seek more information of the rest of Asia.
Learning about Asia was a wonderful experience, bringing it into the classroom as a counselor will be a challenging experience, but not learning and avoiding the issue would be irresponsible on my part as a counselor and educator. Thanks again for the opportunity of allowing me to participate in this seminar, for all each of the professors and guests who shared their knowledge and experiences with us, and most importantly for highlighting the importance and the need for us as educators to become more educated.

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