Reflective Essay of K Aysola- Duplicate posting

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Please note this is a duplicate posting (original was posted on June 15 at 4:10 am as ma reply to "mmonterozza" in the Asia in My Classroom Section")


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.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Mr. Aysola for inviting me to attend this seminar. I am glad I participated and agree with you about how informative and useful knowledge gleaned from it will inform our instruction for years to come.

[Author]

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