Do you think you have internalized the Euro-Dualistic tradition of seeing your “self” through your ego or do you see it as something groundless and transitory as the East Asian tradition assumes? How do you think this could affect your educational practice? According to East Asian epistemology our “self,” mind, values, ethics, and how we see the world are all transitory. I believe that I have adopted this idea rather than the internalized Euro-Dualistic tradition of the “self” and ego. Within the East Asian epistemology, there is more room for growth and experience. For example as you learn more, how you see the world is going to change and with new experiences your values will change as well. The epistemology allows you to understand the changes that happen around you as well as the changes that are inside yourself. If you only keep this Dualistic mindset there will be no room for growth and development. As we have been learning and developing our omoi, we have had to look into ourselves to find what ethics and values are most important to us as a teacher. By doing so we are allowing room for improvement and reflection within our “self” to help us find a more in sync “self.” This can affect your educational practice in a very positive way. Keeping your mind in a transitory state will always allow for the quest for learning and growing. By doing this, teachers will be able to learn more skills, theories and modes of teaching that can better their teaching practices by being able to reach out to a wider variety of students. Teachers will also have the ability to make deeper connections with students by learning how to see their perspectives to have a better understanding of how they learn and view themselves. With this reflection the teachers can be a model for the students for how they can work towards mastery-oriented goals and develop greater motivation. Having a “self” that is groundless and transitory allows me to continue growing and reflecting on my educational practice. By doing so I am allowing myself to discover about myself and others and I am constantly striving to improve myself.
Study Question: What are the biggest challenges and crisis moments that you have had as an educator? What are the psychological strategies you used to deal with them?
The biggest crisis moment I have had thus far is having a student attempt to light a desk on fire. I was student teaching, being observed by my professor, and as I was wrapping up the class to dismiss them. I was wrapping up the class, I see smoke from the corner of my eye. I turned to see one of my students were lighting his desk on fire. I was upset, nervous, and scared. There were a couple of psychological feelings going on. I did not want my professor to see because I didn’t want to seem incapable of handling a class. I did not want to embarrass the student in front of the entire class because I wanted to maintain my “cool teacher” aspect. However, I did want to reprimand the student and show him that he could not take advantage of me like that. Due to the fact that my student ego was high, I finished wrapping up the class and told the students to stay in their seats until the bell rang. I went over to the student, discretely, without my professor noticing and I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was sorry and that he would never do it again. I told him I was going to report him no matter what, and that it was against the school policy. I knew that the student’s viewpoint on me as the “cool” teacher would change. However, he had to know that what he did was not only putting him at risk, but everyone in the class as well. I put my need of being liked and thought about as cool to the side, for the safety of the class, and for him to understand that behavior like that was unacceptable. I never would have thought for any student, even more with a student I had built a rapport with, to do something like that in my class. It was an eye-opening experience to see that, even if student’s liked an respected you, they were still going to do what they wanted. I took his actions personal, and I questioned what I was doing wrong that he would do that in my class. Eventually I realized he was being an immature teenager, and trying to show off to his friends. Throughout all of this I remained calm as much as I could. I tried to take deep breaths. It did not help that I had a meeting with my supervisor directly after class, so I could not let out my frustrations for another 15 minutes. I tried to be present in the moment while I was having a meeting with my professor, whom I never told what the student did nor did he ever notice. After my meeting, I went and told the dean what had happened. I told myself I had no control over his actions. I told myself that as an educator there is only so much we can do for our students, and if they do not want to listen to our input then we cannot do anything about that. I reminded myself that I was doing my best to influence them to do the right thing, but they weren’t always going to listen. There comes a time where you have to allow your students to try, and sometimes fail.
With whom do you have kizuna? How was it formed and what role has it played in your life and educational practice?
I have kizuna with a former colleague with whom I worked for ten years. We talked a lot about our classes, shared experiences and personal opinions about each other’s lessons and our challenges as educators. We used to meet once a week after school hours to discuss things that were and were not going well in our classes and with our students. We would exchange ideas about projects that we were developing and counted on each other’s viewpoint to solve issues with difficult and demotivated students. Our kizuna was formed through years of sharing and talking about our professional practices and our relationship is of trust and reciprocity. In Portuguese we have an expression that describes such a connection – “alma gemea” – twin soul. She is my academic twin soul. We have different teaching styles and relate to students in different manners. She is of Japanese descent – in Brazil we call members of the second generation of the massive Japanese migration that occurred from Japan to Brazil in the beginning of the twentieth century NISEI. I believe our differences in style and approach helped strengthen the bond between us as we always offered to the other a different perspective of our realities. My reality tinted with a European/American/Brazilian background and hers with a Japanese/Brazilian one. We helped ourselves mutually to view situations through the lens of another professional, which allowed us to find equilibrium and a middle ground for certain situations. Although I am currently not teaching, and she is in Brazil, we call each other once a week and inevitably end up talking about her class, students and projects. I think that by building kizuna we enrich and vary our own views and understandings about our profession by exposing ourselves to varied points of view and alternative interpretations.
What aspects of your work as an educator go beyond simply serving as a “teacher” for your students? How is it important for you? When deciding to pursue a career in education, I knew that it would involve much more simply teaching academic content. When I taught an Intensive English Program in San Diego, I taught adults who had come to the U.S. to learn English for a variety of reasons. The school had an open-enrollment policy, so I could have new students each week. I quickly realized that this made it difficult to maintain continuity in my lessons, but also difficult to maintain a sense of community within the classroom. I started switching up groups and asking students to talk with people they did not usually sit with. At the beginning of each class, everyone was paired with another classmate and would discuss the “warm-up question,” which was usually about students’ lives or opinions. In the first week or two of doing this, the students grumbled. Yet after several weeks, they began to get to know one another and looked forward to sitting with someone different and having a conversation. When new students came, this activity gave them the chance to immediately talk to and connect with another classmate, which allowed them to smoothly enter the community. In focusing on developing the students’ interpersonal relationships, I hope that some of them also developed kizuna. Another way that I attempted to take the humanistic approach was to discuss controversial topics and facilitate small group and whole-class discussions where students were able to share their opinions and listen to opinions very different from their own. I tried to incorporate an array of activities in the classroom, and inevitably some of them made some of the students uncomfortable or fearful of their ability. When one girl explained to me that she simply wasn’t going to give a presentation, I sat down and talked with her about why she didn’t want to do it. She was having a hard time finding and understanding the information she needed, so I found and modified articles for her to use. When one of my stronger students did not do well on the quizzes, I approached him and explained my disappointment. I then provided him with individualized homework that was more challenging. I found that it is important not to let students off the hook, because then they are not learning perseverance or how to work through feelings of inadequacy or incompetence.
STUDY QUESTION: What was the toughest aspect of school life when you were a student? How did your mind work then? How did you cope with it?
I had a hard time during the last year of high school. Everybody around me seemed so stressed to prepare for the National Entrance Exam. But I just don’t see the point of it. And I don’t like the intense atmosphere: Nobody was joking or even chatting at the break time. The exam was a big thing that would decide which university we would go to. We were told to put great emphasis on the exam and make every effort for that. I guess everybody made the contingency of effort and final test result at that time. However, it’s hard for me to make sense of paying all the efforts for just one exam. What if I was sick that day? What if all my hard work does not pay off? What’s the point of doing all the boring exam exercises? I did not work hard as most my classmates did. However, I felt guilty of not working hard. I had mixed feelings in and after class. I tried to talk with teachers and some friends to let them hear my voice and tried to make them agree on my side. It did not work out, though.
From elementary up until high school I had always been involved in some type of extracurricular activity, whether it was softball, mock trials, or newspaper. I remember one team sport that I was a part of in middle school where I struggled with the social aspect. In middle school I had joined color guard with this idea that it was just about learning to twirls flags and competing. I had no prior knowledge that it entailed wearing a dress and makeup as a uniform. On top of that, I felt misplaced with the group of girls that were a part of the team as I didn’t believe I was as talented and “cool” as they were. Instead of trying to fit-in, keeping informed of the latest trend and imitating their conversational patterns, I became more reserved and distanced myself. I began to see their behavior as foolish and immature compared to myself. It reached a point where I could not keep my feeling bottled up, as such I confided in a close friend who helped me realize that my insecurities were uncalled for, that I had needed to accept who I was and see the skills and values that I had. Slowly I began to open up to some of the girls a realized there was quite a bit we had in common despite our differences. By the end of the year, I gained confidence in who I was as a person, as well as great friends.
Do you think you have internalized the Euro-Dualistic tradition of seeing your “self” through your ego or do you see it as something groundless and transitory as the East Asian tradition assumes? How do you think this could affect your educational practice?
ReplyDeleteAccording to East Asian epistemology our “self,” mind, values, ethics, and how we see the world are all transitory. I believe that I have adopted this idea rather than the internalized Euro-Dualistic tradition of the “self” and ego. Within the East Asian epistemology, there is more room for growth and experience. For example as you learn more, how you see the world is going to change and with new experiences your values will change as well. The epistemology allows you to understand the changes that happen around you as well as the changes that are inside yourself. If you only keep this Dualistic mindset there will be no room for growth and development. As we have been learning and developing our omoi, we have had to look into ourselves to find what ethics and values are most important to us as a teacher. By doing so we are allowing room for improvement and reflection within our “self” to help us find a more in sync “self.” This can affect your educational practice in a very positive way. Keeping your mind in a transitory state will always allow for the quest for learning and growing. By doing this, teachers will be able to learn more skills, theories and modes of teaching that can better their teaching practices by being able to reach out to a wider variety of students. Teachers will also have the ability to make deeper connections with students by learning how to see their perspectives to have a better understanding of how they learn and view themselves. With this reflection the teachers can be a model for the students for how they can work towards mastery-oriented goals and develop greater motivation. Having a “self” that is groundless and transitory allows me to continue growing and reflecting on my educational practice. By doing so I am allowing myself to discover about myself and others and I am constantly striving to improve myself.
Study Question: What are the biggest challenges and crisis moments that you have had as an educator? What are the psychological strategies you used to deal with them?
ReplyDeleteThe biggest crisis moment I have had thus far is having a student attempt to light a desk on fire. I was student teaching, being observed by my professor, and as I was wrapping up the class to dismiss them. I was wrapping up the class, I see smoke from the corner of my eye. I turned to see one of my students were lighting his desk on fire. I was upset, nervous, and scared. There were a couple of psychological feelings going on. I did not want my professor to see because I didn’t want to seem incapable of handling a class. I did not want to embarrass the student in front of the entire class because I wanted to maintain my “cool teacher” aspect. However, I did want to reprimand the student and show him that he could not take advantage of me like that. Due to the fact that my student ego was high, I finished wrapping up the class and told the students to stay in their seats until the bell rang. I went over to the student, discretely, without my professor noticing and I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was sorry and that he would never do it again. I told him I was going to report him no matter what, and that it was against the school policy. I knew that the student’s viewpoint on me as the “cool” teacher would change. However, he had to know that what he did was not only putting him at risk, but everyone in the class as well. I put my need of being liked and thought about as cool to the side, for the safety of the class, and for him to understand that behavior like that was unacceptable. I never would have thought for any student, even more with a student I had built a rapport with, to do something like that in my class. It was an eye-opening experience to see that, even if student’s liked an respected you, they were still going to do what they wanted.
I took his actions personal, and I questioned what I was doing wrong that he would do that in my class. Eventually I realized he was being an immature teenager, and trying to show off to his friends. Throughout all of this I remained calm as much as I could. I tried to take deep breaths. It did not help that I had a meeting with my supervisor directly after class, so I could not let out my frustrations for another 15 minutes. I tried to be present in the moment while I was having a meeting with my professor, whom I never told what the student did nor did he ever notice. After my meeting, I went and told the dean what had happened. I told myself I had no control over his actions. I told myself that as an educator there is only so much we can do for our students, and if they do not want to listen to our input then we cannot do anything about that. I reminded myself that I was doing my best to influence them to do the right thing, but they weren’t always going to listen. There comes a time where you have to allow your students to try, and sometimes fail.
With whom do you have kizuna? How was it formed and what role has it played in your life and educational practice?
ReplyDeleteI have kizuna with a former colleague with whom I worked for ten years. We talked a lot about our classes, shared experiences and personal opinions about each other’s lessons and our challenges as educators. We used to meet once a week after school hours to discuss things that were and were not going well in our classes and with our students. We would exchange ideas about projects that we were developing and counted on each other’s viewpoint to solve issues with difficult and demotivated students. Our kizuna was formed through years of sharing and talking about our professional practices and our relationship is of trust and reciprocity. In Portuguese we have an expression that describes such a connection – “alma gemea” – twin soul. She is my academic twin soul. We have different teaching styles and relate to students in different manners. She is of Japanese descent – in Brazil we call members of the second generation of the massive Japanese migration that occurred from Japan to Brazil in the beginning of the twentieth century NISEI. I believe our differences in style and approach helped strengthen the bond between us as we always offered to the other a different perspective of our realities. My reality tinted with a European/American/Brazilian background and hers with a Japanese/Brazilian one. We helped ourselves mutually to view situations through the lens of another professional, which allowed us to find equilibrium and a middle ground for certain situations. Although I am currently not teaching, and she is in Brazil, we call each other once a week and inevitably end up talking about her class, students and projects. I think that by building kizuna we enrich and vary our own views and understandings about our profession by exposing ourselves to varied points of view and alternative interpretations.
What aspects of your work as an educator go beyond simply serving as a “teacher” for your students? How is it important for you?
ReplyDeleteWhen deciding to pursue a career in education, I knew that it would involve much more simply teaching academic content. When I taught an Intensive English Program in San Diego, I taught adults who had come to the U.S. to learn English for a variety of reasons. The school had an open-enrollment policy, so I could have new students each week. I quickly realized that this made it difficult to maintain continuity in my lessons, but also difficult to maintain a sense of community within the classroom. I started switching up groups and asking students to talk with people they did not usually sit with. At the beginning of each class, everyone was paired with another classmate and would discuss the “warm-up question,” which was usually about students’ lives or opinions. In the first week or two of doing this, the students grumbled. Yet after several weeks, they began to get to know one another and looked forward to sitting with someone different and having a conversation. When new students came, this activity gave them the chance to immediately talk to and connect with another classmate, which allowed them to smoothly enter the community. In focusing on developing the students’ interpersonal relationships, I hope that some of them also developed kizuna.
Another way that I attempted to take the humanistic approach was to discuss controversial topics and facilitate small group and whole-class discussions where students were able to share their opinions and listen to opinions very different from their own. I tried to incorporate an array of activities in the classroom, and inevitably some of them made some of the students uncomfortable or fearful of their ability. When one girl explained to me that she simply wasn’t going to give a presentation, I sat down and talked with her about why she didn’t want to do it. She was having a hard time finding and understanding the information she needed, so I found and modified articles for her to use. When one of my stronger students did not do well on the quizzes, I approached him and explained my disappointment. I then provided him with individualized homework that was more challenging. I found that it is important not to let students off the hook, because then they are not learning perseverance or how to work through feelings of inadequacy or incompetence.
STUDY QUESTION: What was the toughest aspect of school life when you were a student? How did your mind work then? How did you cope with it?
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time during the last year of high school. Everybody around me seemed so stressed to prepare for the National Entrance Exam. But I just don’t see the point of it. And I don’t like the intense atmosphere: Nobody was joking or even chatting at the break time. The exam was a big thing that would decide which university we would go to. We were told to put great emphasis on the exam and make every effort for that. I guess everybody made the contingency of effort and final test result at that time. However, it’s hard for me to make sense of paying all the efforts for just one exam. What if I was sick that day? What if all my hard work does not pay off? What’s the point of doing all the boring exam exercises? I did not work hard as most my classmates did. However, I felt guilty of not working hard. I had mixed feelings in and after class. I tried to talk with teachers and some friends to let them hear my voice and tried to make them agree on my side. It did not work out, though.
From elementary up until high school I had always been involved in some type of extracurricular activity, whether it was softball, mock trials, or newspaper. I remember one team sport that I was a part of in middle school where I struggled with the social aspect. In middle school I had joined color guard with this idea that it was just about learning to twirls flags and competing. I had no prior knowledge that it entailed wearing a dress and makeup as a uniform. On top of that, I felt misplaced with the group of girls that were a part of the team as I didn’t believe I was as talented and “cool” as they were. Instead of trying to fit-in, keeping informed of the latest trend and imitating their conversational patterns, I became more reserved and distanced myself. I began to see their behavior as foolish and immature compared to myself. It reached a point where I could not keep my feeling bottled up, as such I confided in a close friend who helped me realize that my insecurities were uncalled for, that I had needed to accept who I was and see the skills and values that I had. Slowly I began to open up to some of the girls a realized there was quite a bit we had in common despite our differences. By the end of the year, I gained confidence in who I was as a person, as well as great friends.
ReplyDelete