I really appreciated Professor Hube’s statement, “America’s future is intertwined with East Asia.” As my students untangle China’s past and familiarize themselves with unfamiliar names, geography, ideology and content, my hope is that students realize how our past and present have been braided with China’s history all along. And, as we examine contemporary China, my students will gain confidence and curiosity to further explore and find future opportunities linked to China.

I’ve already incorporated books, posters, graphs, and articles into my class from my experience here, and I plan to use many more resources next year. For example, I used a propaganda poster from Dube’s 1b lecture video on Communism that served as a research focus for my students.  I also used an excerpt from a book he recommended during a lecture, Chen Village Under Mao and Deng, to further illuminate the role of peasants during the Communist Revolution. I’d like to incorporate more scholarly articles into my lessons to expose students to higher levels of academic discourse and realize the importance of interdisciplinary skills. For example, I was absolutely fascinated and inspired to read Song and Bugard's article that gave a direct relationship between a mother's education level and decreased infant mortality. Throughout my curriculum, I make an effort to focus on both feminism and public health. The One Child Policy will also spur discussions on family planning: an issue that affects my students, and to be able to have a forum where students can speak about their reproductive health in an academic way is a great opportunity. These discussions would serve as excellent end-of-the-year reflections or culminating assessments that allow students to extend and synthesize feminism, totalitarianism and 21st century demographic challenges. 

There are also opportunities to involve mathematics in analyzing many of the graphs, charts and data sets that we’ve accessed through this course. Cause and Effect, Continuity and Change, and Comparison are historical thinking skills that I emphasize in my course, and to be able to use data and math in order to illuminate and analyze is a wonderful opportunity. I really appreciate the myriad of resources we have that are data-based. 

 I’m also fascinated about the hukou system and am looking forward to introducing this concept to my students in the lens of migrations. Many of my students are DACA eligible, and this could be a good way to relate and remember the hukou system as well as analyze and reflect upon our lives and unjust systems. Likewise, I’d be curious to explore with my students what limits they believe should be placed on internet free speech and the role of the government to regulate and police it. 

I teach students who are the first to graduate high school and attend college. And while there are a variety of factors, many related to poverty, that tether them to a smaller world, I am grateful for this course for challenging me to further expand my own world, so that I may present it to them.