[Jaclyn Wall]

When I signed up for this course it was because other colleagues had mentioned how beneficial it was for them. I honestly had no idea how much I would learn about a vareity of Asian cultures, history, and art, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this course. I'm truly blown away and would recommend it to anyone looking to add another tool into their academic tool belt. 

Professor Dube and all of the guest professors not only kept my interest, (I must admit I'm not a huge history buff,) but also made me look forward to their lectures and open conversations. As an educataor I deem it so important to keep expanding my education and strengthening my knowledge in content subject areas that I'm not familiar on. I not only learned multiple new things each week and from each session, but I also learned how to bring Asian cultured lesson plans into my classroom with ease. I thought that would be extremely difificult given I teach 3rd grade, but I have already taken ideas from these sessions and incoprorated them into my virtual lessons this school year. My students love learning about different cultures and have really gotten into the Name the Gibberish game (where I presented the 3 C's, 3 S's and 3 J's from Professor Faison's lecture) and guessing the BTS and Psy instructumental song titles.

Thank you for expanding my Asian cultural knowledge and making this class accesible during a global pandemic. I look forward to the next one! 

[Jaclyn Wall]

Lizbeth I love the idea of using these cards and tying in the Depth and Complexity prompts! I normally use those as frames for ELA lessons, but I love the idea of not only incorporating the picture meaning but also the numbers on the cards. The pattern prompt could be used for countless math lessons, but I also like the idea of using the Details prompt to highlight what is happening on the cards. This could tie in with a grammar adjective lesson where they have to give details describing various items on the card and/or in the picture while also relating it to Chinese culture.

[Jaclyn Wall]

I love this idea and how you incoprorated it to work digitally for virtual learning! I agree that many students would be able to tell you that products are made in China, but I would be curious to see if they knew just how many of their day to day items were manufactured in China. Serece's post gave me an idea of a lesson I'd want to incorporate with my students regarding Chinese manufactured goods. For homework one night I would tell my students to look around their home and be prepared to come to class the following day with random items they found around the house that were made in China, limiting it to 10. Once students had those items,  I'd place them into breakout groups to discuss how long they think that item took to make, how it was created (by hand, machine, etc.) and if it would be possible to be made in the U.S. how would the item be different and why do they feel that way? They would do this for a couple of class periods then be prepared to present their finidings via a visual aid to the class. 

[Jaclyn Wall]

I also agree with you Serece that visual aids help tremendously when working with upper elementary students. In 3rd grade we start to briefly discuss the government branches so I think this would be a beautiful way to tie in Chinese history as well. With the election this year we talked a lot about who our President associates with as allies so that is another way to educate younger children on foreign affairs and who is in charge for Asian countries we work with all the time. 

[Jaclyn Wall]

Like many others have said, I find playing cards such an asset when teaching math lessons to my students. I used these cards as an example for one of my curriculum lessons - by having students first create the cards. I would show exampels from this session and having student curate their own cards in an art lesson. Following the art lesson, students would then use the cards by placing 9 face up. They would be broken into partners and each take a turn trying to figure out which two playing cards would be their "factors" and create the highest "product" in a multiplication equation.

[Jaclyn Wall]

The playing card I chose is the 3 of diamonds. The bright blue background is what made this card initially stick out to me, but looking at it further, you see a woman either in a workplace or household kitchen washing dishes and cleaning. I think the target audience for this card is the female population, because it shows how many women were viewed in China. The values and behaviors which are encouraged are those of keeping and tending to a clean household as a woman playing her role in the family. The values/actions being condemned, are the same...that a woman is the one cleaning and cooking vs. the man of the house. 

[Jaclyn Wall]

While Nationalists and Communists were both anti-imperalists, they also had things in common. like unifying China and having it belong to the Chinese people. While both parties were backed by Soviet support, they also had foreign influence in common. They didn't want too many foreign intrusions coming onto the land and taking over how things were being run. The neutral ground didn't last long because post World War II they were back to hating each other again. 

[Jaclyn Wall]

During Professor Faison's presentation, she stated that most women can only make no more than $9,000 per year with a part time job. This kept women out of the workplace because they didn't want to be taxed if they made any more than that. This structure is to keep the male as the primary breadwinner and discourage women from being in the workplace by enstilling the fear of taxes upon them. This in my opinion is so morally wrong and injust. It is 2020 and women have been fighting back for decades to not be known as the "June Cleaver" stay at home mom making the picture perfect household. Tax stipulations such as this one put limitations not only on a family wanting to better provide for themselves and their future, but also for spousal/women rights.

[Jaclyn Wall]

Like you Betsy, I wasn't surprised that the Japanese throne is only passed down to males. In the article "Prince Under Pressure" it states how a teenager is the new heir to the throne, but questions if he is being trained or groomed properly to withstand the power of it. He has older relatives which are capable, but alas, since he is male he is the chosen one. This is so similar to the royal family in Englad, and how because Camila is Charles' second wife she will never be recognized as the next queen. While that is a female comparison, and technically apples to oranges, it does make me question why Japan is still so far behind in gender equality.

[Jaclyn Wall]

As I read through this article I continuously scrolled up to check the year it was written. With August 2007 being under the article heading, and October 2020 being at the top, I wasn't sure if the original article had some amendments or if was an article from 2007. Either way, the article itself was insightful into how lucky and privliged women are in the United States. We are currently fighting our own battles of equality, with equal pay, equal opportunities, etc; but in the grand scheme of things we have it so lucky compared to those in Japan. 

 

When reading about the daughter who's son became the successor of her father's company had my jaw drop. She ended up taking over after her father's death, but I cannot imagine her pain and agony going into the workplace every day feeling like you have to prove yourself more so than the day before in an office filled with ego-centric men. But alas, it happens more often than it should. 

 

I would explain this to my students in a math lesson. I would use bar graphs and line graphs and compare salaries of women to men. To make it more relatable I would start out comparing male and female actors in the states for blockbuster films, then I would bring in the Japanese aspect of women vs. men in the workplace. I think seeing a side by side comparison would be eye opening to students and hopefully sit with them as a lesson they wouldn't forget anytime soon.

[Jaclyn Wall]

I agree with Serece on a lot of what was said about the Fancy Dress Ball was shocking to me. Only if you were an elite member of society were you allowed to be seen dancing with your husband and/or wife; otherwise it was frowned upon. Why should the elite be the only ones who get to show interest in their partner in a public fashion? It was dancing, not a public display of affection in an inappropriate manner, yet only the elite are allowed to show this? Disturbing. 

 

To Serece's point, the fashion made this event fancy by all means. With the women in gowns and the men in tuxedo's with tails; therefore, the name fits the attire. I am curious to know what else made this such a fancy affair? Was it just because it was an elite event? Did they have a particular cuisine which wasn't often served? I would love to do more research on it.

[Jaclyn Wall]

Hi Maria! I agree with you on so many points regarding this article and relae to it personally as well. If the Japanese Prime Minsiter Shinzo Abe wants to use "abenomics" to create change in the workplace and boost productivity, why is he allowing gender inequality to still exist. Women are expected to stay in the household while men are the bread winners; however, wouldn't it be a nice thought if women could go to work without having to worry about childcare? Mayeb a woman could start a day care business to allow other women to utilize their knowledge and skills to be successful in the workplace. That's not a barbaric idea, yet it seems to have been lost in Japanese translation. 

I can relate to waiting to get married until I got my career established and head on straight. I moved to California in 2012 and worked as an entertainment publicist for 5 years. I hated my job, but the money was great so I stuck with it. Eventually, I went back to obtain my Masters in Education and transitioned into becoming a teacher. I now have more job satisfaction than a lot of people my age, am successful, and ready for the next step at 31. Had I not prospered through my career endeavors first, who knows if I'd be in the right mindset to be married at a younger age.

[Jaclyn Wall]

Being virtual, I try to keep my class as engaged as possible. When I saw Professor Faison's slide on High Economic Growth, I instantly had a lesson idea pop into my head. Name the Gibberish - Japanese version! Normally, we would play Name the Gibberish where I would make up random words that when you say them together really fast it would name a commonly known item. We do this with Disney movie titles, holiday sayings, etc. When Professor Faison told us to "Close our eyes" as she stated those words I thought this would be a such a fun activity to try with my class. 

 

I put the words onto Google Slides and rather than having my students guess the word, I told them to try and guess the meaning. It was easiest ith the 3 C's, but by the end of the lesson they were begging to try and guess more Japanese words. I took this as an opportunity to feature one of my EL students from China. He sent me Chinese words that had similar sounding words to English words and we played it the next class. It was a great way to get my students involved and appeaciated both Japanese and Chinese cultutres.

[Jaclyn Wall]

When Professor Faison brought up the Tokugawa Confucianism relatinship break downs, I have to admit, I wasn't very surprised. When you start out with the Ruler/Subject, it brings me back to slavery and how women would be subjected into basically doing whatever their "ruler" wanted them to do. When it comes to Parent/Child, the male in the family would more than likely be head of household so the woman would be at home with their children. In turn, she would then take on the "ruler" position and her children would have to abide by what she told and enstilled in them until their father came home. For Elder/Younger sibling this made me think about my own upbringing where my older sister constantly felt the need to tell me what to do. This turned into her being a guiding light for me as we got older, but as the elder sister she did feel like she held the power in most situations. For Husband/Wife, it goes back to the Parent/Child. The husband is the male, alpha dog, elite if you will, and held power over his wife in multiple situations. The wife, being a woman, would then cater to whatever her husband needed as he was the head honcho and head of the household. Finally Friend/Friend, women viewed this as a unilateral relationship and had the most comfort here. It wasn't a situation of "I have more power than you do" but more so "We're equal" which was an uplifting thought in these times. 

 

I'd love to explain these relationships to my students and break them into groups assigned each one a specific relationship. From there, they would make a skit showing how the relationship would have played out in Japanese during the assigned era. We would then have a discussion about if this were to happen in the United States in 2020 how would they compare or contrast?

[Jaclyn Wall]

After reading the article "You Can't Help but Love Them" I started to think about how I could incorporate more cultural music into my lessons. I use the playlist "Instrumental Hits" on Spotify while my students are writing and noticed that a lot of the time they were able to decode the instruments and recognize the song that was playing. After re-reading this article, I started to play "BTS Instrumental" instead to see if my students recognized any of the songs. When "Dynamite" came on 2/3 of my class INSTANTLY recognized the song and started singing along. I took advantage of the opportunity and looked of Psy's Gangham Style to play for my class. As 8 and 9 year olds I wasn't sure if they would recognize this 2013 hit, but alas, I had three students immediately get excited and begin to do the dance in front of their computers. This brought us to a discussion about international artists who have a direct effect on our moods all the way in the United States. We discussed how both of the songs instantly made us put a smile on our faces and in an overall better mood. 

I'd like to take this one step further in the future and do a research paper on a musical artist from a diffrernt country and how their music makes us feel, even if don't understand all of the lyrics. So many Asian artists are widely popular in the U.S. so I would provide them with a pleathora to choose from them be really curious to see what findings they would present.

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