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Jessica NgHi Cristina. Thanks for sharing that personal story about your niece and your experiences in South Korea. Being in a foreign place is so much more meaningful when it is approached organically, like by living and working there. You are able to understand the culture with fewer expectations or preconceptions built up from things like movies and TV shows, which the Nye and Kim article illustrates have become tools for countries to represent/market themselves more attractively. *When* your niece is finally able to visit, it would be interesting to compare experiences with her!
Jessica NgHi Alexis. First of all, thank you for the kind compliment on my post above!
I love your idea of showing students images of similar, "copycat" goods produced by different countries in previous centuries. Globalization of trade and technology has led to quite different circumstances in the 21st century; it'd be interesting to also bring in physical examples of modern-day copycats, from sneakers to soft drinks to cellphones, and even technology like GoogleHome vs. Amazon Echo. Students would really have to analyze each set of products to see how they attempt to clone or imitate their competitors.
Jessica NgHi Brigid. Good to see you again!
I am in a similar position; my husband and I have been in the suburbs of Kansas City, KS for over a month, and next Sunday we will (cautiously, by car) make our way back to Los Angeles. As we crossed state borders during our last trips, we often talked about how we probably did not have an accurate reading of COVID risks from simply going by state statistics. People who live near state borders are crossing them all the time, and likely carrying/spreading the virus on their way; instead, we needed to look at the web sites of cities and counties individually to assess the risk before staying overnight. It's just a reminder that, when applied to our teaching, it's extremely important to have students exercise critical thinking and to look at information from many different angles.
Jessica NgAs we discussed this afternoon, boundaries are physical and figurative. ETK is all about working on students' social-emotional skills, and preparing them for the academic life ahead. When I think about boundaries as applied to 4- and 5-year-olds, I think about the rules and social norms that we practice daily. These are figurative boundaries that make society "work" and that must often be explicitly taught to young children: how to line up, waiting your turn, cleaning up after oneself, greeting others, respecting others' physical space ("Keep your hands to yourself!"), and much more.
These boundaries, though, are very much cultural; they are constructed by people based on shared values. That leads me to think about my students and families who are from other places, who crossed state or national boundaries and ended up in my (now-virtual) classroom. Being here, now, poses a different set of challenges as they continue learning to navigate political, economic, and social changes.
From this seminar, I look forward to gaining a better understanding of different cultures and the ways we move between them, physically and figuratively.
Jessica NgHello, everyone. My name is Jessica Ng (pronouncec "ing") and I teach ETK (basically pre-K) in Los Angeles. This is my 4th year teaching, though I have a number of years of experience teaching in an early education center previous to moving to elementary. I am a native Angelena who loves to travel and visit at least one new place every year. By night, I sing Eastern European folk music and practice aerial arts. I wanted to take this course to deepen and extend what I learned from the previous one!
Jessica NgHi Mario. Thank you for your honesty! I was very much in the same thought process regarding the seeming ease and material benefits of taking this seminar. In addition, I live very close to our meeting location so it was a no-brainer. You also expressed beautifully what it was about Professor Dube that made the course worth giving up so many Saturday mornings. I have met teachers who, for one reason or another, didn't have that passion for teaching and it was evident that their students were negatively affected.
Jessica NgDuring our between-session break on the very first day of this seminar, I texted my husband telling him how engaging Professor Dube’s presentation was, and how it seemed I was in for a uniquely interesting seminar. Addressing COVID-19 was a prime example of learner engagement; it activated background knowledge and acknowledged something that was on a lot of our minds while thoughtfully leading to the “meat” of the seminar. I felt almost guilty that this was going to give me professional development credit!
While the amount of information covered was formidable, the only challenge that kept returning was the question of how to apply what I learned to my ETK classroom. I realized that I would have to teach some of the concepts in a much broader sense. Our discussions about open and closed borders and human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region will inform how I approach teaching tolerance and giving my students meaningful anti-racist experiences. Even our threads on the four Chinese schools of thought and the proclamations of the Hongwu Emperor influenced the way I think about class rules and routines. Some content was easier to apply as-is, like using examples of the different cultures’ artifacts to teach lessons on pottery and art to help my students hone their fine motor skills.
Each session gave me something new to think about, whether it came from the presenters or from our discussion threads. I really appreciated the enthusiasm of the group, as well as everyone’s generosity with their knowledge and resources (and film recommendations!)I am grateful to have had this opportunity, and look forward to another one!
Jessica NgI agree, Cynthia: Professor Yamashita had a great way of eliciting thinking through careful questioning about the artifacts he presented. Students of all ages learn about form and function in different subjects, like biology and engineering. Even my little ones learn about parts of a plant and how they fulfill their functions. I definitely haven't completely mastered using CGI principles in my math teaching, but would love to work on it and apply it to my students' hands-on activities, like building on the rug or exploring living things in our garden.
Jessica NgOk, I promise this is my last post about muqam! An ethnomusicologist friend of mine tuned me in to this resource, The Music of Central Asia, a companion web site to a book about musical life and traditions of that region. The web site is full of audio and video recordings, lyrics, translations, and more. Of course, there is a chapter on muqam with a great clip of a suite that features dancing. It reminds me of some Slavic or Eastern European dances, where the women seem to float through their choreography. It would be interesting to do a movement study with students in a dance class, perhaps to talk about shapes and levels that can be formed with the body or the way we can travel in different directions when we dance.
Jessica NgHi Meghann! It's tricky, indeed, knowing when and how to teach about difficult topics. While the XUAR issue is too abstract for 4-year-olds to comprehend, they do hear (inadvertently or not) about events and subjects closer to home like Black Lives Matter and viral videos of race-based confrontations. My opinion is that even very young children can understand and start to talk about things like racism if it is brought to them in a way they understand. For example, one Black History Month activity we did was guessing what whether the insides of different-colored eggs would be the same or different (you'd be surprised how many young children have never pondered such a thing). After cracking the eggs open for them to see, I segued into a discussion about the ways we all look different, but love to play, learn, sing, etc. all the same. Hands-on experiences like these help them better make sense and form opinions of (in)justice at their level.
Jessica NgFunny you should mention hospitality: as I waited for my friend to buy tickets for a boat ride (we were in Astana/Nur-Sultan), a woman sitting next to me started up a conversation, in very broken English. In fact, she kept nudging and bugging her niece to use their translating app. Long story short, fewer than 20 minutes into meeting her, she invited me and my friend to her house for dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn't take her up on the offer, but it reminded me of stories I've heard of the generosity and hospitality of Middle Eastern cultures, especially when it comes to meals.
I agree, it's important for us to try our best to impart to our students some of these values of treating others well and making them feel welcome, especially in a district where so many of them are from other places.
Jessica NgI'm kind of an armchair ethnomusicologist because of my music background and performance experience in Eastern European ensembles. Dr. Anderson's presentation on the twelve muqams was interesting because its form and instrumentation is so distinct. A lot of music genres we know that are used in communal, religious contexts involve harmony, like gospel, chorales, hymns, and Sacred Harp songs, while soloists backed by instrumentalists are most common throughout the epic muqam performance (about 24 hours total!) I once taught a 5th-grade lesson on elements of music, like timbre, harmony, rhythm, etc. using Bulgarian folk music. If I had a chance to work with older students again, it would be interesting to become more familiar with muqam and use it to teach and illustrate musical elements like melody, instrumentation, and form/structure.
Jessica NgWow, I really like your idea for students to use mirrors to help "reflect" on their past, present, and future. A great hook might be a clip of the song "Reflection" from Disney's "Mulan." At a preschool where I used to teach, we would put a full-length mirror horizontally on a table so students could sit side by side, look at themselves/each other, and draw what they saw. It was mainly meant to be a basic exploration of our body parts. I can see your activity being part of a take-home project, where students have to interview family members for information and maybe create a poster, diorama, video, or another artifact that represents what they learned.
Jessica NgLife in the XUAR, as described by Dr. Kurban and Dr. Anderson and depicted in the online comics posted in the Q&A of the webinar, seems truly Orwellian (excuse the cliché). Ordinary citizens are monitored via technology and by representatives of the state, both secretly and overtly. People are coerced to report on their own family members. The publishing and viewing of material on the internet is censored, while dissent is quickly silenced. State media is used to promote and strengthen loyalty to the president. It's encouraging that some leaders in different countries recognize this atrocity as such, but they have not taken any tangible actions that make a difference to people living in that region as a whole. We can and should begin to make a difference by bringing some of these stories into the classroom to inform lessons about history and tolerance. Cynthia observes above that our students are a very tech savvy generation; with careful facilitation on our parts, we need to expose them to these human stories, to help them make connections to historical events but also to be aware of issues going on today. This isn't appropriate for my ETK students, but I will prepare them for it by continuing to incorporate opportunities for them to practice empathy, tolerance, and kindness with each other.
Jessica NgWhile traveling in Kazakhstan last summer, I met someone with personal experience on this subject. My tour guide at Burabay National Park was a young man from Xinjiang; he had fled to Kazakhstan after a college friend called him one day, warning him not to return to school. The detention of minorities in China is a horrifying example of what much of the world seems willing to tolerate for different reasons, including political and economic consequences. For older students, this is a topic that should be explored alongside the study of the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps, and other examples of persecution and genocide. I found this online comic the other day, attributed to a Uyghur man now living in Japan. It would be an engaging way to introduce the topic, or provide a relatable, human story for students to connect to.
