[Michelle Levy]

I was a little worried that I would not be able to relate anything during this class to the primary grades that I teach. But, I am pleased that just looking at the maps and photos that Professor Dube presented, I know I will be able to find many things to integrate into my classroom. For example, I thought it was interesting that Prof. Dube superimposed images of China to other places in the world. I think my students will be able to understand that other countries that are roughly the same size, may have more or less people, which would affect many of our daily routines. There are definitely many geography lessons that would benefit my students about ownership of land and boundaries of countries.

I'm also fascinated that even today, this huge debate over the name of the East Asian Sea/ Sea of Japan is still talked about. I believe that when I was in 7th grade, we did a project on Japan and it was surely labeled "Sea of Japan" in our textbook. I could definitely come up with a lesson that dealt with dividing the students into two groups and expressing our opinions on naming something we had in common. In a way, it is like the third grade history standard regarding settlers coming to the new world and both sides arguing for ownership of the land. Obviously, the Native Americans lost that battle. So did Japan or Korea win the name of the Sea battle?

The only disappointment that I found with today's first session was that I was not more familiar with the places the Professor was talking about. Much of this class will be new information for me, and there are many names of people and places that I still need to learn. It is interesting that SouthEast Asia is not a part of what we will be discussing during this seminar.

[Michelle Levy]

Hello everyone. My name is Michelle Levy and I am a 2nd and 3rd teacher in LAUSD, local district West. This is my second year teaching, ever! I'm excited to meet you all and have some meaningful East Asian discussions throughout this course. 

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