New Literacy & Global Learning
Creative Synthesis
During my teaching career at SCUD vocational high school, I noticed that students there could be divided into three categories. One part of them was from stable and wealthy family but too naughty to parent. Their parents had no choice but sent them to this vocational boarding school. The second part of the have complicated family background; for example, divorced parents study disability or stay-at-home children. The third part of students came from extremely poverty area. Their family was waiting for their future salary to support the family. They also had one commons that their academic study performance was not outstanding. Regarding the complex background, some student missed their orient in the study. They came to school to kill time before they reached the legal working age. They felt struggling to catch up, trying too hard to follow up others. In China, they were defined as gave－up students. However, as a teacher, as their friends, I saw the potential, capacity, and future on them. To get rid of the tag from outside, they need to defend themselves to pick up the confidence in school, the study, and life.
ECI 550 Foundations Of Middle Years Education
To better understand teenager students, Dr. Beal asked us to read through the book Adolescent Portraits: Identity, relationships and challenges and analyze one of the cases to summarize the child’s social/emotional characteristics, learning abilities, and provide exclusive study suggestions.
In this a powerful book that covers real case about family and peers relationships, eating disorders, self-image, illness, and disabilities, and allows instructors to walk in adolescent’s world. From the first-person version, they leas readers back to their teenagerhood to see and experience what did they suffer, encounter and go through as a teenager in school and family.
When I read the cases in the book, I saw myself in it. Then I realized that my students in SCUD vocational highs school could relate to the book thicker than me. I believe students will be able to find themselves as I did and define themselves after we go through the case one by one. I hope this influential book will inspire them to move on the bright further from the shadow.
ECI 524 Theory and Research in Global Learning
In his book, the author Mr. Appiah, who have multicultural life background and traveled around the world, sketches a series of controversial anecdotal all around the world. After reading the book, we assigned to make a video to interview a person who we believed as a cosmopolitan. My interviewee was my former Reading teacher Ms. Anita J. Ghajar-Selim. From question designing and interviewee background learning, the video designing process allows me to apply what I learn from the book and reflected my understanding of being cosmopolitan.
In China, people say English class is a bridge that communicates students with the world. Personally, I believe in spite of the knowledge, and language, an inclusive attitude of the world is the priority. Being a cosmopolitan, a global citizen, it does not matter which country you live in, or how many countries and area you have traveled. It is more important than how do you treat different custom and culture, how do you get along with people from the separate area with different growth background, what is your take away after you learning things that varies from your experience. Hopefully, I can add cosmopolitanism element in my class to help my students become more open-minded people and global citizens