Learning Letter

This course was really challenging! I felt like there was always at least 2 different things I was working on and (along with my other courses) I felt like I never got a break all quarter long. There was a lot of reading and I wish we could have had more time to talk about some of the topics we covered. I would have liked to spent more time on assessment strategies in a secondary school setting and what makes assessments good or bad. I would have liked to cover how to design a good assessment as well as how to gauge whether our students are really reaching the learning objectives/targets or not. We read a lot of articles and books on how to read and how to teach reading, but not a lot on how to assess student reading. I think thats one aspect that this course was missing. Other than that, I think this course did a great job of covering many topics and really preparing us to write lesson plans and use a variety of teaching strategies. I was actually a little surprised by how applicable everything was; I used a lot of the strategies that we learned in my practicum the week after I read about them. They were easy to implement and I could really see how my teaching improved from one week to the next just from what we learned in class and with the different readings. 

          I found a lot of value in the readings; in particular Cris Tovani’s “I Read it but I don’t get it”. I felt like that book had a huge amount of resources in it along with useful real life examples of when and how to use the different reading and teaching strategies. Just like after reading this book, I realized that my teaching philosophy is always changing and evolving after I read different things and try out different strategies in my classroom. Its a little scary to think about how unsure I really am but also good to know that I am not stuck in my ways about most things. I really liked how these readings challenged what I believed and/or felt about teaching and my role in the classroom. 

  I think the most useful thing we did was the mini lessons. I have a hard time with pacing and that assignment really forced me to look at what was the most important things to teach and how to do it in a limited amount of time. There are so many disruptions during a class period and having a 20 minute lesson is something that I can see myself having to do a lot. I also thought it was really beneficial to see how other people crafted their lessons and what teaching strategies they used as well as how they used them. Also, what a perfect way to get some more books under our belts, just like the mini books talks. 

  The literature unit plan was daunting and even tougher than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like I turned in my best work with that project and that is a huge regret that I have. I definitely learned a lot by doing it and finishing it, but I think it would be a great opportunity to revise it after getting some feedback and listening to what other people did for their unit plans. I will be teaching Romeo and Juliet during my practicum so it will be useful to have some lessons already done that I can just revise and then use. That is actually the main reason I chose to do Romeo and Juliet. Otherwise, I think I would have liked to do it on something else as there are so many other awesome texts that we cover in 9th grade. 

  Overall, this course was really beneficial and I definitely do not think it was a waste of time in any way. It was tough and if I had to do it again I would budget/manage my time a lot better and do a lot more research on my own time. 

Katie Brown, Washington Teacher of the Year

In your blog, you said that teachers need time to talk to one another and work together in their schools. A lot of schools have staff meetings and collaboration time, but it often gets wasted by talking about what color to paint the walls and who didn't turn their assessments in on time. How do you make sure that your time is spent wisely and do you think its better to have whole staff meetings or department specific meetings?

Do you think you would have become a teacher had you not volunteered at the school near your campus? If you knew you loved teaching, what made you go for a degree in Anthropology as opposed to Education?

You said that you were not going to take a job as an administrator, at least not right now, but that you are a leader in the school and take on various positions to help with administrative tasks. How do you fit it all in and still have time for your personal life? Do you wish you could teach part time and do administration part time?

During your year as Washington State Teacher of the Year, what was the most important thing you learned? Besides meeting the President, what was the most rewarding experience that you had?

Response to "Readicide"

First off, this book is so spot on that I had to read some sections twice because I thought that they might have been talking about my high school/school experience. I am comforted by the fact that this crap didn't just happen to me or in my high school, it has happened to many people and I am not alone, but it also scares me so much because I feel like the educational system is so off track right now and I don't see how it can possibly get back on the right track in time to save the next generation of kids who are in school now. 

I did an activity a few weeks ago where I gave my students various statements regarding education and asked them to either agree or disagree and then defend their position (this was to introduce argumentation). I expected students to participate and engage fully, which they did, but what I didn't expect was the insight that I gained from them about their feelings and thoughts on the current educational system. These students actually told me that their teachers are shutting down their creativity and making them produce answers that are in line with what/how the teachers think/feel. For instance, if a student is reading a passage or piece of text and thinks about it in a way that is not conventional (or something that cannot be found on spark notes) their teachers tell them they are wrong and then makes them do it again until they get to the "right" answer. They also said that they think this is the job of a teacher. They expect their teachers to do this so they don't even worry about thinking outside the box or entertaining other ideas that they might have. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!!! No wonder our students don't read for fun or even sometimes at all when it comes to curriculum reading. We are making them hate it! It is absolutely our fault. As teachers, we should be fostering student reading. We should make time for it, to the best of our abilities, in the classroom and assign reading at home that isn't just focused on analyzing and annotating the text but that is for fun. Sure, assigned reading can only be considered "fun" in so many ways, because it is, after all, assigned. If we can teach our students to actually like and enjoy reading, then the homework we assign will not be looked at like homework, but rather as a chance to escape the stress and pressures of their everyday life and have a little bit of leisure time. 

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Literally from the time I went to kindergarten I would come home and play teacher with my stuffed animals and I always knew that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Sure I have thought about other options, but I always come back to teaching. For the most part, people have supported my decision and thought it was great since I was so good at spelling and speaking, and because I got really good grades in school. But as I went through HS, people started asking me tougher questions about why I wanted to be a teacher and what I loved about English. They asked me who my favorite authors were and if I loved to write, they asked me about poetry and the creativity that comes along with English. I always had stick answers to give to these questions but then I realized that I was lying. I didn't have a favorite author, I hated writing, I didn't enjoy poetry, and I didn't think that I was creative at all. I never read for fun, and barely crawled through the dense reading that was assigned in my Honors and AP classes. My friends would encourage me to read the Harry Potter series but I never did because I hated reading and didn't feel like it was a good investment of my time. Then, after my senior year of high school, I experienced my first real free summer. I didn't have a job, I didn't feel any need to prepare for the next grade, and I didn't have any summer reading assignments to worry me. Thats when I really started to enjoy reading. Sure, I started off with the Twilight series, but those were the first books that made me choose between reading and having a life. I only wanted to read. All summer long I kept looking for more books to devour and that summer I probably went through 15 books. That was one of the best summers I have ever had. It was the first time where I didn't have to read something and take notes, I didn't have to worry about a paper that I was going to have to write, I was reading purely for the fun of reading. To this day, I still look to a book to occupy my free time. I would much rather read than watch tv and sometimes I even fall into the trap of reading book after book and forgetting/neglecting other school work. But guess what, I still get good grades and I get to read for fun. Its the best of both worlds. 

Reading has given me so much and I am so sad that students today don't get the feel the way I feel about reading. I totally understand where they are coming from though and its my goal as a teacher to inspire their love of reading before they go off to college. I want them to have the necessary skills and discipline to read in their free time, but I also want them to be able to understand the texts they are reading in school, without feeling like they are being punished or tortured. I want to stop readicide because I almost fell down that hole myself, and it wasn't a good time. 

TPA Lesson Plan

I actually just did my first "real-life" TPA lesson plan for a lesson that I taught this morning. Some of the sections were so easy I thought that I was missing something and other sections were so dense that I didn't even know what to write down. I hate how redundant it seems. State the learning objective, revisit the learning objective, restate the learning objective, have students state the learning target in their own language... Why??? I get the point of having a clear learning objective that is specific and measurable, but honestly, it is a waste of time to be stating and restating it so many times. I also think it is a waste of time and hugely ineffective to have students in high school write "I can" statements. Maybe for elementary students that would be beneficial, but it is an ineffective filler for HS students. 

I think the different prompts in the TPA are useful because they really make you think about what you are doing and how students are going to benefit from the lesson, but I also think that the prompts are somewhat redundant and ask the same question in many different ways. Ask me about differentiated instruction once and I will make sure that I have it, but other than that, it is busy work. 

The other aspect that threw me for a loop was behavior management strategies and parent/community involvement. I am teaching honor students who rarely forget to do their homework, are rarely off task, and who rarely skip class, so I really don't have to worry about behavior management, but it is still on the TPA (and I understand the importance of this for other classes, but do I have to answer it if it doesn't apply??). Parent and community involvement is also one of the categories and I can understand how that is important for larger units but for a single lesson plan it might be irrelevant, and in my case was. For both the behavior management and parent/community involvement sections, I pretty much just made up some answer and called it good. I felt like I did that with a lot of things on my TPA and I'm not sure if that was because I haven't been taught how to do one or if those questions were just pointless. Im still trying to figure that out. 

"I Read it, But I Don't Get it"

In Chapter 2 of the book, Cris talks about how teachers sometimes struggle with teaching kids to read. Teachers will say that students should know how to read already, and if they don't, they are too far gone. Its not my job to teach them how to read because that was supposed to be done in elementary school. I think that a lot of teachers really do think this way. But the problem lies in the fact that reading and literacy is a lifelong goal. It never ends! She gives us 2 ways to help student comprehension and one of them really stuck with me. That is, "become a passionate reader of what you teach." In order words, make darn sure you read books before asking students to read them, and don't ask students to read books that you didn't enjoy or get anything useful from. We need to do our best at that because if we are not passionate, then our students won't be either. Its sad that curriculum demands us to teach certain books, but we can be creative and adapt to make those books for engaging.

In Chapter 4, Cris gives us 6 indicators that help us monitor our understand. The one that always gets me is reciting the text instead of interacting with it. I can read and hear myself saying the words, but at the end of the page, I have no idea what I read. It helps for students to have those indicators so they can realize what the real problem is, instead of just saying that they are bad readers.

Chapter 5 mentions the 3 text connections that my cooperating teacher uses; Text to text, text to self, and text to world. After hearing how she uses these strategies in her class, I have found myself using them purposely in my reading as well. I think to an extent I already used them, but never had a name for them or knew what I was doing. Something that is mentioned later is that the connection had to help the reader, it cannot just be a connection to say that there is a connection. This is so important!! I see my students doing this all the time, but just because a character is pregnant in a book and other people get pregnant in the world doesn't mean that that connection is helpful at all. We need to teach students about this and make sure they are making the right connections. Chapter 5 also lists a few "fix up" strategies. One that I would add is to talk about the text with another person who has read or is also reading the same text. I think this is different than just retelling what you have read about because it involves 2 voices and 2 minds that probably are alike and different in many ways. Having another person to talk with is something I have always tried to find when I don't understand a text.

Chapter 8 talks about inferences and something that really stuck out to me was that when students make inferences, they should be probable. We all have active imaginations and could think of a variety of different endings our outcomes for a story, but we need to make sure they are probable. If they aren't, then we are just using our imagination, but we need to be focused on using our brains. Sure imagination is great, but use your imagination to go write your own story or your own ending. We have to use our brains and make inferences that make sense if they are going to be of any use to us in comprehension.

The resources at the back of the book are super helpful and useful! I really liked the one that asks you to read for 30 minutes and then stop and answer certain questions. They aren't text based questions or questions that have correct or certain answers, but it just makes you think about what you read and maybe gives you an idea if you need to go back and reread or use the "fix up" strategies. I also like that it breaks it down into small chunks. That makes reading seem more manageable.

Teaching For Social Justice - Teaching blob by Vanessa D'Egidio

     I read a blog by a primary school teacher, Vanessa D'Egidio, on Teaching for Social Justice. Her main focus was on teaching social justice to younger children, but many of the ideas presented can be adapted for older students. In her blog, she focused a lot on gender stereotypes, which is appropriate for all students, but the focus of ideas talked about can be changed to be appropriate for the grade level you are working with. For instance, instead of talking about gender stereotyped toys, I would maybe present the idea of the "player" vs. "slut" discrepancy of males vs. females and would be able to garner the attention of high school students easier than if I were talking about toys. This goes for most topics that she presented in her blog.
     Community building is a critical and foundational component of anti-bias teaching and learning." Vanessa talked a lot about how she had to first and foremost create a sense of community in her classroom. She had to make sure students felt comfortable with each other, that they knew proper body postures and gestures such a eye contact and facial expressions, and that they knew how to speak to each other respectfully. I think that this should not be overlooked, even in a high school classroom. We may assume that students can refute each others points with respect, but a lot of students still don't have that skill by the time they are in high school. It is our job to then teach them those skills needed so that they can participate in the classroom as well as the world outside. 
     "Anti-bias work in the classroom is inherently complex, messy, and challenging. Keeping this reality in mind though, it can be done, and more importantly, it can be adapted successfully..." We have to keep in mind that this is not an easy task. We will have to work on it, adjust our practices, and be prepared for failure. We also have to get back up and keep trying if we do fail. Social justice in the classroom is not something that can be taught in a day, week, or unit. We have to work together to create an atmosphere that allows for social justice, and we have to expand social justice to the world outside of our classroom as well: "only by collectively recognizing and actively working against bias will social justice take root in our communities."

http://feministteacher.com/2012/08/28/guest-blogvanessa-degidio-on-teaching-for-social-justice-in-primary-school-classrooms/

Critical Pedagogy in Popular Culture

"An oppressive rendering of a culturally diverse text is still oppressive." (pg. 186)
-->> So true! We are told that we need to be culturally inclusive in the classroom, and a lot of teachers fall into the trap of then choosing literature that features a person of color as the main character and calling it good. That is not culturally inclusive though! We need to think outside the box. We can still use "classic" literature and see the struggles of the non-dominant and be culturally inclusive. Not to say that that will cover our bases, but classic literature is still a very important aspect of the English classroom and it still needs to be taught to our students. The fun part is that we can dive into it and talk about endless possibilities. We can encourage our students to think deeper and at the same time be critical and not make connections where they may not exist.

"...we are encouraging the creation of meaningful links between the worlds of the students and the worlds of canonical texts." (pg. 195)
-->> I think this one of our main jobs and goals of being a teacher. If we can incorporate both popular culture and canonical texts into our classrooms and curricula, our students will be engaged and will be willing to participate in classroom activities. We can help them make connections by providing the materials for them or we can encourage them to make their own connections by asking them to bring in popular culture ideas or texts and explore and defend the connections to canonical texts. Because the world is always changing and popular culture is almost never the same from one month to the next, we need to be sure to stay on top of things. We need to know how to use the current technologies, social media outlets, and who's dating who in the world of celebrity gossip. These things are important to our students and so they should be important to us as well. We will become disconnected from our students if we cannot talk with them about their interests.

Critical Pedagogy

The idea of having different objectives to answer the question “why am I learning this” or “why is this being taught” is awesome. I like that they separated macro from micro (macro being larger idea and connections, micro being the smaller details like names, dates, etc.). I think by doing this, it make it easier to write the objectives in the first place, but also gives an explanation to students as they why they are learning what they are learning, and why it is important. Have a reason is very important. 

I think that macro and micro objectives are both equally important in their own ways. We have to know dates, names, events, etc to have a base to work from. If we don’t know where something happened or when it happened, we won’t be able to explain why it happened. On the other side, we also have to be able to think deeper and use our cognitive skills to come to conclusions as to why something happened, how it happened, what were the implications, etc. You cannot have macro without micro, and vise versa. 

"The ability for individuals to express their culture..."
This is very true, and very sad at the same time. Anyone should be able to express their culture, regardless of how much power they have. We need not worry about who is ranked higher than who, but should allow all cultures to be recognized and celebrated. I don’t honestly think that will ever happen in my lifetime, but it is worth trying so that generations after me might be able to witness it. I think we are already making strides and leaps, but in the grand scheme of things, we have only started. We have so much more work to do. 

"Hegemony refers to the moral and intellectual leadership of a dominant class..." 

This may be true, but what about when the subordinate class wants more dominance? Is it not even a question? Does the dominant need not worry because they know that the subordinate cannot gain dominance because of what the hegemony has done already?

Pedagogy of the Oppressed Reading Response

“A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.”

I haven’t read anything truer than this in a long time. Not only is education suffering from narration sickness, but so are students and teachers. I have fallen into the trap of acting as the narrating Subject and filling my fellow listeners with junk. We all need to remember this and learn from it. 

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

This reminds me of one of the first articles we read about students being “co-creators of knowledge”. I LOVE this idea and think that it really works well. Students build off of each other, there is no issue of “non-engagement”, and everyone gets to give their input. Everyone is learning, even the teacher.

“Those who use the banking approach, knowingly or unknowingly (for there are innumerable well-intentioned bank-clerk teachers who do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize)….”

This happens all the time. I think its sad that teachers who maybe were once great, have fallen to this “sin” of education. This whole idea of having tenure really pisses me off because sure they may have been teaching for many years, but does that make them great teachers? Does that make them worthy of teaching students who are to become the future? I think that if a teacher works on improving themselves as teachers, and that there are requirements of every teacher, nobody will fall into this role and everything will continue to progress. The problem is that too many teachers think that as soon as they are a teacher, they are no longer a student, which is so far from the truth. Great teachers are the one who are continually expanding their minds and theories and practices. Great teachers attend and participate in conferences and classes, they continue their own education and in turn, produce greater students. 

“The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant majority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe. The theory and practice of banking education serve this end quite efficiently. Verbalistic lessons, reading requirements, (3) the methods for evaluating "knowledge," the distance between the teacher and the taught, the criteria for promotion: everything in this ready-to-wear approach serves to obviate thinking.”

I see this happen everyday, not just in education. It reminds me of getting the flu shot or vaccines or antibiotics. We often just do what we’re told as opposed to thinking for ourselves. Not to say that other people who are telling us what to do are wrong, they are often right, but we need to take a step back and think before we act. We need to act like humans and not like machines. 

A Response-based Approach to the Literary Experience

“However, research indicates that literature is usually taught and tested in a nonliterary
manner, as if there is one right answer arrived at through point-of-reference reading or writing.
Arthur Applebee's Literature Center study of English classes across the United States (1993)
indicates that literature is often taught as if there is a point or predetermined interpretation the
reader must build toward, or as a literal reworking of the plot line from start to finish -- with no
room for the students' explorations to be sanctioned or to take form.” (pg. 4)
— — > This is the definition of my schooling experience. When reading literature of any kind there was always a “right answer” that had to be reached. I can remember peer editing papers in English class and essentially reading the same paper over and over again, because the ideas and “answers” were all the same. How is it that the same conclusion could be reached by 25 different people? We have all had different life experiences, so shouldn’t our conclusions be somewhat different? Maybe, but because of how the class was structured and taught, we all somehow came to the exact same conclusion, and if by chance someone came up with something different, there was always more proof and evidence to support the “mass” conclusion, thus silencing any other ideas or thoughts. This is so sad to me too! Our teachers should have been encouraging us to think outside the box instead of just allowing us to give them stock answers that could be found on SparkNotes or CliffNotes.  

“They felt lesson plans required them to become text-based, determining the scope and
sequence of activities and ideas within a particular lesson or unit in advance. Thus, when their
students responded in ways they didn't expect, the teachers felt torn -- as if departing from the
plan involved digressing rather than engaging in good instruction.” (pg 5)
— — > True, I don’t have a lot of experience with planning lessons and using lesson plans to teach a class, but this is honestly what freaks me out most about using a lesson plan. I hate the feeling that I have to stick to a plan when teaching and feel like I would be more comfortable just using an outline and being able to change and adapt as the class’ thinking moves. I get the point of a lesson plan, to have a map as a guideline for your teaching - what you teach, when you teach it, how you teach it, and I also appreciate taking the time to look at everything in detail and decide what will work best for your class and so on and so forth, but it seems a little futile if we are just going to make an “on the cuff” decision to change based on our students’ thinking. Why the importance of such a detailed lesson plan??

“7. Remember that questioning, probing, and leaving room for future possible
interpretations is at the heart of critical thinking in literature. Teachers as well as
students need to be open to possible meanings; in literary experiences there are
no preconceived ends or final inviolable interpretations.” (pg. 7)
— — > I think this, above all, is what we need to focus on and remember. Sure there are times when a “right answer” is okay and even necessary, but let us not forget the importance of thinking outside the box, being open the new ideas, and possibly changing our thinking completely. 

After reading this article, it makes the last article we read on using conversation in the classroom all that more important. We have to create an environment where students feel safe, comfortable, and at ease to explore new ideas and possibilities, to be able to share with one another what they think and to listen just the same to their peers. We as teachers need to facilitate this, but not get in the way as “information givers”. 

Common Core State Standards for ELA Instruction

First of all, let me just say how happy I am that we finally have a nationwide standard for what we teach in schools and what students need to know by the time they graduate. I think it is a huge step forward for us as a nation and will really be beneficial to students who move to other places for schooling, whether it be elementary, secondary, or post secondary education. The fact that we used to have only state requirements is completely absurd to me. How can we be strong as a country if we have 50 states each deciding what they want their students to know. That makes it so that we cannot be flexible or adaptive. Having a standard that reaches throughout the country is huge to me. Everyone is equally prepared to enter college and the working field, and we have a pretty good idea as to how prepared we are in relation to other nations. We can finally be competitive in the world market. Now the only thing is, how do we get there? This idea that the passing rate for the Common Core test is projected to be at less than 40% is really nuts. We all know that when it comes down to it, school administrators aren’t actually going to hold back 60% of their seniors from graduation. No, the standards will then be lowered or not count for graduation until we can catch up and we can get our students actually prepared for the test. This is not going to be an easy process, but the same thing happened with the WASL and the HSPE, we can and will get through it and move on. 

The CCSS, having looked at them a few times, seem very complex and require a lot of depth and intellectual work. But isn’t that what we need our students to be prepared for? College is not high school, you can’t just float on through until graduation time. You actually have to out in the time, thought, and effort and get the work done. You have to think for yourself and struggle a bit. The CCSS will hopefully prepare students to do those necessary things on their own. Sure we won’t get it right the first time around, or the second or third, but eventually we will be teaching to higher standards that are actually being met, and our students will be brighter than ever before. 

Conversation in the Classroom

Conversation, dialogue, discussion… whatever you want to call it (I personally have no preference) is one of the most important aspects of a classroom, if not the most important. Over the years, I have without a doubt, learned more from having conversations within the classroom than reading from a textbook or hearing a lecture from a professor. The article describes conversation/dialogue/discussion as incorporating “reciprocity and movement, exchange and inquiry, cooperation and collaboration, formality and informality” and that it is “unrehearsed intellectual adventure”. As students and future teachers, isn’t that our main goal for our students and ourselves? We strive to teach them about cooperation and collaboration, and our goal is for them to have many intellectual adventures through exchange and inquiry. Conversation within the classroom provides all of that and more. So why don’t more teachers employ it? True, not all classrooms have a feeling of safety and community, which is absolutely necessary for open communication and dialogue, but shouldn’t every classroom be working toward that? And how do you work toward that without having some sort of conversation daily? Answer: you don’t. And without it students will not automatically be willing participants, which is necessary for conversation to work well. “Conversing critically implies an openness to rethinking cherished assumptions… and requires people to be flexible enough to adjust their views in the light of persuasive, well supported arguments and confident enough to retain their original opinions when rebuttals fall short.” I personally think that above all, this is the highest goal to reach for. Graduating students who have the ability to research thoroughly, investigate many sides of the same issue, and then to stand firmly for what they believe to be true is what we need in order for the future to be successful. And as teachers, it is our job to facilitate this behavior and model it for our students so that they have an example to learn from. We cannot expect our students to demonstrate this sort of behavior and mature thinking without exhibiting it ourselves. When our students move on into the real world, these are necessary traits to have to work well with others, to be a contributing member of the community, and to show the future generations how to get along with others while still being your own person. 

Conversation, as well as teaching students to be valued members of society, really allows them to be in control of their own learning. If they are present and participatory in these classroom discussions, they have an uncapped potential for learning and discovering new things. They will see new perspectives, new ways of thinking, deeper understanding of old and new issues. They will be able to discover who they are as individuals and how they can work and contribute in their own communities. They learn empathy and compassion, as well as determination and how to stand up for what they believe in. Conversation alone will not, however, teach students all of the necessary ideas, attitudes, and knowledge that they will need to understand. Classroom conversation needs to be used along with other teaching methods for it to be successful and teachers need to give it a chance to work, and not give up the first time something goes wrong. 

Learning Letter/Plan of Action

Let me start off by saying that this class was definitely not what I thought it was going to be. I imagined that we would be reading very low level children’s books — picture books really — about children from different parts of the world. We did read one “picture book", Kampung Boy, which was a graphic novel and in my opinion was actually a great way to start the class. It was light, easy to get through, quick, and still had merit. It showed a different kind of culture through the eyes of a young boy but at the same time was still relatable. I really enjoyed the pictures in this book and I think by using pictures, we were able to relate more to something that we are so far from. I really hadn’t looked into Malaysian culture before reading this book so most aspects, if not all, were completely new to me. To go along with this unit, we did the Museum Display project and to be honest, I was not looking forward to it. I tend to not think outside of the box so I was a little lost when I began, but after looking through my house I found quite a few things that I could use. The Museum Display actually ended up being my most favorite project. I really enjoyed taking a look into my own culture and showing it to others. It was also very eye-opening and interesting to look at everyone else’s Museum Displays and see how their culture was different and similar to my own.

The next book we read was Sold. Before beginning this book, I was really nervous for what I was about to read. I  guessed that it would be graphic and disturbing, but I didn’t expect to read what I did. I don’t think I was quite prepared for what I learned and to be honest, it almost doesn’t seem real. After reading this book though I realized that I was really interested in it and immediately searched Neflix and the Kindle app for anything that I could get my hands on regarding sex trafficking. I watched a movie called Abduction of Eden and read a book called Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave. These books were quite similar to Sold but different in many ways too. I definitely appreciated the book more thought because it went deeper into Lakshmi’s everyday life in the sex trafficking industry and showed her thoughts and struggles. The movie and other book did that too, but I think that Sold was a little more appropriate for students. Sold was definitely my favorite book that we read as a class and its also a book that I would consider teaching to students in high school because of how raw and real it was.

After Sold, we read Crossing the Wire. This book was a little slow at first and was not my favorite to read but it was on the top of my list for topics to think about. Part of the reason for that is because it hit so close to home. Being that he was crossing the U.S. - Mexican border and that fact that he ended up in Washington State made me feel like I had some part in this. I had a pretty conservative view about illegal immigrants before reading this book and one thing that I really appreciated about reading this book was how much my views changed. After reading, thinking about the text, and hearing our guest speaker, I felt that I had been completely blinded by the media and my own judgements. I always try to think of things from the human level, and I thought that I had been before reading this book, but hearing about how he had to face so many different obstacles and set backs just to make a better life for himself really affected me. I had absolutely no idea that in order to get legal papers to be in the U.S. after you had made it here illegally you had to go back to Mexico to finish the process. No wonder so many people continue to live here illegally! I would too! I think we need to really think about this issue as a country and come up with some better practices because what we are doing is obviously not working.

Along with this book we did research projects on other border conflicts around the world. My topic was kind of boring because the two countries, Serbia and Croatia, were in a stalemate and it looked like that would continue for a long time. Although I found my specific topic to be a little dull, I really enjoyed listening to the other groups present because almost every issue they presented on was something that I had not heard a lot about. It was like getting a short but detailed news program on border issues and I really felt like I learned a lot.

The next book we read was Revolution is not a Dinner Party. I had studied the Chinese Cultural Revolution a little bit in an East Asian history class that I took at Eastern, but other than that I had never heard of it. The book was good and hearing from our guest speaker was really interesting, but what hit me more was the fact that I had never even heard about this until I was in college. Why aren’t we learning about this in middle and high school?? China is obviously a country that we are in competition with and it seems crazy to me that we don’t take any time to learn about them. We are so focused on our own history that we forget there are other things out there that deserve attention. Although this book was not my favorite, it really made me realize that I needed to open my eyes to the rest of the world. Not just Western Europe and North America, but places that we don’t get to learn about in public school.

A Long Way Gone was just a whole new set of emotions. This book was particularly hard to get through and I had to just keep chugging along and then deal with all of the emotions after I had finished. One of my good friends and coworkers joined the Peace Corps this year and is leaving for Sierra Leone in June. He got his placement as I was reading this book and so we both did research on the civil war and all of the issues surrounding it. He found out that all of the soldiers and officers of the rebel army, except for 2, were released. 2 of the main leaders (I can’t remember the names) were charged with war crimes and everyone else was just sent away. He learned that he would probably be living next to some of these soldiers and that a lot of them moved back to their villages where they had killed and raped many of their friends and neighbors. One of the Peace Corp volunteers who had already been in Sierra Leone told a story about how one of the soldiers raped his own niece and then came back to their village to live after the war. They literally lived next door to each other and had to think about it every single day. It makes me feel so happy that Ishmael got to America, but it also made me think hard about all the people who didn’t and what they were still dealing with today.

If I can say anything about this class and what I got from it, I would say that I really started to open my eyes and think hard about things that so often I try to just push to the back of my mind. Sometimes its really hard to think about the difficult stuff, but it is absolutely necessary. We can’t just continue living in a bubble, even though it is really easy to do in the United States. Reading all of these books has really made me realize that even though I am a citizen of the United States, I am also a citizen of the world and I need to start taking advantage of that. Reading all of these books has re ignited my desire to travel and see the world. I read a poem recently by Naomi Shihab Nye called Kindness and one of the lines is “Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel… Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” This kind of made me realize that the reason I don’t know much of anything that is going on around the world is because I haven’t been anywhere. I haven’t seen these issues so it is too easy for me to just pretend they don’t exist. Reading about this issues is definitely a good start, but until I see what is really happening, I don’t think I will fully understand.

For my “Plan of Action” I have decided to start small and local. There is a group in Spokane called the Coalition to Abolish Human Trafficking in the Inland Northwest. They have meetings once a month to educate people about this issue and to help spread the word and stop human slavery. This is a partnership with World Relief Spokane and their mission is “To abolish slavery by collaborating with local organizations and individuals, educating our community, addressing the demand, and providing services to victims of human trafficking.” I have decided to join this organization, go to meetings as often as I can, and do my part to help stop human trafficking.

Graffiti Wall

War and Peace Graffiti Wall Project - Artist Statement

My “graffiti wall” has two parts; the first part depicts a young boy playing in his yard with toy soldiers. The boy is smiling, sitting under the shade of the tree, and is in view of his home. Many of us can relate to this boy. We played outside as children, our parents always reminding us  to stay close so that they could keep an eye on us. He has no cares in the world and is in a peaceful place. He is in the now; not thinking about the past or the future, but enjoying himself as he plays by himself. 

The next part depicts a young, faceless soldier, covered in blood and with a gun in his hand. He is shooting and killing people, but the only thing we see of his victims is their bloodshed. The young soldier is faceless because, to the army that he is in, he is just another killing machine. He is not a person with feelings and humanity - he is just another pawn who can pull a trigger. His victims are not seen because, to him and to the army, they are unseen and unnamed. They are not human beings to the army, rather they are just bodies who are in the way. Behind the soldier there are buildings and a tanker. The buildings are vacant as one has been blown up. The windows are shattered and the buildings are probably being used as hideouts for the enemy. The tanker is seen in the background with its artillery aimed and ready. 

The first picture has only a small amount of green, the toy soldiers, and the rest is shades of grey. The next picture is also mostly shades of grey, but with a considerable amount of red depicting the bloodshed of the many victims. This is meant to be a stark contrast showing what the boy is seeing, feeling, and doing. In the first picture he is outside of his family home, but in the second picture his family is nowhere to be seen. What happened to them? Does he still think about them and where they are now? Does he care? Since he is obviously not with his family, how far away is he? Is he on the other side of town? Other side of the country? How far away is he, both physically and mentally? If he returned home, how would that affect him?

When people look at these drawings I want them to consider what happened to this boy from the time he was an innocent child playing with toy soldiers to when he was turned into a faceless killing machine who had the blood of many on his hands. No family encourages young boys to become killers, but we do allow them to play with toy soldiers and enact made up battle scenes. We value our children and, especially with boys, teach them to grow up and be tough and strong and fearless. We don’t teach them to be brutal and unsympathetic, though. What happened to this boy that made him like that? What did he tell himself to justify murder? How many emotions did he have to put away in order for him to be able to kill countless people? How is his life different now than it was when he was a kid? Will he ever stop? Will he ever change?

These pictures tell a story. A story of a young innocent boy who ends up as a brutal killer in an army. But I hope these pictures also make people think. What happened from the time he was a small boy playing with toy soldiers outside of his house, to when he was in the field, as a soldier, killing people?

Sierra Leone Civil War

Sierra Leone Civil War

After doing some research, it appears that the main cause of this civil war was greed and corruption, and not from civilians but from the government and high power officials.  Sierra Leone gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1961, and since then has seen government officials allow more corruption and  greed than is permissible and the entire government has dissolved. Sir Milton Margai, his brother and successor Albert Margai, Siaka Stevens, and finally Joseph Momoh all had a hand in the destruction of Sierra Leone. From the undermining of parliament and bribery of judges, to electoral violence and the collapse of the education system, Sierra Leone went from bad to worse. The other main cause of the civil war was the diamond mining and financial corruption. Sierra Leone is rich with diamonds, and should have been able to use those resources to provide financial stability for the country. “The presence of diamonds in Sierra Leone invited and led to the civil war in several ways. First, the highly unequal benefits resulting from diamond mining made ordinary Sierra Leoneans frustrated. Under the Stevens government, revenues from the National Diamond Mining Corporation (known as DIMINCO) – a joint government/DeBeers venture – were used for the personal enrichment of Stevens and of members of the government and business elite who were close to him. When DeBeers pulled out of the venture in 1984, the government lost direct control of the diamond mining areas. By the late 1980s, almost all of Sierra Leone's diamonds were being smuggled and traded illicitly, with revenues going directly into the hands of private investors. Momoh made some efforts to reduce smuggling and corruption in the diamond mining sector, but he lacked the political clout to enforce the law. Even after the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) took power in 1992, ostensibly with the goal of reducing corruption and returning revenues to the state, high-ranking members of the government sold diamonds for their personal gain and lived extravagantly off the proceeds.” (Wikipedia) 

The citizens of Sierra Leone didn’t have a government to rely on, so the rebel cause RUF (Revolutionary United Front Rebels) was an appealing option for many people. “The RUF took advantage of the refugees, who were abandoned, starving, and in dire need of medical attention, by promising food, shelter, medical care, and looting and mining profits in return for their support. When this method of recruitment failed, as it often did for the RUF, youths were often coerced at the barrel of a gun to join the ranks of the RUF. After being forced to join, many child soldiers learned that the complete lack of law – as a result of the civil war – provided a unique opportunity for self-empowerment through violence and thus continued to support the rebel cause.” 

It makes sense why these refugees and citizens joined the RUF; they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they had a government that was destroying the country. There wasn’t enough food rations or resources to survive on and the education system had collapsed. On the other hand, the RUF was offering medical attention, food, and shelter; but at a price. These citizens didn’t want to use violence to get what they needed. But they had to choose between violence or starving. No option is easy but it makes sense why a lot of them chose to join the RUF. 

To me it just seems crazy that the civil war lasted as long as it did. The UN knew what was going on, the UK knew what was going on, the world powers knew what was going on, but still this civil war lasted over 10 years and left over 50,000 people dead. 

Revolution is not a Dinner Party

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

No, it is certainly not. This book really has opened my eyes about something that I had never known before. I knew who Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) was before reading this book and I knew that he was the leader of the Cultural Revolution, but I really had no idea what went on during and after the revolution. Asian history to me is really interesting, probably because we don’t really learn much about it in public school. I took an East Asian history class at Eastern that was very interesting, but the time span was just so immense that we couldn’t really focus on many details because we had to learn about so many different things. I wish we could have gone in depth more, but I found what I learned to be very interesting. It makes me wonder why we don’t learn more about Asian history in school. 

Ling was 3 years old when the revolution started, and was really just growing up as a young girl, learning who she was, who her family was, what she stood for, all while this revolution was going on around her. It seemed at first like the Revolution would never truly affect her. Her parents both had jobs, provided for her, did their best to protect her. Yes she saw what was going on around her, but I think as a young girl, she had an idea of the fantasy life she hoped to continue living, and unfortunately was not able to go on as she was used to. 

Its makes me sad to think about the relationship between her and her mother. I have a very good relationship with both of my parents. My dad was a lot like Ling’s. He always did my homework with me, took me on special Daddy-Daughter dates, bonded with me, loved me unconditionally. My mother, although very different from my dad, also loved me whole-heartedly. They both still do. My mom was always the one I talked to about my various adolescent problems, from boyfriends, to puberty, to which dress I was going to wear for prom. My dad was just always there to support me and tell me how proud he was of me. It saddens me to see the relationship between Ling and her mother because her mother, I am sure, loved her very much. She protected her and wanted her to grow up right. She wanted to raise her to be a good woman, respectful and independent. I wish Ling could have felt that, but instead she always felt disapproval from her mother. I think it was just hard for her mother to show love in the way that Ling needed it.

How hard the changes must have been for Ling. I cannot imagine my father being taken away from me, shunned by my peers, having my home invaded, having my big brother turn against us and join an army who was doing destructive things. I can imagine that Ling often felt helpless and at odds as to what she could do to help save her family and her self. Thats a lot of weight to carry and a very heavy burden for such a young girl. I don’t know if I would have been as strong as Ling, although I hope that I could stay out of much trouble and do my best to help my family. 

Chinese Cultural Revolution

Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Chinese Cultural Revolution, also called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement led by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, in 1966. Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in order to re-establish his authority over the Chinese government because he believed that the Communist leaders were taking China in the wrong direction. He felt that they were moving too far in a revisionist direction and he called the youth of China to purge the “impure” elements of Chinese society. 

Previously, with the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the economic crisis that followed, Mao’s position in government had weakened. He gathered a group of radicals, his wife Jiang Qing, and defense minister Lin Biao, to help him attack current party leadership and get his own power and authority back. He shut down the nation’s schools and mobilized the youth to attack the leadership for their embrace of bourgeois values and lack of revolutionary spirit. The movement escalated quickly and the youth started forming paramilitary groups called the Red Guards. The Red Guards attacked and harassed the members of China’s elderly and intellectual population. A personality cult quickly sprang up around Mao, similar to that which existed for Josef Stalin, with different factions of the movement claiming the true interpretation of Maoist thought.

WIth the death of Lin, Mao’s official successor, in 1971, the cultural revolution lost a lot of movement. The Red Guard was moved to rural areas and Lin’s brutal end led many Chinese citizens to feel disillusioned over the course of Mao’s high-minded “revolution,” which seemed to have dissolved in favor of ordinary power struggles. Mao died in 1976, after years of Chinses politics teetering between the two sides of Mao and the Gang of Four. When Mao died, Deng Xiaoping regained power and maintained control over the government for the next 20 years. 

“Some 1.5 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution, and millions of others suffered imprisonment, seizure of property, torture or general humiliation. The Cultural Revolution’s short-term effects may have been felt mainly in China’s cities, but its long-term effects would impact the entire country for decades to come. Mao’s large-scale attack on the party and system he had created would eventually produce a result opposite to what he intended, leading many Chinese to lose faith in their government altogether.” - history.com

What is really interesting to me, more than the push for communist values and ideological purity, was who was really apart of this revolution. China’s youth was really the man power behind the movement and without them this would have gone nowhere. Its interesting because a child can be so easily persuaded and coerced, and even though they may not have known what they were doing, they would later be blamed and identified as part of the Red Guard of China that caused so much destruction and crisis within the nation. 

US Immigration

US Immigration Policy

There are about 11.7 Million immigrants living in the United States illegally. Fewer than one-third (29%) of immigrants in the United States are from Mexico. Roughly 28% are from Asia, 24% from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean other than Mexico, 12% from Europe, and 4% from Africa.

Moreover, contrary to some popular misconceptions, most Latinos in the United States (63%) are native-born—not immigrants. And 29% of foreign-born Latinos are naturalized U.S. citizens.

These statistics are interesting to me because when I hear of immigrants, I automatically think of Mexicans crossing the border illegally. True, this may be pretty judgmental and critical, but I think a lot of it has to do with the media’s portrayal of the situation and all of the laws and political upheaval that is concerned with Mexicans crossing the border and living in the United States undocumented. We only hear the bad stories about how these “illegals” are taking American jobs, not paying taxes, living off of our land for free, etc. What we don’t hear is that, in reality, they don’t use up our public services, they pay taxes, and they do a lot of the tough labor work that most Americans are unwilling to do themselves. Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for most public benefits, and even legal immigrants are limited in what they can receive. Most legal immigrants cannot receive federal Medicaid, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or food stamps during their first five years or longer in the United States—regardless of how long they have worked or how much they have paid in taxes. Like the rest of us, unauthorized immigrants pay taxes on their property and are subject to sales taxes on what they buy. More than half of them have taxes taken out of their paychecks. Households headed by unauthorized immigrants paid $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010, according to estimates prepared by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Moreover, ITEP estimates that, if provided the opportunity to earn legal status, formerly undocumented immigrants would pay a total of $12.7 billion in state and local taxes each year. Immigrants do not compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to have different levels of education and work in different occupations. As a result, immigrants usually “complement” the native-born workforce. That increases the productivity, and therefore the wages, of natives. Immigrants are also more likely to start businesses than the native-born. According to a 2011 report from the Kauffman Foundation, “immigrants were more than twice as likely to start businesses each month than were the native-born in 2010.” Immigrant-owned businesses employ millions of people across the U.S.

What makes me feel conflicted is that, on one hand, I think we need to stop worrying so much about the fact that these immigrants are here illegally, and start coming up with ways to make getting them documented easier so that they can become legal residents who feel welcomed into our country and can give back. On the other hand, it is illegal for aliens to reside in our country undocumented and I don’t believe that its ok to just let it happen. Maybe if we worked more on getting them documents before they crossed the border than we wouldn’t be having these issues.

Crossing the Wire

“Crossing the Wire” was an interesting read. In America, we hear “our” side of the story: illegal immigrants, laborers, dangerous crossing of the border, criminals. Never the other side of the story. The hard part is that these are also human beings who are desperate to make a better life for themselves and their families. The idea of a young boy leaving his family to cross the border and provide for them financially is just unthinkable, and yet instead of helping and providing refuge, we prosecute, criminalize, and degrade. Yes its illegal, but maybe if we made it easier to get documented then it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I am sure that it is costing us more money to patrol the borders and send people back across the border than it is to get these immigrants into the country and help them get the necessary documents and start a life for themselves. 

This book hit home, literally, as the boys ended up in Washington State. Its almost unimaginable that they travelled all the way from Mexico to Washington, and none of it was a for sure thing, they just went on their instincts and heart. Its interesting that we see many of these people as orchard workers and laborers, but it doesn’t really cross my mind as to whether or not they are here legally or illegally. I just think of them as people who work hard in the orchards to make some money. Its probably very true what was said in the book too, that we need them to work the orchards because we wouldn’t be willing to do the hard work for those wages. So why do we make things so hard?

This young boy had to fight his own country, the United States government border patrol, gangs from both sides, vigilantes, and the “coyotes” that were taking them across the difficult terrain. He braved these people, got sent back, and still succeeded. It breaks my heart that Victor’s best friend ended up going back, after all he had gone through, but it really makes the point that family is everything. These boys left on this dangerous journey for their families. Victor had no choice but to stay in America and work day in and day out to send money home to his family, Rico went home because he couldn’t put his family through the turmoil of his being away. Either situation is a hard decision to make, but nonetheless, had to be made. It also shows the strength of character and heart of the two boys, especially Victor, who was not one to take adventures or break the law. He did what he had to do to survive and make it through. 

I cannot even being to imagine what I would do in his situation. I don’t think I would have the guts to take the journey, but I would like to think that I would do all that I could to help my family. 

Sold

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Human Trafficking in Nepal and India

For my research on Nepal and India and the human trafficking problem, I mostly looked at statistics and facts. First, I looked up the legal definition of human trafficking as defined by the UN. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation."

Then I looked up facts and statistics regarding the number of trafficked humans. According to a conservative estimate by the International Labor Organization, around 2.4 million people—overwhelmingly women and girls—are currently in forced labor as a result of trafficking, creating a 32 billion USD industry worldwide. Around 1.2 million victims of trafficking are minors: around 43% are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation while 32% are for involuntary servitude, and 25% for a mixture of both .

Next, because of our focus on Nepal and India, I decided to narrow my search and learn about . why/how they got into the slave trade and what roles they played within the industry. Nepali victims are trafficked within Nepal, to India, the Middle East, and other areas such as Malaysia and forced to become prostitutes, domestic servants, beggars, factory workers, mine workers, circus performers, child soldiers, and others. Sex trafficking is particularly rampant within Nepal and to India, with as many as 5,000-10,000 women and girls trafficked to India alone each year.

Nepali girls are especially desirable as prostitutes in India because they are considered more attractive due to their lighter skin color, and because Nepali virgins are believed to be able to cure AIDS. Are you kidding me?!? Some of this stuff is ludicrous! 

Most victims were lured with promises of better jobs in areas such as India, Dubai, or Saudi Arabia; other tactics include false marriages and proposals, force, and approaching indebted families to sell their daughters to pay their debts, sometimes under the guise of a dowry for a marriage. The most vulnerable are women and girls who are illiterate or uneducated, involved in marginalized livelihoods, deserted by their husbands or families, victims of abuse and violence, and those from disadvantaged communities and extremely poor families. In the places of enslavement, victims are often imprisoned, followed with guards, routinely sexually and physically abused across different types of trafficking. Victims receive little or no pay for their work, work in dangerous conditions for extremely long periods of time, and are threatened physically and psychologically. Victims are often held in debt bondage by their captors, which means they are forced to pay off a debt for their families or transportation fee.

Despite efforts at legislating against trafficking, lack of enforcement remains one of the highest hurdles to combatting trafficking in Nepal. First, governments and society tend to judge the woman guilty of prostitution and minimize the trafficker's role in this crime. Secondly, government police officials are often corrupt; pimps maintain close relations with police and politicians in connection with their trafficking activities. Thirdly, few survivors press charges, reflecting that survivors have little trust towards law enforcement mechanisms or mechanisms are ineffective to bring the survivors to report.

Human trafficking in India, although illegal, is a huge problem. An estimated 20-65 million Indians are affected by human trafficking, with women and girls being targeted the most.  

India’s efforts to protect victims of trafficking varies from state to state, but remains inadequate in many places.Victims of bonded labor are entitled to INR 10,000 ($185) from the central government for rehabilitation, but this program is unevenly executed across the country. Government authorities do not proactively identify and rescue bonded laborers, so few victims receive this assistance. Although children trafficked for forced labor may be housed in government shelters and are entitled to INR 20,000 ($370), the quality of many of these homes remains poor and the disbursement of rehabilitation funds is sporadic.

This idea that one human being can take such advantage of another human being is so incredibly sad to me. These girls are being infected with numerous STDs and HIV/AIDS and literally have no choice or say in the matter. There bodies are used in whatever way their captors choose and most often face severe PTSD and emotional/psychological/physical ramifications. Some sex slaves who escape end up back in the industry because they were caught again or because they simply cannot make it in the world. This truly breaks my heart makes me wonder what would happen if this were a widespread problem in America. I know that we do actually have a significant problem in the United States but I feel like there is more hope than for those trafficked in Napal, India, and the Middle East because of our government and resources. 

Museum Display Project - Artifact Narration

Artifact: Grandma Willie’s Recipe Box

My grandmother, Wilhelmia Germann Burke, immigrated to America from Germany as a young child. Her mother instilled in her the value of a home cooked meal and a well organized/run household. My grandma, as I remember her, could always be found in the kitchen. She made everything from scratch; from huge cinnamon rolls with creamy frosting, to Swedish pancakes, to Chicken Cacciatore, to Turkey Pie. There was nothing that my grandma couldn’t make and nothing that she made that wasn’t absolutely delicious. She was a baker at heart and didn’t stop until she was 95 years old, about a year before her death. Here is her famous recipe box that my mom was lucky enough to get when she died. It holds every recipe that she ever kept, with many more that she didn’t bother to write down because they were already ingrained in her memory. Whenever a family member needs an old recipe, they know who to call! This box reminds me of where my family comes from and the traditions that we hold so dear to our hearts.



Artifact: 2013 Photo of the Burke Family Reunion/Willie’s Last Birthday

This is my extended family from my mother’s side. A huge Catholic family raised by my God fearing grandmother, Wilhelmina Burke, and my strict military Grandfather, Robert Burke (deceased). This side of my family is where my brutal honesty, sarcastic tendencies, nosiness, and loud mouth comes from. This artifact is representative of the importance of family and how big of a role they can play in your life. This side of my family, dare I say it, is a little on the judgmental side, and will see to it that you make an honest living and have a career that is worthy of their approval. If not, you can expect a lot of disapproving glares and hushed talk about how you had so much potential. Fear not, if you are on their good side, you will be treated well and will reap the benefits of having made the right life choices. Whenever there is a family gathering, you can expect at least 90% of the entire clan to show up (if not more) and a huge fight, argument, or otherwise tense situation to rear its nasty head. The Burke family, as they say, puts the FUN in dysfunctional!



Artifact: Photo from summer of 1993, Annual Family Camping Trip

This photo was taken in the summer of 1993 on one of my family’s many annual camping trips. It didn’t matter that I was barely 1 year old or that my dad had to climb a mountain with me on his back because I couldn’t yet scale rock cliffs, summer camping trips always happened, and still do to this very day. These camping trips made me appreciate nature, living in a simpler way, being outside, and spending quality time with my family. I learned to pitch a tent, cook on an open fire, protect myself from various wildlife creatures that may happen upon our campsite, and learn to be away from technology and still survive just fine. Even now, my idea of the perfect vacation is finding a small beach on a lake, getting away from cell phones and people, and sleeping under the stars.



Artifact: Aerial Photo of the Berger Family Farm in CutBank, Montana

This photo is of my ancestor’s homestead in CutBank, Montana. My Great Great Grandmother and Grandfather emigrated from Norway to America. They ended up in Colorado and eventually decided to make the move to Montana to start a farm of their own. They put their small house (yellow house pictured near the bottom center) onto railroad ties and hooked it up to a few horses and took the journey from Colorado to Montana. They were very poor and knew they would not have the funds to build themselves a new house after making the journey, so they brought their house with them. What started out as just a few acres of land and a pump house(outside shower and bathroom) turned out to be a thriving wheat and barley farm with numerous silos, granaries, and now, giant windmills. As a child, I spent many summers on the farm and learned many important lessons. I learned how to drive as soon as my feet could reach the petals, I learned how to take whatever was in the cupboard and make a hot meal, I learned the importance of working the land, and working hard to put in a long days work. The Berger/Harris side of my family were devout Lutherans from whom I learned that going to church and having a relationship with God were two completely different things. I think this is where my faith began, as my grandmother was the one to make sure that whenever I was with her, we never missed church on Sundays or the chance to have good fellowship with the community.



Artifact: Plasma Cut Calf

This is a plasma cut outline of a calf that I cut when I was 15 years old. To me, this represents the value of getting dirty and working with your hands to produce something that is a work of art. Although I do love to read and think and plan and analyze, sometimes it is nice to just use my hands to make something. Sometimes you never know what you are going to make until it is done, and other times you have an idea of what you want but there is no way to know if you are going to get the desired product. I have tried and failed many times using the plasma cutter, as is true with many other things in my life, but the important thing to remember is that you can always try again. If you stop trying, then you can never improve and maybe never create something of any value. This artifact represents my determination in life and how often times you can end up creating something better than can be bought.
***Note:  Plasma cutting is a process that is used to cut steel and other metals of different thicknesses (or sometimes other materials) using a plasma torch. In this process, an inert gas is blown at high speed out of a nozzle; at the same time an electrical arc is formed through that gas from the nozzle to the surface being cut, turning some of that gas to plasma. The plasma is sufficiently hot to melt the metal being cut and moves sufficiently fast to blow molten metal away from the cut. (Wikipedia)

Response to Kampung Boy

     Before reading this book, I don’t think I would say I had ever read a graphic novel before. Sure I had read children’s books and picture books before, but the term graphic novel was not in my vocabulary. Because of this, I decided the read this book twice. The first time, I paid attention to the words and the story, the second time I paid more attention to the illustrations and character descriptions. 

     After reading it twice, I thought about the book for a while and why Lat may have written it and what importance this book might hold. Did it explain some very different aspect of culture or a hot topic issue that is/was highly talked about? Did this text shock me with new information and/or ideas? Well, sure it did. Besides the research that I had just previously done on Malaysia, I had almost no former knowledge of the area, the people, or the lifestyle. It was merely a place on the map that I had to look up because the name was the only thing that was familiar to me. 

     While reading the book I definitely learned a few things about Malaysian education, religion, rites of passage, family structure, etc. Religious schooling starts very early, elders are highly respected, boy are circumcised at age 10, it is a privilege to pass your tests and go off to boarding school for higher education. But what really struck me was how this story was not so different from every other child in the world. The drawings and illustrations were simple and child-like, depicting the innocence of the boy and how he viewed the world. At one point in the book, when the 3 brothers take him out to their favorite swimming hole, I noticed that the boys barely even looked like humans. Sure they had a head and 2 arms and 2 legs, but their bodies were not shaped like a young boy, they were missing features such as noses and belly buttons, their hair and teeth were very exaggerated. The other aspect of this child-like view on the world was how he was facing and dealing with the same issues that all children face. First, he had to leave his family and go to school with children he did not know and a teacher who was very strict and scary. He was used to this loving mother and playful father, and had to leave and be in the care of someone else. Almost every child deals with this when going off to daycare/preschool/kindergarten. They have to try to make new friends and they long to be accepted. Lat dealt with this when the 3 Meor brothers. He so desperately hoped they would accept him as their friend, and when they did he felt joy and love. Every child wants this. No kid wants to go to school and have a hard time making friends or being accepted by his/her peers. As Lat’s schooling continues he has to worry about his grades and doing well in school. He starts to withdraw a little from his peers, maybe because he is dealing with self-confidence issues, maybe because he would rather just do what he likes to do, maybe its a little bit of both. What child doesn’t go through some sort of period where they are uncomfortable in their own skin, where they feel like they don’t quite fit in? A little later in Lat’s childhood, he faces acceptance from his own parents. He knows their love for him, yet he hears them talking about him late into the night about him growing up and acting more like an adult. He wants his parents to think he is responsible and becoming a man, but like a lot of children, goes about that in a way that backfires a little. Lat is still very young and yet has to deal with the weight and responsibility of inheriting his father’s land, being a big brother to his younger siblings, doing well in school and passing his tests, working in the community, and still having friends and having fun as a kid. This is a lot of pressure on a kid and is not uncommon for most children around the world. This is what really struck me about this novel: how relatable it was for children everywhere. Sure, not everyone goes to religious schooling like Lat did, some children don’t have siblings, some children grow up with a lot of money and privilege, some children live in the hustle and bustle of the city, but yet this book is still talking about central issues that are the same for everyone. Everyone wants and needs to feel accepted by their peers, everyone has to go through certain rites of passage, everyone has to deal with the complications of growing up and having more responsibilities. This book is not just about Lat, a young boy growing up in a small village in Malaysia, this book is about a child growing up and facing the issues that every other child in the world also has to face.

Research on Malaysia

Malaysia is a nation located in Southeast Asia, bordered by Thailand, Indonesia, and Brunei, and shares water borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Malaysia has coasts along the South China Sea. Malaysia has 13 states and 3 federal territories, with a population of 28.3 Million. Islam is the declared state religion but freedom of religion is a protected right in Malaysia. Human habitation in Malaysia dates back over 40,000 years and traders and settlers from India and China arrived as early as the 1st Century A.D, establishing trading ports and coastal towns in the 2nd and 3rd Century. This resulted in the strong influence of Chinese and Indian traditions and religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. 

The Malaysian legal system a federal constitutional elective monarchy and is based on English common law. The head of state, referred to as the King, is elected to a 5 year term by 9 of the 13 hereditary rulers.  Since changes to the constitution in 1995, the King’s role has been largely ceremonial. Like us, Malaysia has a lower house, the House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Senate. The Senate is run by the Prime Minister, who is the head of government. 

Malaysia is the 67th largest country by total land area and is divided into 2 major land sections by the South China Sea; Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia. Both areas have costal plains 

leading to hills and valleys, with a mountainous interior. 

The Malaysian economy, which used to be predominately mining and agriculture based, is moving towards a more diverse system and is pushing tourism more than ever. Malaysia was once the world’s largest producer of tin, rubber, and palm oil, and is still currently the largest exporter of palm oil. 

The education system is divided into 2 parts. The first is a 6 year compulsory primary education and the second is 5 years of voluntary secondary education. The official language is Malaysian, a standardized version of the Malay language, with English as a very active second language.

Malaysia has a multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society. The original culture of the area stemmed from indigenous tribes that inhabited it, along with the Malays who later moved there. Substantial influence exists from Chinese and Indian culture, dating back to when foreign trade began. Other cultural influences include the Persian, Arabic, and British cultures. In 1971, the government created a "National Cultural Policy", defining Malaysian culture. It stated that Malaysian culture must be based on the culture of the indigenous peoples of Malaysia, that it may incorporate suitable elements from other cultures, and that Islam must play a part in it.[209] It also promoted the Malay language above others. Traditional Malaysian art was mainly centered around the areas of carving, weaving, and silversmithing. Traditional art ranges from handwoven baskets from rural areas to the silverwork of the Malay courts. Common artworks included ornamental kris, beetle nut sets, and woven batik and songket fabrics. Indigenous East Malaysians are known for their wooden masks. Each ethnic group have distinct performing arts, with little overlap between them. However, Malay art does show some North Indian influence due to the historical influence of India.