Showcase
This showcase highlights some of the influential work from my Master of Arts in Education studies. As my preferred (and best) form of communication is the written word, it consists largely of excerpts from formative assignments in this curriculum. These pieces show the interconnectedness between the course materials, my life experiences and also the greater understanding I have gained of myself and my relationships with others, best demonstrated in the balanced development of Mind, Body, and Spirit.
MindInto the Firing Line...If you could take a course where the students played out the roles of the people they were ostensibly studying, would you? Building on my State Department experience during the 1st Gulf War and in Hong Kong pre-1997, in this project I designed a course that looked to create a 'leadership roundtable' format to study history from the position of the people involved, and in the context of their leadership and decision making. It is excerpted below.
Uncomfortable TruthsComing into this program and throughout most of it, I was fairly confident, nay convinced, that gaps in student achievement lay in class, not racial, differences. However, being committed to learning requires that one maintain the open mindedness and willingness to accept new ideas and different perspectives. Faced with the preponderance of evidence that made it impossible to disentangle race from class, in this essay I was forced to concede that any explanation ignoring the combined forces of race and class demonstrates ignorance and closed-mindedness toward the underlying structural issues in education and society today.
It's the Journey AND the DestinationAs much as society today argues for, and technology enables, everything to be personalized, specialized, and individualized, there does exist a need for standardization. Truth is one thing that can be manipulated, obscured, or reinterpreted, and it can vary based on the observer. Yet while getting at 'Truth' may remain challenging, I saw in Howard Gardner's Truth, Beauty, and Goodness: Reframed the discovery that the process and progress toward 'truth' represents the unchanging nature of inquiry and investigation that supersedes the exact determination of what actually is 'truth.'
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BodyWho am I? Who I Am?To better understand the challenges that English Language Learners (ELLs) face, reflection and knowledge of one's own language and cultural history is an important aspect in relating to others. I researched my family language and cultural heritage, but expanded beyond family of origin to include my wife's Chinese family heritage and language, as well as their history during WWII, the Communist takeover, and flight to Taiwan. And along the way, exploring my family heritage upended some long-held family lore...
Essential Life SkillsIt is well established that youth participation in sports brings with it numerous physical, emotional, and social benefits. This project built upon my volunteer work with the Hong Kong charity organization Splash to outline a youth Learn to Swim (LTS) development program. The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) survival swimming guide formed a key conceptual basis to my project, along with the 2014 WHO report on drownings worldwide.
The 'Model Minority'...not.In looking at the popular cultural myths that society imposes, we need to trace the historical and cultural background - and baggage - that influences the way we view and react to the world. The 'Model Minority' myth is one of the most harmful, yet difficult to dislodge, stereotypes that Asian Americans face today. Having spent many years in Asia, my Storify looked to examine how this myth continues to thrive in mainstream media and even the academic world.
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SpiritSports Does Reflect LifeWhat motives people? Having worked extensively with persons struggling with addiction issues, in this paper I explored the motivational parallels between athletes and alcoholics and addicts, groups not normally perceived to share common traits. What I demonstrated was that the motivational dynamics of self-determination - intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation - and attribution biases are remarkably similar between the two groups.
The 'Caring' DynamicAs my studies incorporated significant aspects of both coaching and teaching, with the two creating a mutually beneficial learning experience, it was no surprise that principles and ideas from both areas would have connections to the other. In this case, it was the 'caring' philosophy that Nel Noddings articulated. The link below is a compilation from two papers demonstrating the threads that weave between the sports and academic worlds and which I always need to be aware of in my coaching and teaching practice.
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Mind image courtesy of: http://www.cmaconsult.com/
Vitruvian Man image courtesy of: http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/images/vitruvian
Spirit image courtesy of: http://www.antikleidi.com
Vitruvian Man image courtesy of: http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/images/vitruvian
Spirit image courtesy of: http://www.antikleidi.com