China 101

11/8/11

Dear Everyone,

Here I am in the beautiful city of Kunming. Of course of all places Thinking Beyond Borders would take us to the Yunnan Province, aka the Province of Eternal Spring, home to twenty-five Chinese minorities! Kunming is small for a Chinese city, with a population of only eight million (sarcasm intended.) Most Chinese cities are pretty smoggy, but there are very few factories here, and the air is as clear as in Connecticut. For some reason, there are very few tourists here (at least in the sections I’ve been in,) so hardly anyone speaks Chinese, and everyone’s very shocked to see us. I like it this way better, I feel like I’m getting a more “real” experience. I’m so in love with this city after only five days. I think the best way to describe it is this: In Kunming, flowers are cheaper than vegetables.  

We are currently staying in the Yunnan University of Nationalities dorms, and Saturday we move into our homestays. We’re taking Chinese class at the University in the mornings, and will be teaching English to middleschoolers in the afternoons. If I haven’t been gushing enough, another aspect of China I love is our NGO, SIT. Unlike in Ecuador, they just really seem to have their shit together. Both of our Chinese teachers, the husband and wife director duo, and Zoe (I’m still not sure what she does) all came to pick us up from the airport at midnight. Since then, everything has been perfectly planned and smooth. Oh, and did I mention that we have a bus? With curtains! Quite an upgrade from the hauling cattle to slaughter truck! Although I’m horrible at languages (and Chinese is no different,) I really like our English teacher, Charles. He is a super-genius, who quit a life of academia to work with people. He also has photographs in National Geographic, as if he wasn’t perfect enough. His English is so good that he overuses “like,” and accidentally uses sarcasm with his fellow Chinese. Native Chinese apparently do not do sarcasm.

Everyone has been so friendly! I’ve learned that as long as you have blue eyes, you will never want for company or help. Lizzie and I learned this (Lizzie who I got lost with in Los Naranjos) when we set out to find a post office with no idea where we were going.  We  were trying in vain to ask some old women, when Holly came up to us and asked if we spoke English. Holly (not her Chinese name) turned out to be lovely, and went out of her way to walk us to the post office.  Later she told us that it was her birthday, and that it was her best birthday because it was the first time she’d ever spoken with a foreigner! I just can’t get over that. We offered to buy her a soda, but she just wanted milk. How cute!

We’ve also met Key (not her Chinese name,) who found us after Chinese class and asked us to help her with an English poem recitation.  Afterwards she gave us all new names such a Handsome, Cool Boy, Gentle Girl, and my personal favorite: Froggy. She was cute. We invited her to have lunch in the cafeteria with us, and before long all her friends were there, leading us around by the elbows and telling us what food to eat.

Once again, I have retyped the entire country syllabus and will post it at the bottom (yes, I know I will be lucky if even my parents bother to read it.)

Love,

Katherine

Education

Course Description:

Education is often referred to as the “silver bullet” of development. It has the potential to reduce poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, social and political oppression, and various other major issues. However, education also has the potential to be used as a tool for oppression through explicit brainwashing and implicit and systematic maintenance of societal structures like socio-economic class. To effectively use education a tool for empowerment and liberation rather than oppression, one must understand the dynamics of the relationships among students, teachers, the subject of study, and the societal structure over-arching them all. Accessing the potential of education as a tool for change requires a clear understanding of its purpose and a critical approach to its execution.

This Course challenges students to examine the relationships among stakeholders in educational systems. By teaching and observing in both urban and rural classrooms, TBB students have the opportunity to experience and analyze the dynamics of pedagogy and how it can shape society. Readings and seminars push students to deep reflection upon their own experiences as students, the nature of oppression and liberation, and the social implications of various education approaches on both philosophical and practical levels, Finally, state and national level policies are compared, contrasted, and analyzed utilizing the readings from the course.

Objectives:

·      Explore the socio-political impact of education on the continuing development of society.

·      Reflect on the role that education has played in the life of TBB students and in the formations of their core assumptions.

·      Attain an understanding of how education can be used as a tool for proactive development.

Essential Question:

How can education empower people as proactive agents of change?

Seminar Questions:

Seminar One: What is the purpose of education?

Seminar Two: Does education oppress or liberate?

Seminar Three: What is development?

Seminar Four: Who is the “oppressor?”

Seminar Five: What does “teaching” mean?

Seminar Six: Are students and teachers equals?

Seminar Seven: Does everyone need the same education?

Seminar Eight: Who decides what is taught?

Seminar Nine: Can education systems be fair to everyone?

Seminar Ten: What is education’s most influential form?

Required Readings:

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Relin

Chapters from:

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire

Pedagogy for Liberation, Paulo Freire and Ira Shor

We Make the Road by Walking, Paulo Freire and Myles Horton

Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen

The White House of the World, editor Nancy Birdsall

The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman

There will be readings from The Economist, The New York Times, and other periodicals, and various governmental and academic research sources.