M13U3A2 – Malin Matus – Reflection on Cross-Cultural Education

Introduction

In this reflection I will share some thoughts and feelings about my readiness to teach and support a culturally diverse student body, as well as, interact with a culturally diverse set of colleagues. From my clinical practice in Teach-Now and from studying in the global education masters program for the past two months I have certainly gained knowledge and insight into teaching in culturally diverse environments. I will explore my experiences from three perspectives; my own personal growth (or lack thereof), changing views of my colleagues and changing views of my students. To finish this blog I will introduce some resources I found that will help further my understanding and ability to teach in a multicultural environment.

What I have learned (or not)

I can say that while I was doing the Teach-Now clinical I had difficulty incorporating the multiple culture perspectives into my lessons. Part of this was because my students are almost all Japanese and those who are not have adopted an assimilationist stance and for me to recognize that they are different would be harmful to them, socially and psychologically. However, in my readings for the masters program I have discovered that cultural diversity need not be expressed by the diversity of the students population, but rather can be given in lesson materials. I erroneously assumed that since my classes were “culturally homogeneous” that cross-cultural instruction was not of value. I now realize that globalism is driving a need for people of broad vision and cross-cultural competencies to help tackle the world’s economic and environmental problems. Therefore, even in a culturally homogeneous environment, it is important to teach cross-cultural skills, develop cultural awareness and instill an intrinsic value for diversity in all of its forms. One more realization hit me as I went through my course work. When I wrote about my own cultural background I realized how culturally aware my own education had been. This suggested to me that perhaps I had an outlook not shared by my contemporaries and that perhaps I have been operating under a false sense that others thought along the same lines as me. Definitely, after this masters I will be looking to find ways to develop cross-cultural awareness and an appreciation for diversity in my students at every opportunity.

Japanese students have an erroneous belief in their cultural homogeneity.  Most are unaware of the vast influence that China had on the development of feudal Japan and they pointedly ignore the similarities Japanese culture bears with the cultures of countries nearby. Doing this masters has really allowed me to view my students in a different way and see that they do have a big gap in cultural sensitivity and awareness. As my colleague said when I was interviewing her, “To Japanese students, English equals America or Britain”.  This is indicative of a very narrow and biased worldview and if my students are to become successful in the new globalized world a more plural and flexible view point is suggested. Also, learning about equity has shown me the intolerance inherent in my students. Things that are not easily understood or that are different are quickly rejected by them, subjected to the harshest judgment and then thrown away. These students, in my opinion, need a tolerance for ambiguity, learn how to take more that one route to the same destination and to not judging oneself as better than the other. If my students are any indication of Japanese society at large than Japan has a long way to go before they achieve social equity and tolerance for the world.

Lastly, I will discuss my colleagues, the other foreign English speaking teachers I work with. I work with three American ESL teachers, as well as, the other 50 Japanese teachers at our school. However, I am focusing on the ESL teachers because while we share a common language and common experience living and working in Japan, I feel our outlooks are quite different. Learning about Hoffstede and Lewis was instructive for describing this difference, but again it was writing about my cultural background that really showed me the difference between myself and my ESL colleagues. By this I mean all three of my colleagues grew up in the US and went to public education and university in the US. While they obviously chose to come and live and work in Japan, at times I find their inability to see the Japanese perspective shocking. Comments such as “Why do they do that? we’d never to that in America, what a stupid idea.” abound in our shared space, and I want to shout “We are not in America!”. Now, I am not saying I am perfectly adjusted to Japanese culture, nor am I immune to wondering why they do things in a particular way over another. However, it seems I am more capable of not putting myself in opposition to the Japanese way and more able to accommodate or negotiate with our Japanese colleagues. I think my colleagues, and I as well, could benefit from some professional development around how to manage working in another culture, especially one that is so different from the US and Canada as is Japan.

Additional Resources

The first resource is an article titled “The Contradiction Between “Being and Seeming” Reinforces Low Academic Performance” by Tsutsumi Angela Aparecida and Burajiru Fureai Kai (2012). This article was instructive to me as it reminded me of the invisible minorities of Japan. These are the Asian phenotype immigrants to Japan that seem to be Japanese, are often expected to be Japanese, but yet have a different culture. Japan is not well set up to support these students and I am in agreement with the suggestions of this article that multilingual support needs to be provided to the students and parents, as well as, additional Japanese language study support for students who need it.

The next resources is another article titled “Roles of Language in Multicultural Education in the Context of Internationalization” by Miki Sugimura (2015). This article introduced me to the interesting idea, and growing trend in the globalized world, that immigrants have begun to value their mother tongue less. Basically, Sugimura outlines a complex relationship between language use and the perceived value of that language. Playing into the value of a language is how useful it is in becoming economically successful. So, in many cases immigrant mother tongues are being discarded in favor of national languages. This is useful for me as an ESL teacher as it tells me that students will have more motivation to learn a language if they perceive that there is value to it beyond the classroom.

This resource is a website called EdChange (http://www.edchange.org/) and it provides resources for teaching equity and stamping out inequality it schools. In Japan the gender gap is large and I hope to use some of the resources provided on EdChange to help empower my female students and to generate awareness in my male students.

The last resource is another website called Teaching Tolerance (https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources) and is a treasure trove of anti-bias education. I really like their framework for anti-bias education and I hope to incorporate it’s elements into my unit planning as much as possible. Additionally, with some translation I will adapt some of the lesson resources to help build cultural awareness in my students.

References

Aparecida, T. A., & Kai, B. F. (2012). The Contradiction Between “Being and Seeming” Reinforces Low Academic Performance. US-China Education Review, B(2), 217-223.

Classroom Resources. [website] (2017, December 07). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources

EdChange – Advocating Equity in Schools and Society [website]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://www.edchange.org/

Sugimura, M. (2015). Roles of Language in Multicultural Education in the Context of Internationalisation. Educational Studies in Japan, 9(0), 3-15. doi:10.7571/esjkyoiku.9.3

M13U3A1 – Malin Matus – My Cultural Identity

Introduction

Identity is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, and as I attempt to explain my cultural identity, and some of the changes to it, I will endeavor to cover as many of those facets as possible. First, I will define my cultural identity as I see it today, including the elements of; nationality, ethnicity, gender and religion. Then, I will explore some of the past events in my life that lead to big shifts in my cultural identity.

My Cultural Identity – Today Explained from my Roots

If I had to describe my cultural identity in one sentence I would do so in the following way. I am a heterosexual, male, spiritualist, expatriate Canadian, and I use the label Canadian to mean both my nationality and ethnicity. While the above description is concise it does not delve the complexity of all the terms I applied to myself, so I will take the discussion deeper. Sexual orientation and gender are far more nuanced than most people give them credit for and how I arrived at my heterosexual male label was no less so. I never had any gender confusion growing up, generally I was comfortable with being male in Canadian society. The only part of Canadian masculinity that I rejected was the “a man has to provide for his family” idea. My father was a hardworking and kind man, but I always felt he worked too hard. He often had to work, rather than be with my brothers and I, so when I was younger I vowed that I would not be so neglectful of my family, just because it is the man’s duty to work. In addition I grew up with an actively feminist mother who I believe instilled in my an appreciation for feminist values and women’s ongoing struggle for equality. I feel I have an open-mind about gender and sexual orientation, I have some gay and lesbian friends, and I believe that people should be able to live their sexual and gender reality in the manner they deem most comfortable for them.

I described my ethnicity and nationality as both Canadian and I think further elaboration on the idea of “Canadian” as a label for ethnicity, is required. My father’s parents were first generation immigrants from Poland (grandfather) and the Ukraine (grandmother). On my mother’s side Slovak, First Nations, Spanish (grandfather) and Irish, Slovak (grandmother). So then, what is my ethnicity? Am I, Polish, Ukrainian, Slovak, First Nations, Spanish, and Irish? Certainly, when I was younger there was a sense of novelty in knowing one’s roots but the fact of the matter was I did not participate in any of these countries’ cultural communities, nor did I speak any of those languages, and while I did enjoy some of the traditional foods during annual celebrations it was not something I felt defined me. So, the consensus I came to was that I was just Canadian, as were all of my friends. I had some friends who were part of the local Ukrainian culture, doing Ukrainian dance and participating in Ukrainian holidays. I had other friends whose parents were first generation Chinese and Vietnamese, and when we went to a Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant they could order in the language of the restaurant. However, despite my friends closer connection to their parents culture, we were still good friends and we understood one another. We went to the same school, lusted after fast cars, played sports and video games, spoke the same language, and viewed ourselves as Canadian. Therefore, for me, my ancestral roots, “the multiple belongings” that Maalouf (Facing History and Ourselves, n.d.) writes about, were just part of being Canadian.

For my religious facet I chose the word, spiritualist, and I have intentionally chosen an ambiguous and fuzzy term because I believe that our religious (i.e. spiritual) lives are intensely personal experiences and journeys. I don’t believe that we have to justify them with labels, or membership in one group or another. I was born into a Catholic family but in my early years my mother’s enthusiasm for attending church waned and by the time I was in grade 3 we had stopped going altogether. I never really subscribed to the Catholic creed and my spiritual underpinnings were built upon a foundation of the world folk tales and mythologies I learned in the Waldorf elementary school I attended. Waldorf schools are based on the humanistic Steiner model of education which emphasizes the role of imagination in learning, and seeks the holistic development of students. Being exposed to so many perspectives I believe led me to eventually form an eclectic spirituality that is completely idiosyncratic. For me religion (spirituality) is an exercise in trying to understand all the inexplicable things that happen in one’s life, and a way of maintaining faith to get through the times when things are not so good.

Times When My Cultural Identity Changed

In my one sentence description of my cultural identity I used the term expatriate to dilute my Canadian nationality and this is because since I came to live in Japan I don’t feel entirely Canadian anymore. Two events helped define this for me, first was my first visit to Japan as a university student in 2000, and the second was when I returned to Canada for the first time after living in Japan for two years in 2008.

In 2000 I took the opportunity to do a six week, university sponsored intensive Japanese language course in a small town called Okazaki, in Japan. Prior to going to Japan I had studied Japanese for two years, so I thought I would be well prepared. I was not. Japanese people spoke too quickly, used structures and phrases that I had never heard before. Simple things like booking a train ticket into Tokyo, which was one of my textbook lesson in university, was a 30 minute nightmare in reality. My language use struggles in Japan allowed me to discover what it was like to not be linguistically competent in ones life. This really opened my mind to the struggles of French Canadians, as well as, immigrant groups to Canada. Furthermore, while in Okazaki I lived in an international dorm with other students studying Japanese. There were of course English speakers, but about half of the population did not speak English as a first language and some had no English at all. In some situations Japanese became the common language between people who were not Japanese, and this was my first experience of really focused cross-cultural communication. I say focused because as we were both speaking Japanese as a second language we had to rely on many other non-verbal cues to communicate and that necessitated learning that gestures were not uniform across cultures either. My experience in Okazaki was what Heyward (2002) would have called the shock of cross-cultural engagement and a crisis of engagement that led me to learn how to be more interculturally competent. I feel that my experiences in Okazaki really opened my eyes to the diversity of peoples in the world. In school we had always been taught to believe in diversity and multiculturalism, but being in a truly multicultural environment, and interacting with it day in and day out brought the lesson home in a way school had not. I say how my experience opened my eyes to diversity but it also showed me that as humans we are much the same as well. We all needed to eat, get our homework done, communicate with our classmates and teachers. We all wanted to go out an have fun, sing Karaoke, play sports and explore Japan. We all had friends and families back home that we sometimes missed, and foods from home that we wanted. So, while I was experiencing diversity in communication and culture, I was simultaneously experience a shared human experience of living. After coming back to Canada from Okazaki I felt a change in perspective. I felt I understood multiculturalism more, I had more patience for my profs and fellow students who didn’t speak English perfectly, I had shifted to a broader cultural viewpoint.

My second experience that really cemented my distance from a strong Canadian nationality was returning home to visit friends and family after living and working in Japan for two years. Note I say returning home, not starting to live and work in Japan. This is because after my Okazaki experience when I returned to begin working as an English conversation teacher in 2006, I was well prepared to accept the linguistic and cultural challenges I would face making a life here. I felt little stress adjusting to my life in Japan and was happy and comfortable from day one. However, returning to Canada was a shocker for me. After two years in Japan I had become accustomed to a Japanese style of service and a Japanese style of speaking. So, returning to Canada I found store clerks and wait staff, abrupt, abrasive and unhelpful. Had Canadian standards of service dropped I asked myself and then my friends and family? Their answer was no, and they seemed to be perfectly okay with what I thought was a rude and lazy waiter. It took me several days to figure out that it was the contrast between Japan’s efficient and obsequious customer-centric service with that of Canada’s more lose and friendly service, which was bothering me. After that revelation I examined things and I realized that there were other aspects of Canadian culture that I had rejected in favor of Japanese culture. Mainly, I found that I had moved away from the more individualistic stance as described by Hofstede (2011) to a more central position. I was more critical of the “me, me, me” and “I, I, I,” rhetoric of Canada. I found some of the Japanese ideals of looking after the group and thinking of the group first to be appealing. My return to Canada demonstrated how much I had internalized these Japanese cultural ideals. However, I most certainly do not identify myself as culturally Japanese. There are many aspects of Japanese culture that I actively reject and much more that I just don’t understand. So I find myself in the bi-culture position described by Brown (2009), where I remain Canadian, but a Canadian not unaffected by the Japanese culture in which I live. I can cross the Canadian-Japanese cultural boundary. I no longer feel completely Canadian, yet I am fluent in the Canadian cultural milieu. However,  I don’t completely identify with Japanese culture, nor am I always at ease in it.

References

Brown, L. (2009). International education: a force for peace and cross‐cultural understanding? Journal of Peace Education, 6(2), 209-224. doi:10.1080/17400200903086672

Heyward, M. (2002). From international to intercultural: Redefining the international school for a globalized world. Journal of Research in International Education, 1(1), 9-32. doi:10.1177/1475240902001001266

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). doi:10.9707/2307-0919.1014

 

M13U2A3 – Malin Matus – Research Question

Background

The idea for my research question came from two sources. The first was my intrigue with Heyward’s (2002) idea of intercultural literacy and how it is learned from supported cross-cultural contact. I agree with Heyward’s position that people do not automatically gain cross-cultural modes of thinking from just exposure to other cultures. It is quite possible that even after multiple exposures people maintain their mono-cultural mindset. Therefore, as an educator two questions arose. One, can students gain intercultural literacy from cross-cultural experiences provided in the classroom? Two, if it is possible, what kind of instructional models and/or methods would be able to support intercultural learning? The second source was a conversation I had with an IB teacher colleague during an interview assignment, where she said that our students (Japanese middle school students) generally equated English with white people from the U.S.A. or England. Furthermore my colleague mentioned that this mindset persisted in spite of many of her efforts to show the students videos and materials featuring non-white English speakers from countries across the globe, in some casese English wasn’t even the speaker or writers first language. My colleague’s experience echos what Heyward wrote, that exposure is not enough, some sort of cross-cultural engagement is needed to bring the point home.  So, I have begun to wonder, in the fierce monoculture of Japan–where those of mixed Japanese decent tend to deny their non-Japanese roots–is it possible to teach my students intercultural literacy? Is it possible to simulate cross-culture engagement in the classroom to the extent that intercultural literacy is increased? I think as an English teacher this is a valuable line of inquiry, for the long-term goal of language education is to allow my students to communicate with a greater range of people, in a greater range of cultural settings. Thus, instilling in them a sense of intercultural literacy (or at the very least sensitivity) would be advantageous to supporting their future communication efforts.

The Research Question

How does my cross-cultural engagement instructional model affect intercultural literacy in Japanese 6th grade students?

References

Heyward, M. (2002). From international to intercultural: Redefining the international school for a globalized world. Journal of Research in International Education, 1(1), 9-32. doi:10.1177/1475240902001001266

M12U4A3 – Malin Matus – Planning for the Final Project

Introduction

In this blog I will outline my understanding of the requirements for the final Teach-Now masters project, summarize action research, identify some ideas I have for an action research proposal and look at the requirements for the project to see which I think are the most challenging and which I am the most comfortable with.

Understanding the Requirements and Timeline

I understand that the final part of the Teach-Now masters in education course is the completion of a action research project. The project will require me to demonstrate:

• Deeper knowledge of a specific educational topic
• The ability to plan and use appropriate methods to conduct research and to analyze the results of this work
• The ability to clearly present and discuss conclusions as well as the knowledge and arguments that form the basis for findings
• Ability to complete a well-written and properly organized report
• Knowledge and motivation to complete the project
  (Teach-Now, n.d.)

The action research project will focus on a specific issue in my school or classroom under an umbrella theme of international education. The project must include all of the following criteria:

• It must be original work that requires critical analysis
• It must include an analysis of previous research done in the field
• It must require some application that involves the collection and/or analysis of data
• It must include an analysis of findings
• It must focus on some aspect of globalization or international mindedness (i.e., modules 12 and 13) relevant to education in general or your specific situation
• A written report/action plan (in Word format) must be submitted.
  (Teach-Now, n.d.)

The final written report will likely be 20-30 pages in length, double-spaced, but it should be of a length to sufficiently meet all of the criteria listed above.

The report must contain all of the following sections:

1. Introduction and Statement of Problem or Question: describe the topic, discuss the importance of the issue, describe my purpose, state the research question and discuss any limitations expected or imposed.
2. Literature Review: an organized account of research relevant to the project’s topic, with an explanation of why it relates.
3. Proposed Methodology: A complete outline of how the project was done, where it was done, with who was it done. The project should be repeatable.
4. Analysis of Results: discussion of data and/or results tied back to the research questions. Were the results as expected, or unexpected.
5. Summary and Consideration of Next Steps (Action Plan): Explain how the results relate back to previous work done on the topic. Reflect on how things could have been done differently. Suggest future action on the research question. Reflect on how the results will inform future teaching practice.
6. References: APA style citation of all references used.
7. Appendices, if Needed: Additional information that might need to be included such as data collection tools.
   (Teach-Now, n.d.)

How will I complete this project in the time allotted, is a question I have already been asking myself. I have two plans of action. One, is to not be overly ambitions with my action research project. I am a person who gets excited by the big questions and problems in my sphere of life and I could easily see myself getting carried away trying to explore an issue too complex to be investigated in the short time frame I have. Two, will be to keep my nose to the grindstone, slowly and steadily completing assignments, reading and collecting notes, building up the proposal and then executing it.

What is Action Research

Richard Sagor’s (2000), definition of action research is:

Action research is a disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action. The primary reason for engaging in action research is to assist the “actor” in improving and/or refining his or her actions.

What he means by the “actor” in my case is the educator undertaking the research. Action research is designed to be used by an educator who has a problem and then investigates it, takes some action to resolve the problem, analyzing the results of action and then reflecting on the results to see if they were satisfactory. Rigsby (2005) presents a useful conception of action research, like a spiral, as seen in the image below.

In summary action research is a rigorous method of problem solving involving:

1. Selecting a focus
2. Clarifying theories
3. Identifying research questions
4. Collecting data
5. Analyzing data
6. Reporting results
7. Taking informed action
   (Sagor, 2000)

Ideas for an Action Research Proposal

I hear a lot from my IB teaching colleagues in the school about many of the problems they encounter teaching our Japanese students. The IB teachers are usually, British, American, Australian, Canadian or a New Zealander. To me it sounds like some of their complaints arise out of cultural misunderstandings from the gap between the cultures of Japanese education and more western humanist education. So, an idea I am considering is to investigate what cultural tensions might be arising in the classrooms and if it is having an impact on student achievement. I could try to measure the cultural sensitivity or awareness of the IB teachers and then see if differing levels of awareness have any relation to the performance of the students in those classes. If a difference is detected then I would propose that some sort of cultural sensitivity and awareness training be given to the teachers and then re-evaluate their class’ performance.

What Parts of Action Research are Challenging vs. Easy

Thinking about what I might find challenging in the action research I believe that there are two areas of the process that will challenge me; selecting a focus and doing and writing the literature review. I think choosing a research question that could be researched at my school yet also be manageable in the time allotted would be difficult. However, I think running a lot of ideas past my instructor, using their experience to help guide me and being careful not to be overly ambitions will help mitigate this. The second challenge, doing and writing the literature review, is probably the one I fear the most. Given the time constraints of the project I worry about being able to sift through the vast, vast, vast amounts of research literature out there to find the relevant information, ideas and methods I will need. Additionally, writing is not my strong suit so I think I will find it trying to cohesively outline the previous research done in light of what I want to investigate. The only way to counter the difficulties of the literature review would be to look into strategies and tactics for finding appropriate background articles and to give myself plenty of writing and revising time. I would approach the writing component as an endurance exercise – slow and steady – rather that a race for the finish line.

I think once I have a clear focus, a research question and have completed the literature review; undertaking the other elements of the action research project will not be too difficult for me. I think things will logically progress, and I believe logical progression of ideas is one of my strong suits. I like to plan things out and execute the plan so actually doing the research and analyzing the results will feel natural for me.

References

Rigsby, L. (2005, March). Action Research: How is it Defined? Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://gse.gmu.edu/assets/media/tr/ARRigsbyppt.htm

Sagor, R. (2000, May). Guiding School Improvement with Action Research [Web log post]. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/100047/chapters/What-Is-Action-Research%C2%A2.aspx

Teach-Now. (n.d.). Guidelines and Rubric for Module 14 Final Project [DOCX], Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HENDXgi7azEuAJiwYTWzdhE07p9jRnYHL6nDwg5N_Oo/edit