Rethink my choices and aspirational dream

July 26 27 29 2021

Writing is to rewrite.

Writing is to express random thoughts.

Writing is to reflect on experience and learn from that reflection.

Writing is to rethink.

To rethink is to unlearn my usual thinking pattern. Rethinking to test whether I am trapped in an escalation of commitment into an unfulfilled decision. I write today to rethink my social and professional choices since the beginning of 2021.

One of the best ways to learn is to teach

It was a sunny day in a green organic garden. An idea sparked up when I was focusing on the detailed gardening job that I want to become a teacher to teach civic education, global citizenship and sustainability mindset to students aged 11-18 years old. I want to establish a good foundation for young learners before they enter university. Such an age level is ideal to exude curiosity and nurture awareness about self-development, global issues, alongside which, they might discover skills and interests of career paths to consider academic and professional choices. It dawned on me days afterward what it takes to become such a teacher.

Earth Tone Farm - where inspiration started

I echoed my idea to people I trust like “the luck surface area”, meaning the more frequently I talk about my dream to others, the higher chance I am able to carry it out. My advisor suggested that I could intern in a school in the summer to have real school experience and you can still link the summer theme “Global Exposure” to the internship. It sounds like a good plan! When I finished my nature-immersion experience in Mae Hong Son, I traveled back to Bangkok to attend some field trips of my Design Thinking for Public Social Service class. I would rather spend money on my travel to meet participants in person rather than doing desk-based research without human interaction. My instinct told me to not miss that hands-on learning experience in order to share it with my future students.

Question the contexts and self-capability

Back to Thammasat Campus, I was lucky to have a conversation with my respected Ajarn Stephane who is always willing to listen to his students’ questions and adventures. From his advice, civic education has to carefully account for political settings that match the existing curriculum in the country. I need to consider the systematic application of the GCED mindset to the whole school subjects, not just one subject. With all these inspirations, I blogged on “Why Secondary School students should study Global Citizenship?” where I pieced out a number of sources on GCED and ESD of countries around the world and especially in Vietnam. The context is opening for an innovative program embedded with GCED but “How to make it happen?” due to constraints of teacher training, facilities, population, curriculum design, and people’s awareness. Yet I am very positive about the potential of this policy.

On a biking day to Bangkrachao oasis, I met a Hungarian teacher teaching English in Thailand. She has become a great advisor to my educational interests. She shared with me her teaching stories, students’ assignments and issues in her school. She helped to feedback on my reports and paper constructively and thoughtfully from an educator’s perspective. All I could say is the law of attraction that we could meet in the middle of Bangkok. Amidst the quest, I suddenly got a 3-month coaching offer from a friend I met in a Facilitation Training in Saigon. We met once every 2 weeks to clear my self-doubts. I was neither confident with my English nor Vietnamese nor teaching capacity nor where to land in the future.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect/ How much do I know?

Accidentally, I found a book “How to build a better teacher?” (Elizabeth Green) in my school’s library. It was written by a Math teacher, I took away the points related to relationships among teachers and students, flexible teaching methods and their struggles to understand students’ abilities to create the best learning conditions for them. On a reading mood, I found “Historical and Philosophical Principles of Education” (Gerald L.Gutek) that illuminated many education change-makers’ biography through the course of history. The book walks readers through an active reading approach. Given a list of reflective questions in every chapter, we are encouraged to reflect on the contexts when educators grew up and what drove them to the innovation of such philosophies and influential initiatives. Horace Mann believes that “Educators must train themselves with ethical behaviors, life-long learning mindset to inject ethics and humanity into learners. Human progress takes place when their behaviors are reflected through individual beliefs on the universe’ high level of spiritual and moral principles.” (Gutek, 2013)

How to know students have learned something?

“Enjoy the learning is different from how much students have learnt”, Ajarn Stephane- a lesson from a Knowledge Management Project that we project students’ expressions on their learning into Bloom Taxonomy Theory to assess their learnings. A critical part of teaching is to evaluate students' learning experiences. It is like measuring the impacts of social innovation projects at the end of the day. We can’t just run a community project in a random place disregarding its effectiveness to target stakeholders. Most of the projects I have done at GSSE are not yet up to the implementation level during the first 2 years. Thanks to my work-study projects, I got to collect and analyze students’ feedback on the educators and their learning experience at GSSE from normal situations over the transition to online learning. Most students have well adapted to the new normal, yet longed for physical settings and the nature of congregation among friends. One big piece deciding the quality of learning is the teaching method. The projects inspire me to see the efforts of educators and the faculty towards the growth of learners. Such surveys are crucial to get students’ concerns heard and include their voice in the learning design of the program. However, the result of the reports has been not fully disseminated to all faculty members due to email communication and schedule conflicts. Hopefully, such feedback could be effectively translated into actual actions to improve our GSSE teaching-learning community.

Writing down my Theory of Change

In a final exam of the course Psychology of Global Organization, I must demonstrate my 3-year goal into a Theory of Change model. I listed out my goals, objectives, immediate outcomes, assumption, enablers, evidence, activities and concerns towards my aspiration. I didn’t know that my plan could be structured in the triangle - clarifying “what” and “how” into a timeline. I was slightly uncertain, but writing the dream down strengthened my dream. “Activities” to actualize the goal is to seek external courses and experience to improve my pedagogical knowledge and skills because my current BA doesn’t specialize in this field. As a result, in June, I completed the course “Curriculum Development for GCED Educators: Perspectives, Purposes and Practices” by UNESCO – APCEIU to learn principles of curriculum design and how to apply them into local contexts. A GCED-focused curriculum must include 3 behavioral, cognitive and emotional dimensions. The course taught me many pedagogical terms such as formative and summative assessment, critical consciousness pedagogy, transformational learning, etc. Importantly, it is to craft a flexible curriculum with specific goals, allowing changes to come in to suit learners’ developmental needs. I met amazing educators from diverse backgrounds who aim to integrate GCED into their educational programs and shared their inspiring curriculum with the class. In the final assignment, I proposed part of a national curriculum of Experiential Learning & Career Orientation Program, implemented first this September 2021 for grade 6 Vietnamese students. I leveraged the blog written earlier for the background and researched more on the philosophies and design piece. “This is a very good curriculum plan, well thought-out and rationalized. Sessions are well-knit, from objectives to activities to evaluation. Please refer to my specific comments on the review board. Indeed an excellent assignment.“ commented by Dr.Virgina.

Inspiring pieces of UK education

First of all, I am impressed by a Global Perspectives Course in the IGCSE Cambridge program that is aligned with what I aspire to teach. I am not sure if I could teach it someday! Back to my search for capacity building, I took a course on “Teacher Training - Choosing the right PGCE for you” by Coventry University. I am so in love with the UK educational system in which teachers must achieve PGCE qualifications. The course is an introduction to different types of PGCE for learners to make the right choice. I am possibly not eligible to take this qualification but I am sure of my affirmation for secondary teaching. Interestingly, I discovered a podcast “Are you Convinced?” by Youth UK discussing the mental health aspects of UK students and advocate for practical elements in schooling. They debate whether or not to make consent education official, invite youth workers to interact with students in career orientation and emphasize the collaboration of parents and schools, etc. Bringing these points into public discussions is powerful to raise awareness of the general about their challenges and progressive attempts. This July, I registered for a “Blended and Online Learning Design” course by the Institute of Education, University College London, expected to finish in August. The first week has introduced me to a learning design tool and highlighted 6 learning types that should be consistently applied: Acquisition, Inquiry, Discussion, Collaboration, Practice and Production. The course provides many mentors who actively respond to our comments in forums and recommend useful resources to address our concerns. I can’t wait to take a real teacher training program in the near future.

The return of inner focus

In retrospect, all the above learnings are under the acquisition, inquiry and discussion and a bit of production types. I don’t think it is enough to make me better at pedagogy skills! I got admitted as a summer intern in an outdoor education center, in an international school. The plan went astray because of uprising cases in Thailand. I missed the opportunity to interact with the students in a schooling context. I was totally enough with research and Zoom calls. So I took a break by volunteering at the Covid Vaccination Center to improve Thai and meet new energy. I regained my inner focus after 1.5 month, that I am ready to upskill in facilitation and learning design.

For the past half-year, I have observed students’ appearances, energy level and activity design and evaluation thanks to being a Technical Facilitator for JUMP! Connected program. However, I really want to connect with the students as an individual in a way of directly holding space for their conversations. My colleague told me “to know how to facilitate is to practice and learn from the trials.” I can’t agree more with this advice! I have facilitated older groups like highschool and universities, and I feel strangely confident in those spaces, but not yet with J! Students mainly because J! facilitators are so professional that I am under pressure. I could run activities and training about self-awareness, English studies, public relation skills, experience organization and evaluation and club management. The young minds surprise me by their curiosity to learn and their own goals in life. I am applying my curriculum design skills to create the content for our workshops and events. I evaluate my own strengths and weaknesses through feedforward culture at JUMP! to identify repeatable and changeable actions for further experiences.

My dream idea has been reaffirmed by doubts and testing. The uncertain feeling always pops up at some point along the way to reach my vision. Embrace that natural occurrence. After the identification and onboard phases, I am flying for and against the wind towards a directed destination.

One of the best ways to learn is to teach. To teach is to rethink. Rethink about my academic, social and professional choices. “As we approach any life transition, whether it is the first job, the second marriage or the third child, we can pause to ask ourselves/ people what we wish we had known before we went through that experience. Once we are on the other side of it, we can share what we ourselves should have rethought.” – Think Again, Adam Grant.