Teaching Thoughts

30th January was a remarkable day in my teaching career. I have had the privilege and fortune to teach two contrasting age groups in a single day with two differing subjects — Coding and Linguistics. I taught coding to 5-6 year olds in a prestigious school in London in the day and that meant distilling computer science concepts to simple parts. While it is simple in concept, it by no means mean the project I was guiding them to build was anything simple — in fact, it meant encouraging children’s creativity and seeing their ideas blossom in code. I reflected on the persona I took on and I realised I was a lot more animated, and I spoke with much simpler terms. I recalled trying to embody and reflect the values I was teaching them — respecting someone when another is speaking by listening or encouraging others by clapping when a project was being shared.

At night, I switched my gear as I welcomed undergraduate and postgraduate students into Birkbeck’s Malet Street classroom. I remembered how I felt rushing from class to class back in the days of my bachelors, and immediately thought that playing some soothing lo-fi songs would help facilitate the whole process of tuning in to the class. I remembered a particular History in Environment class where the professors of the course decided that playing some songs and having us breathe through the songs for the first 10 minutes will facilitate learning in the later parts of the lecture. I very much enjoyed it and was delighted when the students of my class loved it as well. I taught them on “written assignments” and loved the lively discussion. I realised I changed and took on the role of a facilitator helping them reflect on their experiences. In the last segment of the class, I asked them if they knew how to identify question words and some techniques that are easily used to structure a short and sharp essay that answers the question.

I love teaching for the fact that I can be creative and adapt to the needs of the class. I love how unpredictable it is and I love how I learn about the different connections that are possible while journeying with the class. Finally, I love teaching because I love inspiring because inspiration is the reason we become better versions of ourselves. May my endeavour to becoming a professor continually give me experiences where I inspire and am inspired.

《管子．權修》：「一年之計，莫如樹穀；十年之計，莫如樹木；終身之計，莫如樹人。」

“The best ten year plan is to plant trees; the best plan for the rest of your life is to plant people. (literal)“ - Guan Yiwu

Perhaps the adage helps us see that when we work for people, it will never be a waste. We will reap plentiful rewards if we are patient in our sowing.

The Power of Words/ Language

What I found fascinating recently is the reflection of language by the author Creel Froman. He reflects on the power language has. A couple of points stood out to me - Language as the creation of reality, language as a form of behaviour and the organisation of a community through words or language.

1. Language creates reality (the lack of it refutes its reality)

"Reality is the consequence of the use of certain ways of speaking and what those ways of speaking will be; hence, what reality will be languaged as at any given time is ultimately a matter of power" - p. 3, Language and Power by Creel Froman

Case study 1 - Gaslighting

Natalie and I spoke specially about this topic and very interesting insights were raised. "Gaslighting" was the most used word in 2022 as detailed by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. In the article entry, it was noted that "2022 saw a 1740% increase in lookups for gaslighting, with high interest throughout the year". Yet what was not known is that the introduction of the word came from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 British thriller play that is set in the Victorian era, Gas Light which was very plausibly popularised by the later George Cukor's 1944 American film Gaslight. The story narrates a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane. Gas lights in the house start to dim as a result of his puzzling actions in the attic, but he tells his wife they aren't decreasing and that she shouldn't believe her own senses so that he can steal from her inheritance.

The word "Gaslighting" has power as before the creation of the word, there were no laws to address this specific form of mental abuse. Gaslighting was made a felony in the UK in December 2015 under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act (2015), which defines gaslighting as the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB). Every year, there are more CCB offences that make it to a magistrate court's first hearing. Since the first full year in which CCB cases reached the Criminal Justice System in the year 2016/17 to 2017/18, numbers increased threefold from 309 to 960. The number increased by a further 23% in 2018/19, to 1,177 prosecutions and to 1,208 in 2019/20. (Source Gov.UK)

On 20th January 2022, there was a landmark judgment in the British courts, which recognised the seriousness of gaslighting in relationships as a form of hidden abuse for the first time. The judgment, which was handed down in the family courts, was the first ever to specifically mention the term “gaslighting”. In his judgment, the Honourable Mr Justice Cobb said, “Dr. Proudman’s use of the term ‘gaslighting’ in the hearing to describe this conduct was in my judgment apposite; the father's actions amounted to a subtle type of abuse meant to make the mother doubt her own mental stability, if not her sanity.

Before the creation of the word, there was no such reality recognised and hence difficulty in tracing the power of this phenomenon.

Case study 2 - Autism and Asperger's Syndrome distinction

Asperger's Syndrome is named after an Austrian psychiatrist, Johann Friedrich Karl Asperger. Developmental disorder Asperger's Syndrome is a kind of autism spectrum disorder. Young persons with Asperger's Syndrome often have inflexible, repetitive thought and behaviour patterns and have trouble relating to others socially. The terms Asperger's and autism are combined in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). The lack of well-defined boundaries between the two, as well as emerging research (at the time) equating them, resulted in the absorption of Asperger’s into the autism spectrum with the intention to avoid clinical confusion.

This means that what was once a reality has now ceased to be reality due to the absence of the language or word.

2. Behaviour as Language

"Language tells us what is behaviour and also what kinds of behaviours there are and what any particular behaviour is as a description... Not behaving, not acting in a specific way may be seen as behaving in a specific way, even a very noticeable way (resting, pausing, posing, sleeping, day-dreaming). If someone is silent and does not "behave," we are perfectly capable of talking "oxymoronically" about silent behaviour or immobility as behaviour. - p. 9, Language and Power by Creel Froman

3. Language as a way we organise and create groups

Linguistics as my first subject matter (specialty) gave me the background to understand the power there is to language and how different groups (academic, business, political, national, family or friend circles) use language or words in particular to keep the in group apart from the out group. This gave me a great deal of sensitivity towards the use of language and what words are different in what context — and what exactly motivated the choice of words.

Your membership to the group depends on your fluency in being able to speak those words well and in understanding those words well. Fluency is based on the number of words present in the group and the ability to use it in a pragmatically suitable way. The better you are at that, the greater the sense of belonging and acceptance in the group.

Words therefore hold much power that seen by the eye 👁

Communicative cultural difference from East to West

This journey of life is a life of growth and insight. The increasing exposure to the difference in the way life is done in the West having come from an Asian context for more than 20 years of my life has shown me that self-expression in particular is much more celebrated here.

With self-expression comes many forms of art and creativity since art is about the various creative ways of expression. Below is a photo taken in an outdoor exhibition area at Tottenham Court Road station. It was a photography exhibition showing the best of London in the cultures captured in pictures.

Today, I experienced something culturally different while in London. While I was on my way home after doing some grocery shopping, a guy while driving, pulled down his window and said “beautiful” while looking at me in a rather genuine manner not to poke fun or disturb me. I looked around me immediately and back at him realising he was speaking to me. I expressed my confusion by looking at him in a puzzled manner. And he mentioned that I was beautiful at least 4 more times till I acknowledged and said thank you. And that was when he drove off. This was the first time I experienced anything like this — never in any part of Asia (especially Hong Kong and Singapore), nor in Sweden while on exchange. People in these parts of the world tended to mind their own business.

I came back to my accommodation meeting some friends telling them of this very incident. And Ionut mentioned and observed that people in London express themselves very openly. If asked how they felt, they would share and need not be taught to do so. In his own personal experience, he shared how he needed to guide a Chinese asian friend to speak more openly about how he felt. There used to be frustration but not anymore as he came to be more aware of their communicative habits. We reflected and noticed that a simple response of “good” would be received if asked how someone felt in the Asia context. And let’s not speak of openly complimenting someone in a rather reserved culture. There might even be cultural implications if done in a distasteful manner. It’s interesting… that as I observe the world around me… I’m growing! I was told that as an Asian, I am more expressive than most multiple times and was ever told that I might have been from America, associated with more open and transparent forms of expression. But the funny thing is up to now, I have never stepped in US soil. And a friend commented, “I cannot wait for you to be there and am excited to see what you think”. This discovery has been rather fun!

p.s. I spoke to another friend in London and she mentioned that she experienced something very similar. While being on her holiday in New York, a guy who had a partner came up to her to let her know that she was a beautiful lady to genuinely compliment her and left as soon as the compliment was given