I’ve been someone who’s journaled for most of my life. However, it never occurred to me to blog until it was suggested to me by a friend.
I leave for Thailand in less than a week to teach high school English and do research on the effectiveness of critical education. My hopes for my time in Thailand encompass those goals but much more. I hope to learn about the language, culture, history and people of this land to which I’ve never been. I hope also to identify themes and lessons that are indicative of Asian trends as a whole that can teach us some lessons in America. Thailand is an ancient and beautiful country that is, at its base, starkly different from America. However, at its base, these two countries face similar questions. How do we educate our children for the “flat” world as Friedman would call it or the “Post-American” world in the parlance of Zakaria? What bodies of knowledge must students assimilate? How do we make students into the critical thinkers who can apply those bodies of knowledge intelligently to the world? These questions hold seismic implications that will be felt from Brooklyn to Bangkok in this new century. In concert with others, I hope to put my hand to the challenge of answering them.
My reflections will be personal and professional, humorous and somber, global and local. My writings will be about my colleagues, Fulbright and otherwise. My posts will hopefully, most of all, chronicle my kids and my relationship with them. I hope that what I learn from this time in Thailand as a Fulbrighter can make me of more use to my community and my country when I come back. To that end and that hope, I’ll be posting frequently and I ask you to please leave comments, questions, and reflections. The only way that I am going to be able to digest and make sense of all that I am about to see is with the great minds of others.
Chike
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Chronicle of A Fulbright Scholar's Stay in Thailand.
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About Me
- Chike Aguh
- I was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Nigeria. I graduated Tufts University and graduated with a degree in Political Science. After graduation, I worked in the New York City Department of Education as a New York City Urban Fellow. I worked on alternative high school environments for underprivileged students. Since 2006, I have been teaching 2nd grade at Excellence Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the only all boys elementary charter school in New York City. This fall, I will be teaching English to high school seniors in Thailand as well as doing research there as a Fulbright scholar. When I get back, I will enter Master's degree programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. I hope to study globalization and how its benefits and burdens can be equally shared domestically and internationally.
4 comments:
Chike,
This blog is so adorably you. And, yes, I reduced your blog to "adorable." But c'mon, the autobiographical information written in the third person and the incongruity of a personal blog and the professional about me? And the links to various institutions with which you've been affiliated? What other word am I left with, but "adorable?"
In any case, I have an article for you to keep in mind as you try to identify themes from Asian culture "as a whole" in relation to American culture:
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0307klosterman?click=main_sr
Yes, you'll have just spent six months in Thailand, but you won't know what it's like at all.
kap kun ka!
I take the word adorable as a compliment, thanks for the point about the bio. I set the blog up in a hurry and cut and paste the bio from the CEN website. Personalizing as we speak. Thanks for the comment.
-Chike
keep writing brotha, I look forward to visiting you soon.
Chike...that was such...a thoughtful post. Not at all what I expected. And here I thought you weren't going to blog your experiences at all! Glad you decided to go with it anyway. I'm looking forward to your blog post about 2mths in, actually, when the "nice" phase wears off.
Happy flying!
~chris
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