Multicultural Teaching Experience - Reflection

Teaching away from my home country of the United States, in both Manila and now Hong Kong, I have had the privilege of learning and growing as an educator in multicultural environments. Starting in Manila, Philippines I taught at an international school with largely Korea and North American students, with about 10% of the student body being Filipino. It was here that I learned of the struggle of many of the Korean students that always heard teachers tell them to “stop speaking Korean,” and while it was an English speaking school, and even with pressure from the Korean parents to enforce this rule so that their children became more fluent in English, the pressure felt from student was that they were being unfairly treated. In much discussion with students, I discovered that a more polite and constructive approach to helping students in this way was to say “please speak English,” instead of the negative phrase of “stop speaking Korean.” This in turn helped in a variety of ways as it helped me build better relationships with the students and gave me a platform to ask them how to say certain Korean words or phrases. The variety of cultural activities and days at the school allowed for greater awareness of different cultures such as an entire week devoted to Filipino culture as well as an immersion program the Korean counselors and families hosted in the summer where for one week teachers could take a tour in Seoul to learn the history and better understand the background of the Korean students, which made up nearly half the student population at that time. It was in this immersion program after my first year of teaching that I discovered a love for understanding and appreciating culture. Learning about the history of the Korean people, the wars and struggles helped me better grasp many of their cultural norms and practices. It was in this that I even began to informally take Korean language classes and read several books on Korean culture, as well as me starting a Korean lunch group once a week with about 7 guys where I would get to know them and every now and again even go out to do events on the weekends. These opportunities of learning as well as practically applying and getting to know the students on a deeper level and showing a desire to embrace their culture had an enormous impact in my classroom and with the respect of the students which proved invaluable at the time and even into the future. Older brothers or sisters would tell their younger siblings or friends about me, offering credibility that helped create openness and respect for me, thus allowing a great classroom environment and culture for students to learn.

After 4 years of teaching in Manila, and ironically learning more about Korean students than Filipino students, I moved to teach in Hong Kong at a school primarily of ethnically Hong Kong Chinese students. And while I’ve been here the last 4 years, my growth in understanding of Chinese culture has not been as easy as was with me learning about Korean culture. The school often assumes that teachers know or should know about the cultural differences of students don’t design immersion programs or even PD sessions on culture. While there are many similar East Asian characteristics that I picked up from Korean students such as a preference to lecture based style teaching, limited questions from students, and not a lot of friendly or interpersonal and open conversations, there was still a much different angle to it in Hong Kong. One of the reasons this factor may stand out is the wealth different in the students in Hong Kong as compared to the Philippines. It is here that I also think that some PD could occur in better understanding socio-economic factors as it relates to high demands and expectations of students. Here in Hong Kong I have seen kids go from school to extra tutoring to even taking additional classes on the weekends to earn other certifications in hopes to get scholarships to best universities in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia. And while I’ve been here I have picked up on these cultural pressures from parents and the greater cultural in general, I still don’t have a grasp as clearly as I did before. Possibly this is because the lack of intentionality on my part and maybe partly because Hong Kong often as a high degree of Western qualities as it relates to international business. Because of this lack of intentionality in my school as well as in myself, I enrolled into this masters of education with a globalization focus so as to challenge myself in this area, as well as to help use what I learned to influence my school on this issue of greater cultural competency among the majority western teachers working with our culturally Chinese students. It is my hope that through my experience as well as my research that I can start creating more frequent PD session in our school directly related to culture so as to better understand our students, their families, our community and have an overall greater impact on student learning.