About Charlene Wong:
Email:
[email protected]
Education:
University of British Columbia BA in Anthropology
University of Calgary BEd in Elementary Fine Arts
Biography:
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I identify as a first generation Chinese-Canadian citizen. My true love is insight and mindsight, the wisdom and art of living. I believe there is no greater journey than that of learning to live harmoniously with and understand others, of realizing how interconnected we are to each other and to the planet. The diversity abundant in every domain, from mathematics and sciences to the humanities, offers an infinite number of paths toward cultivating inquiry, skills, knowledge, reflection, relationships and resilience.
You can read more about my curiosity and celebration of diversity in the following paper:
[email protected]
Education:
University of British Columbia BA in Anthropology
University of Calgary BEd in Elementary Fine Arts
Biography:
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I identify as a first generation Chinese-Canadian citizen. My true love is insight and mindsight, the wisdom and art of living. I believe there is no greater journey than that of learning to live harmoniously with and understand others, of realizing how interconnected we are to each other and to the planet. The diversity abundant in every domain, from mathematics and sciences to the humanities, offers an infinite number of paths toward cultivating inquiry, skills, knowledge, reflection, relationships and resilience.
You can read more about my curiosity and celebration of diversity in the following paper:
wong_educ407-diversity.pdf | |
File Size: | 45 kb |
File Type: |
Teaching Philosophy
It takes a community to raise a child, and teachers have always been at the heart of keeping our evolving society, our future generation, healthy and sustainable, strongly rooted in the past and ready to branch into the unknown.
I want to teach because engaging in a dialogue centered on learning with a community that strives to promote the best in every person, expanding what is possible in every learner, is what brings me the greatest joy. For me, the best job in the world would be to help others choose words that create better worlds: shifting the perception of learning from a performance-based framework and narrative of good versus bad job to a process-oriented framework or narrative of dynamic change and growth.
When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, it set my family on a journey to use all our resources to find support to cope with and transcend the illness. It is our habits of mind that can create a detrimental lifestyle of chronic fear, anxiety and worry, of poor sleep, nutrition and exercise. If she, in her fifties, could change dramatically to live for the better, then any child can too. I strongly believe people choose their fate, their destinies, by their habits of thought, of word, of action and character. Once you realize the truth in that proverb, you can begin personal transformation at the root: the world you create with your mind. Peter Johnston summaries this beautifully in his book, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives.
I want to teach because engaging in a dialogue centered on learning with a community that strives to promote the best in every person, expanding what is possible in every learner, is what brings me the greatest joy. For me, the best job in the world would be to help others choose words that create better worlds: shifting the perception of learning from a performance-based framework and narrative of good versus bad job to a process-oriented framework or narrative of dynamic change and growth.
When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, it set my family on a journey to use all our resources to find support to cope with and transcend the illness. It is our habits of mind that can create a detrimental lifestyle of chronic fear, anxiety and worry, of poor sleep, nutrition and exercise. If she, in her fifties, could change dramatically to live for the better, then any child can too. I strongly believe people choose their fate, their destinies, by their habits of thought, of word, of action and character. Once you realize the truth in that proverb, you can begin personal transformation at the root: the world you create with your mind. Peter Johnston summaries this beautifully in his book, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives.
This applies to the classroom culture I aspire to design. Teachers tend to seedlings for a brighter or darker future. They set the stage, choosing the amount of sunlight and shade, the quality of water, soil and air; they foster an atmosphere where learning and growth shrivels or grows; they choose to neglect or to cultivate. Ignorance is enemy to all. Teachers must make failing liveable, because learning is in standing up after falling down. I find myself in agreement with Dr. Daniel Siegel with the three "R"s that education must value if they are to truly succeed:
Relationships: If I am going to spend most of my day, five times a week, for nine months of the year with the same group of people, my life will be much happier when I have good relationships with each person in my community, so my mind is free from worry and anxiety, leaving me feeling safe enough to take the necessary risks for learning. When social imagination and emotional intelligence are valued in a school setting, it fosters a community of better focused, moral, self-regulated learners.
Reflection: Learning is reflection, the "Ah, I haven't thought of that before," and "I changed my mind and think differently now." Students who reflect more can connect what they are learning to past experience and gain a deeper understanding of concepts than students who simply recall what an adult has told them. The process and habit of listening in on one's inner voice, testing what has been taught, questioning if the concept applies in various contexts and using that new knowledge in practice makes it their own.
Resilience: Virtues such as patience, perseverance, dedication, courage, internal motivation, among many more help students stay with a challenge and obstacle even when it first appears insurmountable. Problems may surface at home, at school or elsewhere in life and students need the necessary coping mechanisms to function and overcome these experiences, from initial trauma and stress to development and growth. I want students to survive and thrive.
In addition to these three "R"s that set the foundation for students to feel psychologically and physically safe and secure, then we can focus on:
Literacy: This is a series of skills that makes knowledge from the past more readily accessible. Reading is to listening as writing is to talking. Writing is debated to have arisen somewhere between 5000-8000 years ago, so all those recordings, thoughts and discoveries are available to us from our ancestors if we learn how to decipher and understand the code. Reading is listening to the past so we can stand on the shoulder of giants, engage in a dialogue with a community in which some members have long since left the earth. Being able to write well and type well allows for communication at a distance and for storing thoughts, ideas and stories you value. To write with clarity helps to make one better understood by aiding the reader via common conventions, so you can pass what you know and understand to someone else. In our digital age, visual and media literacy is also increasingly important in order to understand and critically determine that what you see isn't necessarily real and evaluate what is really worth your attention in a sea of advertisements that demand your time and energy, pushing for a reaction.
Numeracy: These skills come from the earliest branch of mathematics, arithmetic, that aids day-to-day living, so that people can express quantities and sums to one another. Counting and calculating using operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are the foundation for all kinds of construction, inventions, science and business, particularly the basic business of making a living, buying groceries and meeting other basic needs. Later, we learn how to estimate and understand the patterns unique to a variety of dynamic processes, both mechanical and organic, from physical to social! If you can understand patterns and sequences, you can generate probabilities and statistics, which are essential for reasoning, problem solving and decision making.
This is my philosophy.
The teacher gives his or her students full attention, acknowledging their existence as unique human beings yet also recognizes the class as a learning-collective and acts accordingly as a role model—the teacher embodies lifelong learning. Ensuring a respectful, trusting, honest and open relationship via pedagogical tact, balanced authority and the element of nurturing-care establishes the atmosphere of a positive environment in which meaningful learning can take root and flourish. The teacher improvises, differentiating instruction with utmost patience, firmness and flexibility, using eye contact, tone of speech, silence and gesture to convey to every student that they can make mistakes with their dignity in tact. That you are still a worthy human being no matter how terrible your choices and the consequences thereof. That at any moment, you can make a better choice for change.
Relationships: If I am going to spend most of my day, five times a week, for nine months of the year with the same group of people, my life will be much happier when I have good relationships with each person in my community, so my mind is free from worry and anxiety, leaving me feeling safe enough to take the necessary risks for learning. When social imagination and emotional intelligence are valued in a school setting, it fosters a community of better focused, moral, self-regulated learners.
Reflection: Learning is reflection, the "Ah, I haven't thought of that before," and "I changed my mind and think differently now." Students who reflect more can connect what they are learning to past experience and gain a deeper understanding of concepts than students who simply recall what an adult has told them. The process and habit of listening in on one's inner voice, testing what has been taught, questioning if the concept applies in various contexts and using that new knowledge in practice makes it their own.
Resilience: Virtues such as patience, perseverance, dedication, courage, internal motivation, among many more help students stay with a challenge and obstacle even when it first appears insurmountable. Problems may surface at home, at school or elsewhere in life and students need the necessary coping mechanisms to function and overcome these experiences, from initial trauma and stress to development and growth. I want students to survive and thrive.
In addition to these three "R"s that set the foundation for students to feel psychologically and physically safe and secure, then we can focus on:
Literacy: This is a series of skills that makes knowledge from the past more readily accessible. Reading is to listening as writing is to talking. Writing is debated to have arisen somewhere between 5000-8000 years ago, so all those recordings, thoughts and discoveries are available to us from our ancestors if we learn how to decipher and understand the code. Reading is listening to the past so we can stand on the shoulder of giants, engage in a dialogue with a community in which some members have long since left the earth. Being able to write well and type well allows for communication at a distance and for storing thoughts, ideas and stories you value. To write with clarity helps to make one better understood by aiding the reader via common conventions, so you can pass what you know and understand to someone else. In our digital age, visual and media literacy is also increasingly important in order to understand and critically determine that what you see isn't necessarily real and evaluate what is really worth your attention in a sea of advertisements that demand your time and energy, pushing for a reaction.
Numeracy: These skills come from the earliest branch of mathematics, arithmetic, that aids day-to-day living, so that people can express quantities and sums to one another. Counting and calculating using operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are the foundation for all kinds of construction, inventions, science and business, particularly the basic business of making a living, buying groceries and meeting other basic needs. Later, we learn how to estimate and understand the patterns unique to a variety of dynamic processes, both mechanical and organic, from physical to social! If you can understand patterns and sequences, you can generate probabilities and statistics, which are essential for reasoning, problem solving and decision making.
This is my philosophy.
The teacher gives his or her students full attention, acknowledging their existence as unique human beings yet also recognizes the class as a learning-collective and acts accordingly as a role model—the teacher embodies lifelong learning. Ensuring a respectful, trusting, honest and open relationship via pedagogical tact, balanced authority and the element of nurturing-care establishes the atmosphere of a positive environment in which meaningful learning can take root and flourish. The teacher improvises, differentiating instruction with utmost patience, firmness and flexibility, using eye contact, tone of speech, silence and gesture to convey to every student that they can make mistakes with their dignity in tact. That you are still a worthy human being no matter how terrible your choices and the consequences thereof. That at any moment, you can make a better choice for change.
I want to teach because it inspires me to be my best self
and so others can be inspired to be their best selves too.
Favourite Quotes:
- "To teach is to learn again," by Oliver Wendall Holmes. This is reminiscent of the moral, "Do good things, don't do bad things; a three-year-old may know but even an eighty-year-old will find it difficult to practice," from the tale of Bai Juyu and Bird's Nest Monk: http://history.cultural-china.com/en/59H213H11542.html
- "You can forget facts, but you can't forget understanding," by Eric Mazur (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYrKPoVFwg). Another way to put this is "to know is not enough," because remembering facts does not guarantee comprehension thereof.
- “A stupid idea will occur once in a thousand thoughts of a smart man and a smart idea will occur once in a thousand thoughts of a stupid man.” - Chinese proverb. No matter how stupid someone appears to be, sometimes they have a smart moment. Forgive stupidity. You can not "make" a stupid person smarter but you can be smarter about dealing with other people when they are not at their brightest. Stupidity is relative. It depends largely on when and where you are in life and in the world. Another way to put this is: “to err is human, to forgive divine.” No matter how smart you think you are, you will make stupid mistakes. Forgive yourself.
Professional Development
October 2011 26th Teaching to Strengths Through Multiple Intelligences
November 2011 16th Respecting All Faiths in Alberta Schools
23rd Creativity Works – Engaging Creative Teaching and Learning
30th Classroom Management – What Works
January 2012 11th Student Portfolios – Beyond the Scrapbook
February 2012 8th Opening Pandora’s Box – Addressing Controversial Issues in Schools
29th Learning Disabilities in the Inclusive Classroom
March 2012 7th Winning Strategies for Struggling Students
November 2011 16th Respecting All Faiths in Alberta Schools
23rd Creativity Works – Engaging Creative Teaching and Learning
30th Classroom Management – What Works
January 2012 11th Student Portfolios – Beyond the Scrapbook
February 2012 8th Opening Pandora’s Box – Addressing Controversial Issues in Schools
29th Learning Disabilities in the Inclusive Classroom
March 2012 7th Winning Strategies for Struggling Students
Specialization:
Though Fine Arts was not my major in my first Bachelor's degree, I have been a practicing artist in my own time. Studying anthropology was a springboard for my art and writing as it opened my mind to the diversity of different ways of being that the human imagination can create. This deep appreciation of different ways of being and learning extends to how I approach any subject from mathematics and science to English language arts and social studies to music and physical education, health and wellness. Yet, teaching art or teaching through art is of particular interest to me. I believe anyone is capable of drawing when their minds are open to learning a new way to see. Below is a sample of my visual work: