Overview of my project

Hello from Yoronjima! I’m in Japan right now for my 6-week LiA, but I’m not on the mainland. I’m on a ~20km2 island called Yoron (jima means island), with a population of only 5000 people! It’s frequently visited during the summer months by the Japanese on the mainland and is not typically a destination when foreigners visit Japan, but it’s super beautiful! My project’s focus has shifted due to extenuating circumstances (I’m sorry You-Jia), but essentially, this project places an emphasis on the following SDGs:

• #4: Quality education
• #10: Reduced inequalities

My focus was originally on helping out with the greenbelt project, which is an initiative in Yoron Island with the collaboration of the Yokoyama Lab at the University of Tokyo in order to accomplish SDG goals pertaining to life on land and water. Due to circumstances, it was not feasible to do this project in the months I had come. Then, my focus shifted onto education, where I would accomplish the following:

• Main project: helping the science camp students with academic writing, presentations, and skills needed of a student researcher. I will be going back with them in Tokyo for the final presentations and help them prepare for those presentations
• Sub-project: I will be going around all 5 schools in Yoron (3 elementary, 1 junior high, and 1 high school), and for the junior high cohort, I will be doing a Pen Pal project. They will send and receive letters from students in Canada, with the goal of appreciating diversity and differences
• Sub-project: Due to the lack of extracurricular opportunities compared to students in mainland Japan, I will also be giving Model UN resources translated in Japanese and modified for the Asia Model UN circuit in order to give them more extracurricular opportunities and explore a politics-oriented extracurricular
• Sub-project: Assisting English teachers with their lessons where needed

What did I learn?

I learned that being on an island gave disadvantages to students. It’s the same concept when we think about the extent of opportunities we as students can pursue if you’re in a rural town versus in the heart of Toronto. An island is much more disadvantageous, as you can imagine, especially since it’s about 600 kilometres away from the mainland. 

Also to add, I ended up learning more about the history of Yoron, the Amami islands (where Yoron is one of five Amami islands), and Okinawa from the perspective of the Japanese. I noticed the US’ occupation of Okinawa and the Amami islands is not something covered in our history classes in the grade 10 curriculum, and as someone really passionate about anthropology, I don’t like the continued colonial narrative centered around the US when discussing Japan. Therefore, after my LiA, I plan to join organizations that advocate for curriculum changes and propose discussing the history of the island occupations as well as pedagogy studies. 

Also as an aside, I’m helping the tour guides in Yoron with proofreading their English guides for Yoron. I plan on creating my own English brochure on the history of Yoron, and I realize this LiA project expanded into so many more sub-projects, but I am super passionate about history and anthropology that I cannot help myself. 😀

What went well?

It’s the 3am thoughts that always bring creativity, and when I pitched the Model United Nations (MUN) curriculum to the students in Yoron, it was technically 3am in Toronto, haha. I’m glad, since MUN is what motivated me to join Laidlaw. I’m also working on making my MUN resources open access in English for high school clubs especially, so this is an  extension to that goal, especially considering the lack of opportunities on an island versus the mainland for students. For my project to be possible, I worked with the mayor’s daughter of Yoron, Kaori-san, an incredible lady who owns a business, to create a schedule alongside people in my primary appointment at the University of Tokyo, with Shoko-san and Yokoyama-sensei. Huge shout out to them, they are honestly so kind, open, and welcoming towards me. Especially people on the island, they all are so helpful. I don’t consider myself a rude person, but I am nowhere near as hospitable or polite as the people in Yoron. I was baffled at their politeness, and I aspire to be that polite. I think my parents will be so proud when I come back to Canada. 

The biggest thing that went well was that I found halal food in Yoron! Kaori-san introduced me to a kind lady by the name of Kozue-san, and she sold ready to eat Pakistani food. So it’s also my home country’s cuisine! She was also interested about my dietary restrictions and my religion, so I was happy that I could talk about it in Yoron.

What could have gone differently?

Ha… I can always say “in retrospect”, and it honestly makes me so sad that I didn’t do enough to prepare. My biggest regret is not learning enough Japanese before I came. My background in Japanese is learned through… watching subbed anime and self-teaching myself through YouTube videos for only 3 days. I planned to self-teach myself for 30 days so I would be able to hold conversations. However, I’ve picked up on a lot of words since I came to Japan and it’s easy for me to catch onto cultural norms and customs. I also should have learned more about cultural norms in a school setting. For example, there’s indoor shoes and outdoor shoes, which I didn’t know. In hindsight, I should have brought a new pair of indoor shoes.

I also wish I got time to make my materials earlier for the content, especially on making good academic presentations and a guide to good academic writing. I was so busy with other work that I didn’t give the time I wanted for preparing for Japan. I had my final examination for a course literally the day before I flew out, and the excitement of going to Japan didn’t hit me so much. I would love to have spent May and June making resources for my LiA.

What did I learn about myself when working with others?

I found it fascinating that I could catch onto Japanese words very quickly and by the third day I was in Yoron, I was able to make sentences using my limited vocabulary. I kept speaking into Google translate and asked stuff like “Do you have mango juice” or “What is your name?” Working with others allowed me to quickly adapt to the cultural norms there, such as the way to greet people and how to show respect. I heard that studies show women are able to quickly socially attune to a situation, and I think I did learn fairly quickly in regards to that. My biggest fear is also offending anyone.

What did I learn about leadership?

I was contemplating what to put for this, but then I came across Neha’s LiA outline and the term “quiet leadership” really resonated with me for this LiA. I think this project is definitely more about quiet leadership. I was really upset that I wasn’t making the impact I thought I would in the first week. I spent a lot of time wondering why I was here if I wasn’t doing life-changing things. I spoke to my parents too and told them I feel useless, and my imposter syndrome bubbled up big time. My parents told me to give it time and to not worry, but I couldn’t help but be on edge especially given that my LiA outline focused on the greenbelt project in Yoron originally.

One instance where my imposter syndrome really surfaced was when I had feedback about the English curriculum and how to improve childrens’ English acquisition, but I was told it was not within the scope of the island to change anything, as teachers were just following the curriculum the government set into place.

I realized that leadership does not always involve making big changes, and that sometimes parts of leadership involve observation. I’ve been doing a lot of observing to see how the academic writing style of Japanese is different from that of English. Part of this project is in a way an implementation of citation and pedagogical research I did with another professor. One question that professor and I always had was if the standard of academic writing was different across cultures, and if so, how could we mitigate that? Thus, I think this week was really just absorbing and taking time to understand how I can adapt my material into the cultural context. 

I truly believe that this is the first time I’ve experienced quiet leadership. All other leadership opportunities I can think of involved me bringing a noticeable, measurable, and unopposed change. But here, I need to adapt to the Japanese education system. I think this LiA is inspiring me to take on opportunities where education reform is central. This LiA is going to have implications and action items from me longer than six weeks, with my goal of deconstructing colonial narratives in our grade 10 history education on the topic of WWII and the Japanese, as well as the Pen Pal project where I’ll be reaching out to a school in Canada upon my return to do the letter exchange to celebrate cultural differences. I won’t be doing more with the Model UN content I plan to give to schools as an extracurricular, but I am working on a project to make my Model UN material open access, so I guess the Model UN subproject within this LiA is an extension of that. 😀

One thing I like about my project is that it is not only giving to the Yoron community, but Yoron has a lot to offer in terms of educational insights. One thing in particular that is really fascinating is the emphasis on being communal in Japanese school systems. But in this context, I'm specifically referring to the rich untaught history of the islands that is not known to the West.

In summary, leadership is also a long journey and can be quiet, too. It doesn’t end after the 6-week LiA period, at least for me. I will be able to accomplish tangible goals in the 6 weeks, but it will open opportunities to take the project further in Canada.

What do I want to develop or focus on next?

My goals for next week are:

• Finish up my research on the different academic writing practices between Japanese and English
• Give the first science camp presentation on reporting verbs and frameworks on how to engage with scholarly sources → I may need to give a more preliminary introduction, since I don’t believe writing studies is taught in depth in Japan
• The junior high school wants me to give an introduction to Islam and Halal (they were very curious about my dietary restrictions, haha) and I’m so honoured I’m able to teach about my faith to them, so I will be tailoring that presentation to the home economics class
• I need to give a tour guide (Ucchee-san) feedback on the English Yoron brochure - she is also the person who taught me about the history of the US occupation on Okinawa and the Amami islands alongside Shoko-san
• Continue helping the English teachers with their English classes and propose any content that can be incorporated for academic writing (high school students)
• Discuss the Pen Pal project and getting permission from the parents with the English teachers at Yoron Junior High

I also want to be sure I’m imparting knowledge and not just passively assisting the teachers. When I write down what I’m doing for the LiA and knowing that my LiA initiatives will continue beyond the 6 weeks, I feel content with what I believe I will accomplish, but I feel like I didn’t do enough in the first week. Maybe it’s the imposter syndrome in me, but I want to make sure I make a positive impact on the education and knowledge I give during my stay in Yoron. My biggest regret would be if I didn’t accomplish my goals, so I will do my best!

My other LiA reflections will not be this long, I promise haha.