This weekly log reflects my week from July 10-17. It was a very interesting week and I have a feeling my Experience Abroad/LiA reflection will be very lengthy, to say the very least. From hospitals to typhoons, this has definitely been a memorable trip hahaha.

I also had a meeting with You-Jia this week and got really great advice on how to follow through with the concept of less is more. Also I’m really sad she’s no longer with us in Laidlaw, but it’s okay because we’ll all meet up with her and tell her our crazy stories abroad. Anyway, I hadn’t laughed that hard in a meeting before so it’s been this week’s highlight!

What went well?

This week, the Yoron Junior High School students finished their Pen Pal projects officially, and I got the whole bag of letters, which are in my suitcase. I was really happy to see them all complete, and as an extra, the students attached their project on Japanese pop culture to share with their Pen Pals. I also got copies of their pop culture assignments, so when I do the pen pal exchange with the students in Canada, I will display all the assignments on a board so the students can read through them.

The science camp lectures have also been going well. I've conducted 2/4 of them, and it got featured in the Yoron newspaper thanks to Kaori-san, who coordinated my stay! If anyone is interested, you can read it here.

So far, the science camp was tailored towards how to present the background of research. I went over frameworks from research papers, and honestly, I was so terrified that it would fly over their heads. But the Science Camp students are really bright and thanks to Tanaka-sensei for translating as well as PowerPoint’s translation features, the sessions have been going great. Presenting, reading, writing, and citing research was the theme of the first half of the workshop series, and now it's going to move into the technical stuff like graphs, diagrams, and the actual presentation skills.

Furthermore, Yoron High School asked me to give a presentation on my dietary restrictions, so that was a fun workshop with the 1st graders (grade 10 students)! We did an activity where there were eight items on the menu and the situation was that the restaurant did not sell certified-halal food and they had to read the description of the dish and determine if it was halal or haram. They had a lot of questions and were really non-judgmental and asked me how I was surviving in Yoron without halal meat hahaha. I definitely have appreciated vegetarians so much with this experience. The teachers also told me they learned a lot about Islam and eating halal, so I was so honoured to hear that.

I also did a collaboration with someone on my birthday to give some pre-school children an English lesson. They so graciously surprised me with a cake there and I spent a lot of time with the children.

What could have gone differently?

I made such a huge mistake in the second workshop of the Science Camp. Basically I created an activity asking students to identify which citation functions were being used in a given passage. I put the answer key of the first eight examples in the exact same order as the citation functions introduced to them. I was so embarrassed because the vice-principal also participated in the activity and he looked so confused, and now I understand why he looked so confused. I’m laughing so hard and getting second-hand embarrassment as I am typing this. But the main point is that I’m not sure if the students fully understood citation functions because they just knew the answers were 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 after doing the first 2-3 examples. I’ll never forget that oversight on my end.

I also wish I was able to do the jeopardy activities for the English classes faster, because I spent too much time having the kids come up with team names. Honestly, one team was glazing me a lot, to the point they named their team We ♡ Aisha, and I think the whole class was too caught up in the chaos to fully finish the game. I wish we finished the game because there were some really good reading comprehension questions that would have helped with their English.

Also, I need to learn to print more copies of things. I thought I was giving my lecture on eating halal to like 20 students but there were like 50 people in the room, so there were like groups of 8 for the activity. And in retrospect, I should have spoken wayyyyy slower because there was still a lot of time for the students to write their reflections and I was asked to go slower on one occasion. So if students weren't reading the translation, a lot of questions they had were things I verbally said but weren't on the slide.

Lastly, my biggest regret is not giving all the kids proper goodbyes. I was really inconsistent with who I could say goodbye to because a lot of plans this week spontaneously changed.

What did I learn about myself working with others?

I don’t think I gave this quality much thought, but when I genuinely do care about the work I do, my passion is really conveyed the best when I’m with others. This transcends barriers like language and cultural differences. But I think the most fascinating thing about this trait that I recognized is that it makes for smoother collaboration, I suppose. This was probably my busiest but most fun week, and I realized that sometimes that flow of passion bouncing off between people really makes for productivity. I’m enamored by the work culture and how dedicated the teachers are to do club activities after school every single day. It made me want to show that much more dedication to the students I was teaching.

Also, in order to work with special needs students, I was surprised to find that all it took to get them to pay attention was gamifying the experience - which I realize I can do pretty well. I was in a class with only 3 students, but got two of them to finish their assignments. For this class, the teacher to student ratio was 1:1 and the teachers had a bit of trouble getting them to pay attention, but once the students told me they liked ROBLOX, I hopped on the bandwagon (because yes, this old lady plays it), and lo and behold, their introductory English assignments were finished. 

What did I learn about leadership?

I don’t think I really understood what leading with love meant until I took on this opportunity. I was on the verge of tears when saying goodbye to the elementary school students, and I had only seen them like 4-5 times in total. I think leadership is best cultivated with love, whether that love be for the goal, the people, and the future. Thinking about all these aspects makes leading with love all the more important. Pouring our soul into leadership can ensure that our intentions are good for the community we work with, and to me, I think this is the most important trait of leadership after weeks of doing the LiA. Well, hindsight’s 20/20 and there may be a chance I find some other quality even more important, but after experiencing how hard saying goodbye to most of the students was (because next week their summer vacation begins), I knew I had finally realized what leading with love means.

What do I want to develop or focus on next?

My last sub-project is the Model UN project, which I definitely want to focus on alongside finishing up the science camp modules. I think I want to tap into the fast competency of leadership, seeing that there’s only a week left and so much left to do for the students’ Science Camp presentations as well as curating the Model UN resources.

I’m writing this after week 4, but if only I knew the chaos that would occur in the next week. 😉