Through the Looking-glass

Last week we had a wonderful time with the jeweler's loupes that our Professor Kathryn had brought to class. First, we used the loupes to stretch our sight, then our brains, working both our left and right brains.   With 5X magnifying view, something that is insignificant or ordinary becomes extraordinary. We normally do not look closely at things around us. When our vision is magnified, everything looks different and we can be surprised by what lies beneath the surface.

After examining our hands through the loupes, we used analogy to describe our hands. We came up with amazing observations and analogies, for instance, passage of time, regeneration of cells, journey of our lives, skin of oranges, cosmos, water going down the drain and even snakes! We went on to examine more items. I picked up a cedar twig and started to examine it. It looked like braided hair, railway, lizard skin, needles, and tapestry. Next, we added scientific explanation. Finally, we would combine the creative and scientific writing to form a macro picture of the object. With this method, I find that my scope of thinking, which tends to be more linear,  becomes wider and I can think more creatively.

Now, the following are my analogies of ‘curriculum’:

Like travel guide book – it provides the necessary information for the development of students and new adventure will open up for them.

Like a recipe – students have to follow the instructions by using the materials provided, consequently, they will enjoy the delicious dish that they have prepared.

Like a buffet – students have a taste of a variety of foods and to discover new taste.

Like fertilizer – if students are like trees, fertilizer or curriculum nurtures them to become more developed.

What do you think?

Best wishes to everyone who is celebrating the Lunar New Year this Friday, 31 January 2014. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

New Year, New Focus

For the new year, I decided to better prepare myself for my graduate studies by buying my books on the first day of the semester. Those books were really thick! I was feeling excited and nervous when I scanned through those books. Excited because curriculum studies is essential in helping me to become an effective educator. Feeling nervous as for this semester the focus will be in narrative writing which I am not  skilful at all. Well, that is exactly what education is about… to learn and cultivate new skill, right? So I am going to be open minded and go with the flow of things.

                                 

After reading Susan K. MacRae’s To be Human with Other Humans, it let me see how important narrative writing can be.  It provides us a chance to observe the people affected not only in physical or medical analysis but something deeper or even spiritual. Susan’s mentioned of “Don’t let them get to you” is also the suggestion I received from my senior mentor. All of the learners that participate at our organization come from different age group and background, therefore of course, everyone will have different problems and difficulties. In order to simplify my duties as a teacher, I was told to be objective and not to be affected by their personal problems. However, I soon realize that is not matching to my objective, which is to let everyone learn and practise spirituality in order to achieve overall wellbeing. If I do not guide  them into putting the skills into practise to overcome their problems,  then they may not know what they should do and thus will not have any results, which I will consider a failure on my part. Sometimes I have to get more information about their problems, with their permission, and find ways to help them improve the situations.

 Our first class discussion was about the definition of curriculum. I would think that I have the answer but after our discussion, I became uncertain of my definition.  As I gathered from some of the reading, curriculum is the learning experiences through the contents which is purposefully set up to achieve specific objectives. Curriculum is the tool to help students to learn and develop skills, values, thoughts or behaviour. If one lacks a clear sense of the purpose of education, then one is deprived of an essential means of specifying what the curriculum should contain¹. The word originates from the Latin word currere referring to the oval track upon which Roman chariots raced². I would imagine that the process of aquiring an education is like running the track, the horse would represent the student, driven by a charioteer/teacher. Since it is in a race, there must be pressure for the charioteer to direct the horse to arrive at the finish line in the shortest time possible. This is similar to our present day education as it is a race to finish according to the contend as instructed within a time frame, while the teacher has to guide and help the students to complete the race.

 I have been teaching spirituality for more than 10 years. I find that teaching from the materials provided is not enough. I realize that giving the learners the knowledge is useless unless they put this knowledge into practise. In order for that to happen, they must be motivated into taking actions to make changes in their daily lives. For instance, I have explained clearly the benefits of a vegetarian diet, but none of the learners will enjoy the benefits unless they make changes in their eating habits. So, the knowledge does not mean getting any results unless there is action taken to apply the knowledge.

After moving to Canada, teaching here has become more of sharing as the learners love to interact with each other. This is challenging to me at first as it is difficult to predict what course the discussion will take us. However I find that with this lively exchanges, we have built a closer relationship. Also I have learnt to lower my ego, since I have to be prepared to share my weaknesses and limitations. After all, Elbert Hubbard said “the teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons and the true teacher is the learner.”

 I have described that curriculum as a non-living thing and it is the teacher to make the knowledge alive to inspire the learners to understand, explore, and adopt the knowledge into their lives. Moreover in teaching spirituality,  it is almost impossible to deliver good teaching without experiencing it yourself first hand. Spiritual knowledge cannot be achieved only from books but a great deal of study and personal self-development into our inner self. It requires time to develop true wisdom and a grounded, authentic spirituality.  After we develop it in ourselves, we then can make great progress in teaching spirituality.

 

Reference

Egan, K. (2003). What Is Curriculum? Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, page 6.

John Arul Phillips (2008) Fundamentals of Curriculum, Instruction and Research in Education,  page 4.

Susan K. MacRae    To be Human with Other Humans    A Caregiver’s Narrative

Design Thinking Paradigm

For this week’s assignment, we have to review an article and analyze it by using the Design Thinking paradigm. I decided to use this article “Healing from Within: Spirituality and Mental Health”. It is very appropriate for me as I have always been fascinated by the effect of spirituality on our physical wellbeing and will be the topic for my final paper.

The author explores how an awareness of spirituality can be helpful in the work of the professional staff and care workers of the health industry. The benefits from spirituality includes help to prevent many physical and mental illnesses, reduce the severity of symptoms, enhance recovery and increase the endurance factor. He mentions that spiritual awareness can add a powerful and much-needed dimension whenever we have reached our limits. The spiritual approach fosters a positive attitude even in the most agonizing situations. It fosters calm in the place of anxiety and hope in the place of despair.

The article states clearly the need to include spiritual support to provide a more comprehensive care for the patients. The author describes that grief, bewilderment, fear, guilt, anger and other painful feelings can gradually be overcome or healed by spirituality. When one of my friends was suffering from pancreatic cancer, his family and close friends experienced all these strong and negative emotions. The pain was excruciating to him and we could only watch helplessly. Spirituality provided some comfort and was the bond that kept us in solidarity to be there to show our love. I have discovered more studies regarding spirituality and health, as well as interesting videos from UCSF’s Mini Medical School for the Public by Dr Kevin Barrows and Dr Michael Rabow.

The author explains that spiritual assessment of the patient should be included in order to understand his spirituality state. The article consists of clear guidelines, including the opening questions to start the discussion. The author explains that the staff will have to be trained to provide spiritual support. He encourages to recruit further assistance from patient’s family or friends to provide more information and support. It is also necessary to provide the space for this form of interaction with the involvement from local religious communities.

The article does not show any supporting evidence but states that further qualitative and quantitative research need to be done. It concludes that since the most important matter is the wellbeing of patients, so spiritual care must be incorporated.

The spiritual care needs to be genuine that comes from the giver’s heart. This will require the giver to feel love and compassion first. The giver must possess virtue or good character in order to be able to develop such feelings. The decision to hire professional staff will become more complicating as now their characters will be taken into account.

I like how the author explains the reciprocity principle of spiritual care, whereby giver and receiver both benefit from their interaction. The professional staff and carers are often stressed, suffering from high marital breakdown, drug dependency, alcoholism, depression and suicide. Subsequently the learning of spirituality will benefit themselves while developing the skill to provide spiritual care for the patients.

This article is very helpful for writing my final paper since I will be writing about the effects of spirituality on health. It has shown me that spirituality can even work in negative ways that may disrupt the treatment of the patient, for instance the practise of fasting and refusing medication. This is another aspect that I have not considered before. This gets me thinking, will there be more positive and negative effects of spirituality on our wellbeing? What do you think?


Wish you all happiness and health till next post!
 

Bibliography
Dr. Larry Culliford (2005). Healing from Within: Spirituality and Mental Health. Retrieved November 20, 2013, from http://www.miepvideos.org/Healing%20From%20within.pdf

 

The Mane Event

When I said that this course is so much fun, last Saturday outing to the Mane Event certainly top it off. This was my first experience to watch a live show with animals. Everything was fresh and interesting. I wasn’t expecting the smell and I was holding my breath at first. But how long could one do that! Before long  I gave up and was taking small breaths and soon found that  my nose was no longer sensitive. I am really grateful to our incredible ability to adapt so quickly. Believe it or not, I could even eat my lunch during the break.

The event we went to was the Trainers Challenge whereby we watched 3 trainers put their skill to work to show the public their abilities and methods of training an unbroke colt, teaching their colt to turn, gallop, walk backwards, stop and saddled. The training usually is done 30 to 60 days or more but now the trainers will have 1 hour for 3 consecutive days. The 3 trainers of the day were Paul Clarkson from Australia, Kerry Kuhn from Kansas and Cayley Wilson from British Columbia.

It is always a good idea to have some fun even while training.  For instance Kerry was having fun by startling the colt which later played that trick on him. The colt looked so comical with his position of flight or fight stance.  It was so funny thinking even animals want to have fun. I have seen online that owners are buying toys such as big balls for their horses to keep them entertained. This reminded me very much of our HEAL class.

Cayley used 2 long ropes to guide the colt to the right or left. It seemed to be easier on the horse as the ropes were kept loose and guiding the horse gently to each side. I reflected that this is the way how we teach our children, kind of giving them the space to learn on their own, keeping a loose rein on them.

According to Erich Fromm, productive love always includes care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. In this sense, Cayley showed true love for his horse because he listened to the horse. Cayley showed the colt respect by letting it chose to continue with the training or not, calling it ‘Buddy’ and working on the side that the horse was more comfortable with so to build its confidence. He did not force the horse to complete the task, giving it time to get comfortable. His approach is similar to the system we used at our non-profit organisation. We encourage members to contribute according to their strengths or availability of resources. After they become more confident and comfortable, then they will be encouraged to explore new activities.

Even though the training was done without verbal communication, I could see the connection between the horse and its trainer, especially for Kerry and Cayley whereby the horses followed them wherever they went. It is said that horses need leaders so they obviously accepted their trainers as their leaders. Whereas for Paul, the Australian trainer, seemed to assume superior status from the beginning. His horse did not show interest or became friendly with him. It was probably just going through the motion since it was kept in the pen, it had nowhere to run and hide.

The connection between human and animals requires time, encouragement and guidance. The trainers would pat or rub the horses to praise, assure or calm them. We, humans, have come to see that even animals have feelings like happiness, love, sadness, anger and fear. Now, we are loving these animals like friends, companions and part of our family. This is also part of my teaching that animals are living beings with feelings and intelligence, so we should not slaughter or hurt them. Hence my family and I have been vegetarians for past 18 years to avoid causing suffering to all living beings.

I am thankful to Dr Smith and SFU for organising this event. I enjoyed it immensely, learning more about Canadian culture and the spirit of the Wild West.

Outside of my comfort zone

I have been outside of my comfort zone ever since I started HEAL. Going back to school, doing all the reading and writing are not ordinary things I do for the past 20 years. I need time to get into the rhythm of things to do each day. I have to be mindful of the time to be as productive as possible. I have to split up my day for family, personal and spiritual matter. At the end of the day, I would reflect and be thankful to be doing something for myself. No longer I am only doing things for my family, friends or colleagues. I am on my journey of self-discovery! This feeling of satisfaction is definitely worth all the uneasy feeling or stress for stepping out of my comfort zone.

I am expecting heavy load of work from this course and knowing myself, I sense my body may not be able to keep up with the pressure. At the same time, being in the HEAL program, I want to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. I decided to seek a physician’s advice to help me attain optimal health. After some research, I decided that naturopathy would be the best path for me as it will be all natural. This would be my first visit to a naturopathic doctor in my life! I was feeling nervous. Why? I was brought up to think that going to doctor is no fun and doctors will always find something wrong with you so that they can cure you from it. Anyway, I called the clinic and set up the appointment.  The physician was kind and had given me a long list of things to do till the next appointment. The treatment plan included taking apple cider vinegar before each meal, 15 to 20 grams of protein each meal, 50% of vegetables on the plate, black strap molasses, vitamins and liver support vegetables. Great, I assume I would know how to eat after doing it for so many years but I was so wrong! Even though I have been vegetarian and I would assume it is a healthy diet but I have not been eating right! In reality, eating healthy is not that simple and I am glad that I sought professional help. I have just been through with first week of the changes, I am feeling better, more stamina, more clarity and definitely more tolerant to everything that comes my way.
 
This course is a dream come true. Though it can be challenging sometimes as there are so many big words to digest, many concepts to understand, I accept this is part of broadening my knowledge. The best part is we have playtime just like kids at kindergarten. It makes me feel alive and closer to others. This is befitting its name Health Education and Active Living.
 
Last week’s session was quite an experience for me. Firstly one of our classmates had presented a touching, sad story of a girl struggling to read her first book. We were listening to her with tears in our eyes. I would think illiteracy happens mostly in Asia. Next the first team had their presentation on the first part of Social Determinants of Health. Their presentation was well-done with many videos, activities and many questions were presented which we had to answer. Many thoughts flooded my mind. Mostly negative ones like conditions are bad here, the problem is huge, what can I do, who am I to make the change, so forth. These thoughts made me felt depressed and helpless. On the other hand, I know that we have to study and understand the problems first in order to find the solutions. I am not going to focus on the problems but will be looking for inspiration to find the solutions. I am seeing the bigger picture now, becoming more aware that healthy living is not just a personal issue.

I am looking forward to a wonderful time in more self-discovery. Wish you all happiness and health till the next post!

What is health?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." At the first look this definition seems to be slightly simplified. However it does cover several levels of being human, namely our physical, mental and social well-being. After all, humans are made up of body, mind and soul. A person with perfect health conditions may not be considered as healthy if he is lacking in other aspects, for instance he has no healthy social interaction. So to be considered healthy, one must achieve well-being in all these levels.

Moreover, it states that health is not merely about the absence of disease or infirmity. It is more than just living without disease, illness or pain. In my opinion, to be healthy means to have the ease in using our body to do our activities that we want. Some of us may be more active physically and when they can perform accordingly, they are considered as healthy. On the other hand, there will be people who like to be involved in intellectual activities, when they could peform they would be considered as healthy too. This difference in desire for different activities and purpose leads to different understanding of being healthy. I guess everyone can be healthy in his own way and in the end health is associated with well-being, happiness and the feeling of contentment. Health is an objective of achieving an ideal state of perfect conditions of all aspects as a human being in order to be happy. Health is ease in living your life according to your desire and intention. It is an ideal state whereby a person is happy with his conditions in body, mind and soul. So when a person loses this ease in his life, he is considered to have a dis-ease.

There is a Chinese saying: Health is wealth. Health is as important as wealth or money if not more important. This is true as without health, wealth alone cannot bring us happiness. With health, we can be productive and this affects the future of our lives and our society. Therefore, it is said that our health is our country's wealth too.

Start of My Journey to the West

Hi, my name is Lily. I was born and raised in Singapore. I moved to Jakarta, Indonesia after I was married. I lived in Jakarta for 20 years. Hence I had seen the best and worst of the developed and developing countries. I migrated to Canada in 2011 with my family (a loving husband and 2 awesome sons). This experience is truly exciting and has opened up many new experiences and there are many more new things to explore. I have set my mind on making my living in Canada a wonderful and meaningful one. I will make use of this wonderful opportunity to try new things and develop to my fullest potential.

During my living in Jakarta, I joined a religious foundation, Bao Guang Chong Zheng Non-profit Organisation and I have been volunteering my services in this organisation for the past 18 years. The organisation is based in Taiwan and has branches all over the world. I started as a student and eventually I was promoted to the position of a teacher. I have been teaching not only on religious materials but also practical knowledge about living a happy, fulfilling and meaningful life. The latter includes good social relationships, positive attitudes, health behaviours and so forth.

I have always been mystified by the connection of body, mind and soul and how can we can achieve balance in all of them. We, human beings, are made of body, mind and soul. To be healthy and happy, all these 3 elements are closely interrelated.

My study at Simon Fraser University Masters of Education in HEAL (Health Education and Active Living) program will educate and train me to understand the broader view about health. Through working together with a group of passionate educators, health practitioners and professors, I am certain I will grow and develop my full potential.

My contribution is that I will be present in terms of body, mind and soul! I come with an open mind to learn and share with everyone. I believe that life is fun and in this case, I am looking only to gain without all the pain.