Celebration and Appreciation

Here is my pre-flection on the arts of celebration and appreciation. First of all, the definition of celebration and appreciation as the arts of democracy is to express joy and appreciation for what we learn as well as what we achieve as a person or as a society. There are many things a person can celebrate. From annual events like birthdays and holidays to once in a lifetime occasions like graduations and weddings ,we all celebrate. There are also many ways to celebrate. Some people just celebrate simply by congratulations, and hugs or kisses. I like to take a ride along the coast or near the ocean on my birthdays. It's just a way to remind myself that I'm still so small beside the timeless and massive thing called the ocean, and there's still plenty of learning left to do. In contrast, some people went all out to make a big deal about whatever they are celebrating, and there's nothing wrong with any of it. There are many things in life that one can appreciate. From big, obvious things like moneys and a job to intangible things like a life that worth living, love and support from family... We often taken things in our lives for granted and forget to appreciate for what we have. However, on the other hand, it's hard to appreciate something unless we recognize how valueable it is and that's often happened once that valuable something was gone. I think when it comes to celebration and appreciation, appreciation comes first and then comes celebrate. We started with appreciation for certain things, and to show that appreciation, we celebrate. Here is my article on appreciation and celebration:
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MzImZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcwOTM1NDMmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3
This is an article about celebration of St. Patrick Day and it's about appreciation for culture and traditions.

Here is the reflection on the arts of celebration and appreciation.
Celebration and appreciation are good for democracy since they allow the people to:
-Appreciate achievements
-Have fun
-Make people want to do good thing
-Motivates us
-Encourage us to do better in the future
However, we shouldn't just celebrate and appreciate whatever or whenever. Questions to ask for
CELEBRATION:
Do you have a reason to celebrate?
What is important about the reason you have to celebrate ?
Is it the right time to celebrate?
How often should we celebrate?
APPRECIATION:
What deserves appreciation?
What are the good and the bad of what we appreciate?
Consequences of appreciation?
Are we showing appreciation in the right way?
Class activity:
I appreciate: -my family for loving me unconditionally
- PSEC for providing me a wonderful learning environment
- our community
- individualism in cohorts 2 & 3
I celebrate: - having a life that worth living
- Luna's New Year
- Christmas
- Birthdays

Application: Three years ago, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. Five months and a half after, he died. It was happening so fast that no one in our family was really able to absorb the situation or keep it together. It was such a difficult time for us to look for the good things in life. All we could do was cry. Almost three years later, as we're looking back, we realize that despite of all the grief we felt, there are still so many thing for us to appreciate and celebrate. We should celebrate the wonderful life my uncle had, and how much fun we all had when we spent time with him. We should appreciate the fact that God had at least given us a chance to be with him in the first place, even though he was gone all too soon.

Creative Conflict
Here is my pre-flection on the art of creative conflict. Creative conflict can be defined as confronting others in ways that produce growth. It has the same concept to the art of constructive conflict. Anyway, creative conflict requires critical, constructive, honest, open confrontation. It is quite difficult for many because it disrupts easy explanations, it challenges values, and it often places people under public scrutiny. Personally, I don't like negative energy that can easily be generated from any kind of conflict and people sometimes can't see the positivity that will come out from creative conflict. All they see is the conflict itself in front of them and that can be disasterous. However, once we get pass the point of negativity of conflict, the rewards of creative conflict include clarity and learning. Each side comes to better understand how and why the other side feels as they do. And each becomes more clear about their own values and ideas in relation to the views of others. Everyone becomes more involved in and more knowledgeable about the issues. Since good solutions depend on accurately defining problems and on avoiding jumping to conclusions, conflict can increase the quality of problem-solving by helping us see the whole picture. Conflict becomes truly creative when, in addition to heat, fighting generates light and energy to find new options. Creative conflict can be seen in real life examples such as criticism, constructive criticism. In the article "Your route to the top constructive criticism" of London's Management Today, the author was talking about advice on getting to constructive criticism in management. The steps to the successful ending include: 1. Instil trust. 2. Know your aim. 3. Think right place, right time. 4. Set the scene. 5. State what went wrong.
http://moe.ic.highline.edu:2080/pqdweb?index=4&did=923046461&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1172664358&clientId=1894

Here is my reflection on the art of creative conflict. This art can be defined as confrontation that produce growth.
The benefits of creative conflict included:
- Demonstrates that diverse stakeholders are involved
- Uncovers interests
- It can deepen or widen understanding
- Generates more options for all parties involved
- Can build group confidence
To achieve creative conflict, the parties involved needed to :
- Value and incorporate diversity
- Create a safe environment for difference
- Leave labels at the door
- Agree to disagree when there's no common ground
- Focus on the present and the solution
- Allow some venting, but limit the reactions
- Use self discipline in expression of anger
- Be well prepare
- Make no lasting enemies
After the lecture, we watched the documentation called " Woolworth's Lunch Counter". The four main historical figures in the documentation applied the concept of creative conflict like being well prepare and using self discipline in expression of anger as they practice non-violent disobedience against the segregation in 1960's. For example, the four young men that started the revolution in North Carolina were thinking that they'll be thrown in jail for sitting at the lunch counter for white people. Also, they used non-violence as their weapons. Instead of beating up the people at the lunch counter to take out their anger, they just sit at the counter and refuse to leave just because they're black.

Application:
Last week, I was working with a group of different people in sociology. We were supposed to discuss our topics of research. After a few minute, we ended up discussing about gender and gender roles, which is related to sociology. There were quiet a few different opinions and viewpoint about gender roles in our little group of five people. However, with the art of creative conflict, we valued diversity and incorporate it as we discuss the topic. We also excluded labels from our conversations. Just because a guy said he think women should stay at home and raise children doesn't mean he's sexist. We didn't just label people just because of the way they think. We ended up having a great discussion and everyone walked away with something valuable. The discussion absolutely deepen our understanding about one another and each other's viewpoint, which helped build the group confidence.

Social Capital

Here is my preflection on the art of social capital. First of all, the definition for the art of social capital is the advantage created by a person's location in a structure of relationships. It explains how some people gain more success in a particular setting through their superior connections to other people. For example, I've once heard of an example that represent the art of social capital. When PSEC needs a sociology teacher, the staff at PSEC asked the people they know like their collegues or their friends to see if they know any sociology instructors that would want to work at PSEC. The people that know the friends or collegues of PSEC staff would be part of the social capital. Because they know people, that is why and how they landed the job. Networking in one of the most often used example for social capital. factors as social networks, levels of participation in civil life (as a citizen) and levels of trust within communities are all associated with social capital. My source of media is an article about 'KING MEMORIAL FUND RAISING STEPPED UP: Foundation issues nationwide challenge to reach $80 million goal.' The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Foundation is calling on corporations, foundations, individuals and professional athletes to meet its goal of raising $3 million for the planned structure during Black History Month. Because King Memorial Foundation is well-known and supported by many famous figures, the goal will be reached based on social capital.
http://eurweb.com/story/eur31348.cfm

This is my reflection on the art of social capital. The definition of social capital is the collective values of all social network and the inclination that arise from these network to do things for each other. The slogan for social capital is basically "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW, IT'S WHO YOU KNOW!" There are a variety of capital like economic capital, physical capital, political capital and presented at PSEC, the human capital. In order to achieve success, you need contact to a certain social network. For example, social capital at PSEC happens when different committees come and work together to build one PSEC community. Inside of social capital existed specific reciprocity. It's basically something like "I'll do this for you if you do this for me". It can easily fall apart when one failed to fulfill their part. For example, you have to buy me lunch for a month if you want me to give you rides everyday for a month. Specific reciprocity requires negotiation and can be quiet impersonal and need no sympathy toward one or others.
There's also general reciprocity. It's simply doing someone a favor without having anything in return. It often occurs between friends or family members or someone you trust or know very well. It strengthen and represent stronger bonds in social capital. Inside of social capital existed bonding and bridging. Bonding is social capital within a group. Bridging is building network across groups. We need both to create lots of social network.

Application: Since social capital is all about "It's not what you know, it's who you know", it's about connections with people. I always want to pursue psychology and so I constantly try to express my interest to people who want to listen. One of the staff at PSEC, Terry has a strong background in psychology. When I tell him i'm interested in psychology, he immediately said that he would be more than happy to hook me up with one of his friend psychologist and therefore, I could get an internship over the summer. Without Terry, I would have a truly hard time trying to get an intership from a professional psychologist. Hey, it's all about who you know, not what you know.

Diversity
Here is my pre-flection on the art of diversity. The formal definition of diversity is the strength and richness of our community is enhanced by the variety of perspectives that the community incorporates. Personally, I think diversity is basically about differences, different people with different viewpoints, all combined into one community, so they can compliment one another. Diversity is a beautiful thing. How boring our world would be if there was no diversity? Everyone look the same, act the same, everything is the same. Without diversity, there would be no growth, no lessons to learn, and no moving forward since we don't know anything better than what we know. Diversity allows people to experience different viewpoints and/or opinions. It generates more understanding as we learn more about other people beside us. For example, at PSEC, we have students with different background, different ethinicity, and different point of view. Because of those differences, we learn more about things that we otherwise wouldn't have know. I'm a liberal person and I believe in healthcare and social services. I think the country needs those services to stay strong and competitive. But some students, who are Republicans, believe that social services are spoiling the people, holding them back from working hard to get what they want. We agree to disagree and even when we disagree, we still learn and respect one another and that's what great about diversity. Diversity is beyond race and nationality but race diversity is one of the biggest issue in this country as some people still don't accept and respect it. Fortunately, schools are trying to teach the next generation to respect diversity and celebrate it. http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/0131tr-diversity0127Z6.html. How wonderful it would be if we all accept one another and celebrate the fact that we are not exactly the same but different and unique in our own way? Why is it so hard for us to accept each others just because we don't look alike?

Here is my reflection on the art of diversity. During class today, we were given a chance to experience the diversity in a Russian Catholic Church. The people in this church are mainly Russians and Americans. Even though they don't have a wide variety of ethnicity in this community, they still have many different background and different thoughts and ideas. However, because of their similarity in religion (meaning they have the same faith), they tend to learn how to appreciate diversity when it comes to sharing ideas to one another. The process is called bridging and it comes after bonding, which the people in the community get to know and bond with one another.

Application:
At PSEC, we have students with different background, different ethinicity, and different point of view. Because of those differences, we learn more about things that we otherwise wouldn't have know. I'm a liberal person and I believe in healthcare and social services. I think the country needs those services to stay strong and competitive. But some students, who are Republicans, believe that social services are spoiling the people, holding them back from working hard to get what they want. We agree to disagree and even when we disagree, we still learn and respect one another.

Mentoring
Here is my pre-flection on the art of mentoring. Mentoring is one of the arts that was very familiar to me personally. As a student at Puget Sound Early College, I practice this art every week on Tuesday. Mentoring is generally defined as supportively guiding others in learning the arts of public life. In my understanding, it is about helping one another grown in a variety of things. I think it has to involve at least 2 people to be successful. One person is for to guide and the other person is for to be guided. However, the roles don't mean to be fixed and can be reverse depended on the situation the people in; as long as the people grow, improve and "evolve" into the person that they can potentially be, usually something positive and useful. Here is my article on the art of mentoring... One of the most well-known organizations based on the art of mentoring is the Big Brothers, Big Sisters and my article is about the "Be A Friend" program, about what they do and the people's experience of the program and the art of mentoring .
http://www.beafriend.org/whatwedo.html

Here is my reflection on the art of mentoring. Mentoring is a tool that organizations or groups can use to nurture and grow their people. It can be an informal practice or a formal program. Protégés observe, question, and explore. Mentors demonstrate, explain and model. The following assumptions form the foundation for a solid mentoring program.
Deliberate learning is the cornerstone. The mentor's job is to promote intentional learning, which includes capacity building through methods such as instructing, coaching, profiding experiences, modeling and advising.
Both failure and success are powerful teachers. Mentors, as leaders of a learning experience, certainly need to share their "how to do it so it comes out right" stories. They also need to share their experiences of failure, ie., "how I did it wrong". Both types of stories are powerful lessons that provide valuable opportunities for analyzing individual and organizational realities.
Leader need to tell their stories. Personal scenarios, anedcotes and case examples, because they offer valuable, often unforgettable insight, must be shared. Mentors who can talk about themselves and their experiences establish a rapport that makes them "learning leaders."
Development matures over time. Mentoring -- when it works -- taps into continuous learning that is not an event, or even a string of discrete events. Rather, it is the synthesis of ongoing event, experiences, observation, studies, and thoughtful analyses.
Mentoring is a joint venture. Successful mentoring means sharing responsibility for learning. Regardless of the facilities, the subject matter, the timing, and all other variables. Successful mentoring begins with setting a contract for learning around which the mentor, the protégé, and their respective line managers are aligned.
Mentoring How-to's:
-Model the Art: encourage people to see values in different point of view for example
-Supportively "push"
-Break learning down into small steps
-Team up new-comers with old-timers

Application: At PSEC, I experience the art of mentoring everyday. From the staff being mentors to students to peer mentoring, it is a very positive element in the life at PSEC. We live by example and we do what we see other demonstrate and by doing that, I see people modeling the art. Following that, we give each other friendly push to achieve certain goal. We supportively encourage one another to thrive for the better. It is hard to learn something that is very important to our life all at once and mentoring give us the chance to break it down. It is a process that may take quiet a bit of time but in the end, it ususally comes out as a positive and worthwhile result. We tend to take it once at a time at PSEC and build it up to a strong tower with supportive base and that's what so great about the school. The last step of the mentoring how-to's is team up new-comers with old-timers and it is clearly demonstrated the most at the mentor group as the cohort 2 and cohort 3 students interact with one another and share their opinions on different issues so we could both learn new things from each others and hopefully becomes more understanding of one another's problems.

Active Listening
Here is my pre-flection on the art of active listening. From personal experience, I can say surely that active listening is not something natural. It requires training, practice and effort, great amount of effort, in order to succeed in the art of active listening. I often think that listening is the same thing compared to hearing. That is one of the most common misconception people have about listening, especially when it comes to active listening. Listening and hearing are two completely different acts. If you think about it, hearing is a natural process and a physical experience. However, listening is not. It's more than just physical because it requires mental power as well. When you listen, you need to understand, if not completely, generally what the other person was talking about. When you hear, you don't necessarily need to understand what was it that you hear. It is not an easy thing to be a good listener. And yet, we don't spend enough time on this art. Because of that, many conflicts have been created from the lack of active listening. Fortunately, we can also use the skill of active listening to resolve conflict .
Here is an article on active listening that can help you become a better active listener and surprisingly, marketer
http://www.icpas.org/icpas/sia/practice/activelistening.asp

Here is my reflection on the art of active listening.
Active listening skill requires
Attending
A: Eye contact B: Posture C: Gesture
S.O.L.E.R.
Five steps to attentive listening
Squarely face the person Open your posture Lean towards the sender Eye contact maintained Relax while attending
Paraphrasing
What is it? Restating a message, but usually with fewer words. Where possible try and get more to the point.
Purpose:
To test your understanding of what you heard.
To communicate that you are trying to understand what is being said. If you’re successful, paraphrasing indicates that you are following the speaker’s verbal explorations and that you’re beginning to understand the basic message.
When listening consider asking yourself:
What is the speaker’s basic thinking message
What is the person’s basic feeling message
E.g. S: I just don’t understand, one minute she tells me to do this, and the next minute to do that. X: She really confuses you. S: I really think he is a very nice guy. He’s so thoughtful, sensitive, and kind. He calls me a lot. He’s fun to go out with. X: You like him very much, then.
Clarifying
What is it: Process of bringing vague material into sharper focus.
Purpose:
To untangle unclear or wrong listener interpretation.
To get more information
To help the speaker see other points of view
To identify what was said e.g. I’m confused, let me try to sate what I think you were trying to say.
You’ve said so much, let me see if I’ve got it all.
Perception Checking
What is it: Request for verification of your perceptions.
Purpose:
To give and receive feedback
To check out your assumptions
e.g. Let me see if I’ve got it straight. You said that you love your children and that they are very important to you. At the same time you can’t stand being with them. Is that what you are saying?
Summarizing
What is it: pulling together, organizing, and integrating the major aspects of your dialogue. Pay attention to various themes and emotional overtones. Pout key ideas and feelings into broad statements. DO NOT add new ideas.
Purpose:
To give a sense of movement and accomplishment in the exchange
To establish a basis for further discussion.
Pull together major ideas, facts, and feelings e.g. A number of good points have been made about rules for the classroom. Let’s take a few minutes to go over them and write them on the board. We’re going all over the map this morning. If I understand you correctly,
The three major points of the story are…
Primary Empathy
What is it: Reflection of content and feelings
Purpose:
To show that you’re understanding the speaker’s experience
To allow the speaker to evaluate his/her feelings after hearing them expressed by someone else Basic Formula:
You feel (state feeling) because (state content)
e.g. Student: I just don’t know how I am going to get all this math homework done before tonight’s game especially since I don’t get most of this stuff you taught us today.
Teacher: You are feeling frustrated and stuck…You are feeling frustrated and stuck with math you don’t know how to do and you’re worried that you won’t figure it out before you go to the game.
The main fear for you seems to be fear -- you’re really scared of losing your relationship if things don’t get better.
It’s upsetting when someone doesn’t let you tell your side of the story.
Advanced Empathy
What is it: reflection of content and feeling at a deeper level.
Purpose: To try and get an understanding of what may be deeper feelings
e.g. -I get the sense that you are really angry about what was said, but I am wondering if you also feel a little hurt by it.
-You said that you feel more confident about contacting employers, but I wonder if you also still feel a bit scared.

Application: It is the most important skill in my personal opinion. I use it everyday at PSEC. We have been working in group on the safe cosmetics campaign. Each of us has a different opinion on how to make the project successful. That's why active listening is so important.
We all listen to one another's ideas and show support like "It's a good idea" or "I like your idea very much". We don't interrupte one another when a person express her idea or feeling. I strongly believe that active listening reduce our chances of corruption and argument. Active listening also give us a better sense of judgement. We made many better decisions from just listening actively.

Political Imagination

Here is my pre-flect on political imagination. First of all, political imagination is reimaging our futures according to our values. I guess it means our future are based on our values. Global warming is a political imagination. We didn't care about the enviroment as much as we should. We polluted the air, the earth and everything because money is the most important. As long as we make more money, nothing else should matter. Hundred of years ago, there was no such thing as the greenhouse effect. No one would have imagine the melting of ice in North and South Pole. But things have changed. Because we didn't value what we have, the result is global warming. It is time to fight the global warming before it is too late. There are many famous individuals who have been working on educating the public about the existence of global warming . For example, Al Gore is one of the famous people who wrote a book as well as making a movie about global warming called "The Inconvienient Truth".It includes very graphical and personally, horrific images about the potential danger of global warming and what it has already done to our beautiful planet. Al Gore used political imagination in the process in order to raise awareness and hopefully, stop the United States and other countries' contribution to global warming.http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/state/15770659.htm?source=rss&channel=montereyherald_state. The article is about how the state of California will work with the northeast states to fight global warming. For example, the industrial corporations and utility companies must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 25 percent by 2020. We can also experienced political imagination in everyday life. If you value honesty, then you think everyone else would be honest to you. That is my understanding of political imagination but I can be wrong.

Here is my reflection on political imagination. We started our class of democracy by playing a little guess-who game. It started with "challenge". This person's challenge was getting Americans to face an international problem and getting them to make changes. It took him eight years in the administration, an internationally recognized treaty and reversed policies to "change the world"... He recognized that entertainment values have transformed what we called news. A creative moment came with a New York bestseller book and a movie called "The inconvienent truth". The man is Al Gore and he has been using political imagination to raise awareness about global warming. Using Al Gore as our example, we can define political imagination as pursuit creative actions to get things done. It is making what is real more ideal or the other way around, making what is real more ideal. Basically, political imagination is about changing things in a better way.Characterizations of political imagination are:- creativity (let your mind explore all the possibilities and even think of impossibilities and ways to make it possible)- action (put your creativity into work)- Positive energy- Goal SettingOther characterizations of political imagination include shifting paradigms which is your viewpoints. In other words, open up to new possibilities.To achieve success in political imagination, you have to contrast the world as it is with the world as you wish it to be and then, work for it. Make the ideal real. Make the real ideal.


Application: We put our lesson of political imagination into action last week. We each get into a group and develop a plan. A plan must be about something that can be done to improve our PSEC community. For example, our group plan was about recycling glass. PSEC is about being environmentally friendly and yet , we don't recycle glass. My group's goal is to change all that and start recycling glass. Here is the outline1. Define the problem: lack of recycling bins for glass2. Justify this is a problem: glass doesn't decompose and thus, can be potential pollutant to environment. Many PSEC want to recycle their glass bottles3. Define solution: our group will buy glass-recycle bins and bring the glass to recycling center and start recycling glass at PSEC4. Propose a solution: Each group member will done 50 cents . One group member is assigned to go buy the glass-recycle bins. We put one bin in Rm. 103, one on the second floor (potential area: outside Diana and Terry's office) and one in the Lunch Box. At the end of each week, each member will take turn taking the glass to recycling center and recycling them!!!