reflections on four months in Asia. It ain't all the same, by any means...

So, I’m no longer a Fulbright scholar. I’m not back in America yet so maybe I'm still a little bit of a Fulbright scholar. An extraordinary four months. I went from massive disappointment of my time in Bangkok to the great joy I felt in Myanmar and Malaysia and then great joy again in one small town in Thailand.

I tried very hard to talk to people, to gain advocates among schools, media, professors, anyone..about initiating media literacy curriculum in Bangkok K-12 schools.  Starting first with teachers.  To make sure they are prepared with the tools to properly teach the children.  (The link will offer a description and definition of media literacy.  I will talk more about this.  If you want an educated student body of individuals who can think well, problem solve and make educated voting decisions, then you'll like media literacy.)
Giving a lot of thought to why all my efforts in Bangkok were dismal failures. It could be me. And I’ll give that more thought in the future.. But I also wondered, was it years, decades of distrust in Thailand of all institutions, a doubt that any progress leaning toward greater democracy and improved levels of education was possible. is it the result of systemic learned helplessness among the Thai? Lip Service is given to new ideas but the next steps-discussion, enactment and implementation-don’t seem to happen.

I turned to teachers, to media that purports to move toward greater democracy, to institutions of higher education, they all gave lip service. They never offered actual support.

Yes, it could be my ideas. It could be my goal to spread media literacy and to promote critical thinking starting in kindergarten and never stopping that education, is not a good idea for Thailand. (Yeah, I think it's a good idea.)

Maybe it’s not the right time for it. Maybe I’m not the right advocate for it. I hope I figure that out and learn those answers.

Hope is restored when I think back to my experience in Myanmar. Speaking to 20 young women. All of them determined to return to their small towns throughout Myanmar and spread knowledge of human rights and women’s rights. I will remember them maintaining their attention even though they had to wait for my wonderful interpreter to explain what I was saying. I remember working with them for seven hours. And the smiles and nods they offered throughout, the wonderful questions, the Thank yous and the lovely gifts. I left there with the hope that maybe i helped a little bit. Helping young women’s spread information about human rights and women’s rights. Gave me hope and supplied great meaning to everything I have been doing. (The link I supplied to the Ta'ang Women's Group is about an issue the organization advocated for.  These are brave people in the fascinating city of Lashio 

I think to my time in Roi Et Thailand. A city with great food, the best I've had in Thailand.  Also, no mass transit and almost no one that speaks English.  I think about the students, many with limited English skills, who tried their best to understand the content. The wonderful teacher, Allison Orr, who made me a better teacher by gently sharing some wonderful ideas on how to communicate to this group more effectively.

And I will reflect on the six wonderful days I spent in Malaysia. I’m waiting for my plane right now to head back to Bangkok. I’m very sad to leave Kuala Lumpur  The outstanding people in the American Embassy in Kuala Lampur brilliantly set up meetings with the education ministry within the government of Malaysia, with teachers of higher education, with future teachers of students at all levels. The librarians. With audiences alive with great optimism as the recent election has led to hopes of greater democracy in the very near future here. Optimism may be a major indicator of being open to new ideas. The beauty of Malaysia is quite remarkable. But the warm feelings I have don’t come from the warm temperatures as much as the warm people. The residents in this country as well as the people I met from the embassy and related programs. Thanks to all of you. It’s been extraordinary to be here.  Your optimism is appreciated. And a stark contrast to Thailand.  

Is optimism about a future a prerequisite to accepting change?  I lived a case study.  In Thailand, where a tradition of pessimism prevails due to allegations of decades of corruption, there was no help at building an evolving education system.  In Malaysia, fresh off an election that had a conclusion that seemed to shock many.  With that shock came the optimism of increased press freedom.  And an openness to the new ideas I brought to them.  
My time as a Fulbright scholar is about to end. But my reflection and resulting education will continue. There is much that I will learn from my experience. Assessing my own performance and wondering what the next step will be to bring media literacy education to the people of Myanmar and Malaysia, and maybe someday, perhaps, to Thailand.  (And to more than the relatively few states that have embraced media literacy education.)

I hate to sound too academic, but future research may determine if trust and optimism in the governing systems is correlated to being open to new ideas and the thought of progress.

My education continues.

Damn. Seriously. We can do this shit...

In our overly mediated world, a moment of profound reason using an old style form of communication that has been minimized in favor of--well, all the crap in our cell phones that steal our attention away from the world.

This happened. It can happen again. 

Small town Kentucky cop overseeing drug interdiction—I had to look that word up, it means interception—in a conversation with the New York liberal about gun regulations (that would be me). He didn’t want the regulations. I suggested some laws restricting certain guns would be good. A respectful exchange of ideas.

He made many good points about gun ownership being an important right to protect.
He said Democrats and liberals are out to take people’s guns away. I explained that in my time in Iowa working with various party platform committees not one person ever even hinted at the idea of taking people’s guns. Regulation of future gun sales. Yes. Taking a single gun away. Never. He accepted my word on that. He said he thought he could trust me. 

He said that laws limiting certain types of guns would not change anything today or tomorrow. I said he was absolutely right. But ten, twenty, fifty years from now, those laws might stop someone from getting access to a gun. Might stop a shooting at a high school. He said he never thought of it that way. He accepted my point. We agreed. 
Conversation. Not an exchange of memes, not an exchange of insults. 

It is meaningful that not long after this conversation there was another school shooting.  More dead kids.

Conversation. Finding the middle ground where truth usually resides.