NCTA Alumni News

Did we miss your news? Please let us know by contacting Dr. Brenda Jordan at: jordanb@pitt.edu

 

Bryan Hynes (Elizabethtown, 2103) has been offered a fellowship by the Korea Society and Freeman Foundation for a two week study seminar in Korea.

 

Brian Wolovich (Pittsburgh 2007) has received a Jefferson Award for Public Service, and has been named one of six finalists for the Jefferson Awards program's Most Outstanding Volunteer for his efforts to establish a library in his hometown of Millvale (PA). For a feature article on Brian in the The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, click here.

 

In February 2013, a filming crew from the Japanese Fuji TV visited Garrison Forest School (Owings Mills, MD) and interviewed the school's headmaster, Chinese language teacher, and art teacher BJ McElderry (Baltimore 2008). Fuji TV was doing a story on the increasing American interest in China. To see the broadcast (mostly in Japanese), go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhMcETLh6zs

 

Jessica Pugliano (Elizabethtown 2008),  a music and technology teacher from Lemoyne Middle School (PA), has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar to attend one of 22 seminars and institutes supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  The Endowment is a federal agency that, each summer, supports these enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions so that teachers can study with experts in humanities disciplines.  She also took part in "Chinese Film and Society,"  a four-week program held at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and directed by Nancy Jervis and Gary Xu.   Approx. 25 films were screened, from the 1930’s to the present. Each presented in its historical, social and often political context.

 

BJ McElderry (Baltimore 2008): traveled to Korea on a Don Elliott Humanities Award last spring, and visited World Heritage sites while developing an unit of study on Korean culture. Building on her experience in Korea, BJ is currently organizing a special Mid-Autumn Festival for Sept. 29 to be preceded by teaching students Korean and Chinese folktales for shadow puppet performances and conducting lantern making workshops (ranging from simple paper types to complex reed and rice paper) for about 300 children to participate in a lantern parade.

 

 

 

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Matthew Sudnik  (University of Pittsburgh 2010) was given the opportunity to go on a trip to Japan with a group of other teachers through the Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship Program. Spending a good bit of his summer there, here is what he had to say afterwards:  “During the month of July, I had the unique opportunity to travel to Japan for four weeks thanks to the generosity of the Freeman Foundation and U.S. Department of Education. The study tour was organized and led by Dr. Anne Prescott, Director of the Five College Center for East Asian Studies (FCCEAS). Twelve teachers and two study tour leaders from across the United States explored the continuity and diversity of Japan's physical and cultural landscapes from Hokkaido to Okinawa.  Our group travelled to a different city or region of Japan each week...Personally, I grew in appreciation for Japanese culture, music, religious traditions, and history. From our house in Kyoto, we participated in the Gion Matsuri festival, visited shrines and temples, and explored the history of Nara, Kobe, and Osaka. During a brief visit to Hiroshima, we heard the testimony of a hibakusha and presented our students' own peace cranes at the Sadako memorial. …In short, the FCCEAS study tour provided me with invaluable resources, experiences, anecdotes and insights for the my own classroom teaching and our school's social studies curriculum.”

 

 

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Karen Gaul  (Pittsburgh 2008) Coordinated a visit of 33 fifth graders from Peking University Elementary School.  The Peking students spent two weeks at Winchester Thurston immersed in our classrooms in September, 2012.

 

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Eden Reff-Presco (Maryland, 2006) will be the K-12 Curriculum Specialist at Georgetown University in the Asian Studies department.  Specifically, she will serve as a curriculum writer and facilitator to show educators that participate in the NCTA seminar beginning in January 2013 how to use what learn learn/acquire into their classroom. 

 

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Gregory Thomas (Pittsburgh, 2011) writes:"I participated in a three week long National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute that was hosted by the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center (MVAC) at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse (UW-L) in La Crosse, WI during July.  We looked at the impact of various inhabitants in the region on the land over time and their changes, spanning from Paleoindians to modern day Amish families and organic farmers.  We had a balance of lectures by UW-L professors in-class and then out-of-class field trips - the two most noteworthy were our Archaeology Dig Field Day on a site that was over 13,000 years old, where we got to experience archaeology hands-on and we recovered artifacts, and then also our trip to Effigy Mounds National Monument in Marquette, IA.  We also got to visit the family farms and homes of Amish families and interact with them as well as tour through the corporate headquarters of Organic Valley, a nation-wide organic co-op that is headquartered in La Farge, WI."

 

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Sherry Knight (Pittsburgh 2007), Visual Art Teacher at Trinity High School, Washington (PA),  took a group of students enrolled in her Asian Arts and Culture Class to Japan for 12 days. The tour included Tokyo, Kamakura, Hakone, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka. Highlights of the trip included a stay at a ryôkan, riding the bullet train twice, Hiroshima Peace Memorial and the deer at Miyajima Park!

 

 

 

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Michael-Ann Cerniglia (Pittsburgh 2010)  participated in the Global Seminar at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh in June, 2012

 

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Jennifer Beck (Bucknell, 2010) writes: " have been traveling my whole life. I love to travel. I love adventures. I love not knowing what may happen next. When I was a little kid, I knew I wanted to travel and take what I learned back to a classroom full of kids. I knew I wanted to teach world history, because I simply love the world that much.
This summer I embarked on a trip that was unlike any other I had ever dared myself to partake in. The first part was incredible, but also a piece of cake. In April, I found out that after much deliberation I was accepted to the Japan Society Educator’s Tour for the summer of 2012. This trip entailed six cities, two homestays and several school visits throughout Japan. It was meant to be three weeks long. Upon reading the requirements for the trip, I realized that I could extend my trip and fly home at any time if I so desired. I thought about this option for less than a minute. Of course I was going to extend my trip… but where would I go? Japan is a modern, first world nation. Modern conveniences exist and getting around is extremely easy, even though a language barrier exists. I wanted a challenge thereafter. After discussing the matter at length with my friend Lauren and my boyfriend, both of which planned to meet me in Asia after Japan, we decided on Myanmar. I knew very little about Myanmar, but I got myself a visa, booked some tickets, and didn’t think much about it.
On July 1, I flew to Japan with the Japan Society Educator’s Tour. I traveled with a group of teachers from all over the country. We started in Kyoto, visited many shrines, and then ventured off to Obu. In Obu we stayed with Japanese families. Of course, the family I was assigned was a bit untraditional… ok, they were very untraditional. I found myself struggling with my extremely limited to non existent Japanese language abilities and sleeping on a tatami mat. I learned how to shower in a Japanese style bathroom and cook gyoza from scratch.
While in Obu, we visited schools and I noticed that lecture was the primary source of information dissemination. I certainly did not expect to see such teaching styles in Japan, but the lack of technology and the abundance of lecture seemed to be ever-present. I found this to be different when we traveled to Arida City in Wakayama Prefecture.  The schools seemed more alive and lecture was not a constant way of teaching. In this small town, the group participated in another home stay and it was wildly different from the first. The families were all farmers and I found myself feeling surprisingly at home and relaxed in comparison to the first. The families were all quite genuine folks and took each of us farming a few times. The people I stayed with owned an orange grove and it had been in their family for over one hundred and fifty years. The entire extended family lived on the same street and seemed to participate in activities together constantly. I learned to roll sushi with the grandmother, met their great grandmother, and dressed up in a Yukata with the young children in order to attend the local shrine festival.  Although it was slightly uncomfortable to live in someone’s home for a short period of time without any language skills, it was probably the highlight of my trip to Japan. I learned quite a bit about culture and customs, how to eat properly, when to serve others and a variety of other things.
The group traveled to Hiroshima thereafter. In Hiroshima, we had the pleasure of meeting one of the most amazing people I have met in my entire life. His name was Mr. Ito and he survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, even though his brother did not. He was a child worker during those times and was lucky to not have suffered the grave fate that so many others did. He described watching his brother get sick from radiation, and explain how he recovered from such a great loss. In 2001, Mr. Ito lost his son, who lived in New York City, in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He felt he had a relationship with America because of both tragedies, even though the bombs dropped in Japan were dropped by Americans. By the end of our session with Mr. Ito, the entire group cried and felt we had a close relationship with him.
After Hiroshima, we went on for our last few days in Tokyo and Fukushima. While in Fukushima, I spent time with young English teachers and farmers, who had been economically affected by the triple disaster. I saw abandoned city halls and frustrated folks who just wanted their old way of life back. We visited a day care center that had the most heroic teachers I had ever met. After all, they rescued more than 150 kids under the age of 5 from a tsunami. There really is no training for that. Tokyo was a welcome difference from the tragedies we had discussed and visited over the prior days.
After spending time in Tokyo, I had planned to do something wildly different. Japan is a super modern society, but I was hungry for something a little more difficult and perhaps a little less convenient. I stopped over in Thailand for a week, met my boyfriend Zach and my friend Lauren, and we set off to travel around Myanmar for eight days. Myanmar (Burma) was closed to regular tourism and freedoms in general until 2011. Tourist infrastructure is virtually nonexistent and hot water and air-conditioning are a luxury. Only 25% of the country has access to electricity. We hired a guide and trekked to four major sites. We visited pagodas, cities, went to a festival and ate incredible local food. While in Myanmar, Zach and Lauren were often stopped by locals because many had never seen a person white lighter skin before.  They became like celebrities everywhere we went. People wanted to take their  photo and show it to their relatives back in the village where they came from.
While in Myanmar, I realized that certain norms that are apparent in America are virtually non-existent in Myanmar. In America, we buckle our seat belts, make sure we wash our hands, and ensure that a working age exists for children. In Myanmar, however, none of these norms or laws exists. People ride on top of the buses to get from place to place. Washing hands takes clean water, and this is difficult to find in some areas. In almost every restaurant or guest house I stayed at, little children served us and cleaned our rooms. A host of other things were wildly foreign to me, as well. People polished their pagodas, but lived in straw huts. Farm machinery could not be found, but water buffalo were everywhere. Men wore longyiis, not pants and touching someone on the head proved to be the largest insult one could give. On top of it all, many would label the Burmese people as living in poverty, but in fact, many were incredibly nice, friendly and some of the richest people I had ever met in terms of happiness. People welcomed us, smiled, and barely ever bothered us for money. It was like an untouched place in the world. At times, I felt as though I was traveling on another planet. No one had knowledge of McDonalds, Coca-Cola or other brand name items. Imports and exports did not exist. While we were there we dressed like the Burmese and ate like the Burmese… and it was amazing.
Although our experience in Myanmar was amazing, I was ready to leave when the time came. I missed my version of normal and had been traveling in Asia for approximately five weeks by our departure date from Yangon International Airport. Zach and I said goodbye to Lauren as she decided to stay for another week in Yangon, and we headed to Kuala Lumpur. KL was like another world. There were fast food restaurants, reliable taxi drivers and clean running water. Although interesting, it was not the least bit challenging. Other than the ancient Hindu Temple at the Batu Caves, we really did a lot of indulging and very little sight seeing in the major metropolis of Kuala Lumpur.
For our last stop, we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia… probably one of my favorite places on Earth. Originally we decided on Siem Reap because Angkor Wat is located there. As a history teacher, this is a major sight on my bucket list. It turns out; however, that some of the other temples were far more interesting than the major sight itself. When we first arrived, we took the major form of transportation to our guest house: a tuk tuk. For two dollars, one can get anywhere in Siem Reap by tuk tuk. We arrived at our guest house which I expected to be less than exciting. After all, Cambodia is a third world country and I did not expect the standards to be up to that of nice resorts in the United States. To my surprise, all of the guest houses seemed incredibly modern, except for the lizards that creep around in the rooms.
On our first night in Siem Reap we rented ATVs and rode out to the rice paddy fields with a young Cambodian man. He told us that before tourism was popular, many people were rice farmers. He explained that this occupation earned very little money and the people of Cambodia were now able to earn so much more because of tourism. While I certainly saw many people asking for money and tips from foreigners, it is seemingly obvious that visitors have vastly improved the lives of those who once had to deal with one of the worst regimes in history: the Khmer Rouge.
Asia was amazing. In the end of it all, Zach left a day before me and I found myself wandering the streets of Bangkok trying to figure out where the past six weeks went. It was an amazing journey. I traveled through history, culture, and absolutely amazing people. I spent time in the first world and the third world. I found myself surprised, scared, excited and in awe on a regular basis. Overall, it was an experience that I am currently bringing back to the classroom. I feel better prepared to discuss East and Southeast Asian history and I often tell stories of people I met and things I did. I love to teach and talk about the world… because I simply love the world that much."

 

 

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Montoursville Area High School art teacher Victoria Stetts (Bucknell 2007) hosted an exchange student, Lusha "Sha Sha" Xu, from China in 2006-2007, the same year she attendded the NCTA seminar at Bucknell University. Victoria writes: "Sha Sha graduated from my high school then attended nearby Lycoming College for four years.  She is now in her second year at Case Western Reserve School of Dental Medicine in Cleveland, OH.  Ever since she first came in 2006, her parents have asked us to go to China.  When they came here for her college graduation in 2011, they said "we will see you in China" so we made it happen. Sha Sha is 'our kid'.  She is part of our family and always will be.  We treat her like our own daughter and she calls us mom and dad.  We also hosted an exchange student from Japan, Eriko Yamamuro, during the 2009-2010 school year.  That was after I participated in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund teacher exchange program in June 2008.   On our way to China, we missed our connecting flight and had one night in Japan.  Eriko and her parents met us at the airport and we were able to meet them in person for the first time! Some highlights of my trip to China: The Great Wall,  Photo makeover as a Chinese Opera character (see attached file), Terra Cotta Warriors in X'ian, Cruise down the Yangtze River, Visiting Sha Sha's hometown of Chongqing, We held pandas in Chengdu, dressed in Tibetan costumes in Jiuzaigou."

 

 

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Patricia Koch (Elizabethtown, 2010)  won a Target field trip grant to take all of her sixth and seventh grade students to the Japanese House and Gardens in Philadelphia. They went in May when the gardens were in full bloom, and the trip included an origami lesson, a traditional tea ceremony, and they heard a Japanese Kamishibai story, after touring the traditional Japanese house. The trip was the culmination of a Japanese culture unit of study for 6-8th grade gifted students.She also won an ING award for a LEGO robotics unit for her science lab.

 

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Susan Earl (Bucknell 2006) received the James Madison Memorial Fellowship and spent 4 weeks studying America's early history at Georgetown University. She attended Project CRISS's July  workshop and conference in Kalispell, MT.  Also, she participated in a 3-day Liberty Fund program on the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention of the Constitution in March.

 

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On of Yvonne Centala's (Maryland 2005) former pupils got into the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) program for 2012.

 

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This past summer Clark Zimmerman (Elizabethtown, 2010) attended the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. He was also awarded the 2012 Lincoln Forum Scholarship to attend the symposium in Gettysburg, PA this November, and created a "Wall of Honor" in his high school honoring men and women who are alumni of the high school and are currently serving in the United States military.

 

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Cindy McNulty (Pittsburgh 2002)  was chosen to participate in the NEH Summer Institute on Chinese Film and Society, a month long program at the University of Illinois. Nancy Jervis and Gary Xu were the directors. 

 

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Sharen Pula and Susan Brown (Baltimore 2009) once again traveled to the University of Washington to participate in the East Asia Resource Center's summer institute on Japanese art and literature of the Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi periods. The EARC at UW is also a national coordinating site for the NCTA.

 

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Hanadi Shatara (UPenn 2011): In addition to the summer residential program in Hongzhou, Hanadi participated in the Gildern Lehrman History Institute seminar in Los Angeles.  She also went on a Fulbright-Hays Group Study Abroad trip to Turkey in the summer of 2011

 

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Carol Graham ( Online Seminar 2011) was selected as the Elementary Teacher of the Year by the American Lawyers Auxiliary at their National Conference in Chicago, Illinois for her work on teaching history. She also received an all expense paid trip and tuition to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to attend the Gilder Lehrman Seminar on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded her an all expenses paid trip to Kansas City, Missouri to attend a tour of the historic sites of the Civil War in Kansas and Missouri.

 

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Tim Kunes (Pittsburgh, 2002) participated in a study tour to Turkey in 2010 through the World Affairs Council and the Turkish Cultural Foundation.  He also assumed the role of Social Studies Dept. Chair at McKeesport Area High School as of the 2011-12 school year.  

 

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