$100,000 Strong Provides Funding to SFSU

SF State has been selected to receive funding through President Barack Obama’s “100,000 Strong Initiative,” enabling the University to offer student travel scholarships to make studying abroad in China more affordable.

During Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the U.S., First Lady Michelle Obama announced $3.25 million in private sector support for the “100,000 Strong Initiative,” which is designed to increase the number and diversity of American students participating in study abroad programs at universities in mainland China.

“We make our programs financially accessible, but one of the biggest costs for students studying in China is expensive flight tickets,” said Hildy Heath, director of the Office of International Programs. “These scholarships will help our students to realize their goals of studying in China.”

4 Indicators for Globally Competent Children

What Is Global Competence?

In a recently published book, Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World, (CCSSO/Asia Society, 2011) authors Veronica Boix-Mansilla and Anthony Jackson state it this way:

Globally competent individuals are aware, curious, and interested in learning about the world and how it works. They can use the big ideas, tools, methods, and languages that are central to any discipline (mathematics, literature, history, science, and the arts) to engage the pressing issues of our time.

Monolinugal parents that enroll their child into a language immersion program want to raise globally competent children. Here are four important skills your child should have in moving toward this goal.

Opportunities to Investigate the world: Students are given the opportunity to design and research topics that impact our world and connect to one or more of the areas of the content for which they have responsibility. Whenever possible, students are given a choice of topics so their engagement becomes authentic and their interests are piqued.
Ability to understand and weigh multiple perspectives: Students will buy from the world and sell to the world as they become adults. They will work with a more diverse population than we ever envisioned. Their own school experience connects them with students from different ethnic and socioeconomic groups. It is important that they understand that others may come from a different worldview than they do and that seeing the world from multiple lenses may actually enrich their view of the world.
Communicate ideas: Making our thinking or ideas visible requires us to communicate effectively. Collaborating with others also requires an ability to communicate. Traditional literacies such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening continue to take center stage. We can’t neglect, however, the new literacies such as viewing, reading, and evaluating web content; and creating blogs, videos, and web pages since these are becoming core skills for the global world. In addition to incorporating strategies for students to utilize math and arts as a part of their universal language, as well as, adding a foreign language to their curriculum.
Take action: The fourth pillar engages students in authentic opportunities to make the world a better place. High-powered service learning grows out of classroom learning and allows students to feel empowered to take action.

Does Anyone Celebrate Kwanzaa???

Each year at my daughter’s school I am asked if I would like to help with the Kwanzaa display at school. Being one of two African American families at our school I guess I should be excited to share a part of African American history with the student body – after all I am a champion for multi cultural education (right??). The issue is that Kwanzaa has never been a part of my history. I never celebrated Kwanzaa growing up and only briefly celebrated it while I was in college. I don’t know any of the seven principles unless I google it first and other than a salad bowl and a mudcloth I received in college we have no Kwanzaa paraphernalia that we can even use if we chose to celebrate Kwanzaa.

Why We Don’t Celebrate:

There are many reasons why individuals do not celebrate Kwanzaa. Some out right refuse to celebrate Kwanzaa for a few reasons and some of us are just ambivalent. I’ve heard many emphasize that Kwanzaa is a “fake” or “made up” holiday and refuse to celebrate for that reason alone. Others critique Karenga – Kwanzaa’s founder. While some that straddle both camps decide not to celebrate Kwanzaa out of the growing commercialism of the holiday. In recent years Kwanzaa has developed into a much more widely accepted media-friendly holiday than one that is actually practiced by African American families.

Why We Celebrate:

How can anything that was created to uplift and support our community be viewed as “stupid” (recent comment posted on Clutch Magazine)? Those that celebrate often were actively involved in the 60’s movement and adopted Kwanzaa principles while also adopting a new perspective on life where African heritage was central in their self identity. I informed my husband this morning that we will begin celebrating Kwanzaa. Reading a friend’s blog post this morning I realized that all of the work I’ve done this year in attempting to redefine our Christmas celebration highlights very similar principles as Kwanzaa.

Today I will buy a kinara and tonight we will light it in celebration.

The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa:

Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves stand up.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Share with us why your family does or does not celebrate Kwanzaa and other views you may want to share about this holiday.

Amazingly Old School…

Jerome Charles White, Jr. does not speak Mandarin but I want to share his amazing story.

In February of 2008, Mr. White made his debut as Japan’s first African-American Enka singer. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 4, 1981, White actively began singing Enka at the age of six and continued to study the Japanese language throughout high school and university. After graduating in Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh he moved to Japan where he worked as both an English teacher and computer engineer.

White was introduced to Enka by his grandmother, originally from Yokohama, Japan. Enka music is a combination of Jazz, Blues and traditional Japanese music. It is especially popular with the postwar generation in Japan. To this generation, Enka songs bring back some of the nostalgia of the “good old days” as well as memories of hardship and poverty.

His stage name is “Jero” and in 2009 he was named Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Japan Record Awards – the Japanese equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

Enka, a product of the late 1940s, is often viewed today by the music industry as commercially obsolete. Jero’s success is attributed to his “crossover” ability. His fanbase is not limited to older women of his grandmother’s generation who grew up with the genre but also a new and emerging younger fanbase who before would never have been thought of as potential fans for the genre. Younger fans are drawn to him and his music because of the way he has revitalized the genre by blending it with a dash of hip hop. Enka singers traditionally wear a kimono in their performances but Jero stood strong in his desire to maintain the hip hop image and it seems to be one of the many factors that contribute to his great popularity.

Add to the discussion if there are any other African American artists emerging in Asia – we’d love to hear about them.

will.i.am Supports 100,000 Strong Initiative

On Monday, Black Eyed Peas musician, will.i.am, joined with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Americans Promoting Studying Abroad (APSA) at the Mendez Learning Center in Boyle Heights. They announced the partnership between the city of Los Angeles and the 100,000 Strong Initiative to promote studying abroad in China.

will.i.am encouraged the students to “Go out there, collaborate, dream,” said the singer, who grew up in Boyle Heights. “Make a plan to execute, to come back home and tell your cousins, your nephews, your tias, your tios, your abuelitas, everybody, just what you’re learning. They’re going to be proud of you. ‘Oh, mija, I’m so proud of you.’ You need to do that. Let’s not mess around. Let’s go.”

will.i.am, who is a goodwill ambassador for the initiative, will headline a concert in Beijing on Dec. 17 to raise money to support the program. McGiffert said it will cost between $5,000 and $6,000 to send the students from Mendez to Beijing for six weeks.

The singer said China’s middle class is expected to grow tenfold to 700 million in a decade. “Do you know how much 700 million people is? Are there 700 million people in America?” will.i.am asked. “No. Think about it. Our middle class is real fragile. In 2020, their middle class will be more than Americans.”

100,000 Strong

In November 2009, President Barack Obama announced the “100,000 Strong” initiative, a national effort designed to increase dramatically the number and diversify the composition of American students studying in China. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the initiative in May 2010 in Beijing. The Chinese government strongly supports the initiative and has already committed 10,000 “Bridge Scholarships” for American students to study in China.

100,000 Strong Film Project from CIB Productions on Vimeo.

CIB Productions has recently released the 100,000 Strong Film Project which documents the extraordinary experience of three inner city teenagers from Washington DC who spend a summer in China that changes their lives. Check out their 10 minute preview to get a glimpse of the powerful impact this program has had on students.

100,000 Strong provides an incredible amount of resources for students. Continue to browse our site for more information.

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