A Jungle Named Academia

Approaches to Self-Development and Growth

Yukiko Inoue-Smith - Foreword by Susan S. Klein and Mary L. Spencer

Professional ethics require continuous self-improvement of professors, through writing, reading, and learning: no less than for students. Promoting excellence in scholarship, mentoring students in their research, and effectively teaching, are vital elements in our professional and personal growth. However, any one of these could be a full-time job in itself. To excel in each role, it is essential for faculty members to reflect daily on our work.

What is the role of comparisons, in this reflection? Though our colleagues’ successes may suggest to us possibilities in our own work that we didn’t know existed, there is a danger that our neighbor’s “flowers” will always seem more beautiful than our own. We should let comparisons with others suggest new approaches to our goals, but never focus on comparing our outcomes (successes and failures) with those of other people. Instead, we should focus on steadily improving our own levels of mastery of skills in scholarship and in work with students.

In American academia, where both faculty members and students are ethnically and culturally diverse, such that we will often find our assumptions challenged, reflective thinking is even more essential than in a culturally homogeneous environment. Hence reflective, systematic approaches to daily practice in reading, teaching, and writing are powerful survival tactics, and are likely to sustain one’s vitality and productivity as a member of the academy.

Hamilton Books

Pages: 186 • Trim: 6 x 9¼

978-0-7618-6670-1 • Paperback • November 2015 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-0-7618-6671-8 • eBook • November 2015 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Higher, Body, Mind & Spirit / Inspiration & Personal Growth, Education / Comparative, Education / Professional Development, Literary Criticism / Poetry

A Jungle Named Academia

Approaches to Self-Development and Growth

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Professional ethics require continuous self-improvement of professors, through writing, reading, and learning: no less than for students. Promoting excellence in scholarship, mentoring students in their research, and effectively teaching, are vital elements in our professional and personal growth. However, any one of these could be a full-time job in itself. To excel in each role, it is essential for faculty members to reflect daily on our work.

What is the role of comparisons, in this reflection? Though our colleagues’ successes may suggest to us possibilities in our own work that we didn’t know existed, there is a danger that our neighbor’s “flowers” will always seem more beautiful than our own. We should let comparisons with others suggest new approaches to our goals, but never focus on comparing our outcomes (successes and failures) with those of other people. Instead, we should focus on steadily improving our own levels of mastery of skills in scholarship and in work with students.

In American academia, where both faculty members and students are ethnically and culturally diverse, such that we will often find our assumptions challenged, reflective thinking is even more essential than in a culturally homogeneous environment. Hence reflective, systematic approaches to daily practice in reading, teaching, and writing are powerful survival tactics, and are likely to sustain one’s vitality and productivity as a member of the academy.

Details

Hamilton Books

Pages: 186 • Trim: 6 x 9¼

978-0-7618-6670-1 • Paperback • November 2015 • $44.99 • (£35.00)

978-0-7618-6671-8 • eBook • November 2015 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Higher, Body, Mind & Spirit / Inspiration & Personal Growth, Education / Comparative, Education / Professional Development, Literary Criticism / Poetry

Author

Yukiko Inoue-Smith, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Faculty of the School of Education at the University of Guam, where she teaches educational psychology and research. She is a proficient scholar, and her publication record reflects her ability to fulfill complex research reporting obligations. She is equally committed to poetry, as a second area in which she has invested her passion for writing, and has been recognized by the international poetic community for her books of tanka poems.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Susan S. Klein
Foreword by Mary L. Spencer
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE: Japan—Forever in My Heart
1. The Reminiscence of a Feminist Professor
2. The Origin of My Scholarly Journey
3. Confucian Beliefs on Education
4. A Marriage of East and West
5. Re-examining the Japanese Mind Amae
6. The Human Seasons and Higher Learning
7. Communication Manners of the Japanese
8. Wider Availability vs. Better Preparation
9. A Letter to My Daughter
PART TWO: Thoughts at the Day’s End
1. Achieving a Work-Life Balance
2. Born to Be Human
3. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
4. Perspectives on Aging
5. My Future Is Here and Now
6. The School Called Life
7. The Role of Language in Ethnic Identity
8. Three Mysteries of Buddhism
9. Collegiality and Colleaguality
10. The Power of Writing
11. Photographs of Ourselves
12. A Continuing Challenge
13. Don’t Panic! We Know It Doesn’t Work
PART THREE: Bring Poetry to Life
1. How Poetry Emerges from Difficulty
2. Poetry as Qualitative Data
3. Japanese Language, Literature, and Poetry
4. My Interpretation of Haiku
5. English Tanka: A New Creation
6. Guam Teachers’ Reactions to English Tanka
7. The Fascination of Haiku, Tanka, and Senryū
8. The Gift of Tanka
9. Book Review (1)
10. Book Review (2)
PART FOUR: Inner Reflection and Personal Growth
1. Our Neighbor’s Beautiful Flowers
2. The 33rd Year: A Crucial Point in Adult Development
3. The Power of Throwing Away Things
4. The Work of a Book Editor
5. IGI Global Interview
6. A Jungle Named Academia
7. Space Clearing: A Serious Business
8. Anyone Can Do but Few Actually Do
9. Faculty Leadership and Reflective Practice
10. One Life to Live
PART FIVE: Profiles of Men and Women Today
1. The Cinderella Complex
2. “Two Lives” Some Interpretations
3. Men, Women, Work, and Marriage
4. A New Trend in the College Curriculum
5. Portraits of Today’s Undergraduate Women
6. Book Review (3)
PART SIX: Teaching—A Complex Human Activity
1. Earned and Not Given
2. What is Critical Thinking?
3. Academic Experience and Critical Thinking: A Connection
4. Thoughts on Human Learning
5. The Internet and Online Learning
6. A Never-Ending Challenge
7. MOODLE for Blended Learning
8. CATs for Improving Teaching and Learning
9. Lifelong Self-Directed Learning
10. Quality and Sustainability
11. Job Hunting Seminars
12. Students Voices on Educational Technology
13. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
14. Rethinking PowerPoint in the Classroom
PART SEVEN: Cultivating Integrity Day by Day
1. Attention is Basic for Any Human Activity
2. Stand Up for Myself
3. Practical Applications in Everyday Life
4. Self-Development and a Story about Sai
5. Initiatives for Sustainable Living
6. Small Brochure, Big Advice
7. It’s Good to Laugh Uncontrollably, Sometimes
8. Ongoing Professional Development
9. Silence Is Golden: An Interpretation
10. An Opportunity or a Routine?
11. Golden Rules Applied to Professors
PART EIGHT: Sketches of Life with Cats
1. Attachment Comes with a Cost
2. The Diary of Pumpkin and Her Babies
Commentary Essay
Tanka: Sharing Presence in a Moment (by Kyle D. Smith)
About the Author

Reviews

Yukiko Inoue-Smith is an accomplished tenured professor of education at the University of Guam, a four-year U.S. Land Grant institution in the western Pacific serving both undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Inoue-Smith, who is Japanese, brings an equal share of her native cultural-linguistic sensibilities and her quarter century of experience in American academic contexts to this book . . . . Inoue-Smith’s outlines of adult development and self-actualization regardless of the brutalities of the jungle provide another arrow in the quiver of the brave and determined scholar. The reader may be surprised at the sequence of topics that appears in each chapter. Close attention to the introductory chapter will help map the journey the author has set in motion.
— Mary L. Spencer