Page 10 - Laker Connection Spring 2013
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Maryhollowell:
experiential learning goes international
As a 2013 Fulbright Teaching Scholar in China, Dr. Mary Hollowell will be a visiting faculty member in the educational psychology department at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an. The city of Xi’an in central China is the home of the Terracotta Warriors. Xi’an is also surrounded by a nine-mile Ancient City Wall, and was once the end of the Silk Road. The Hollowell family is very excited to be residing in a city with more than 5,000 years of ancient history.
Dr. Hollowell has taught educational psychology at Clayton State University, and she will be using some of the same dy- namic techniques to enhance learning and engage students in China that she uses in America. For example, in addition to lectures, she has used the board game “It’s About Time: Bal- ancing Work & Family®” when covering the topic of parental stress. She has also used manipulatives to help future teach- ers develop non-cognitive skills, otherwise known as charac- ter traits. Students developed persistence while playing Pick Up Sticks, slowly easing one stick at a time from a pile with- out moving other sticks. This activity also reinforced pa- tience, which is vital in K-12 teaching. Hollowell’s American college students have responded to her creative lessons with raves and smiles.
Hollowell’s inspiration for applying for a Fulbright Teaching Scholarship included reading the chronicles of Peace Corps instructor Peter Hessler, author of the book “River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.” The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board is the presidentially appointed, 12-member board that is responsible for establishing worldwide policies for the Fulbright Program and for selection of Fulbright re-
cipients. Hessler was an excellent and compassionate teacher and was a good role model for global citizenship. In 2011, he won a MacArthur “genius” award for writing about China. Hollowell is a national award winner, herself. In 2010, she won the Equity & Social Justice Advocacy Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education. She plans to chronicle her own teaching adventures in China in a com- parative education book. It will be her second book following “The Forgotten Room: Inside a Public Alternative School for At-Risk Youth.”
While at Clayton State, Dr. Hollowell has also been a square dance caller, leading multicultural education students in square dances to music such as “Turkey in the Straw” with square dancing followed by lectures on different racial iden- tities, including black and white racial identities. Hollowell, a long-time dancer, received a standing ovation from Clayton State students following dancing in class, and she hopes to host extracurricular square dances at Shaanxi Normal Uni- versity. She anticipates that the dance maneuver of “do-si- do” will be similarly popular in China.
Hollowell’s daughters, one of whom is adopted from China, have practiced clogging, which is another distinctively Amer- ican form of dance, one that originated in the Appalachian Mountains. The Hollowells are prepared to do kinesthetic ac- tivities as part of their ambassador duties in China.
Readers of “The Laker Connection” can follow the Hollow- ells and ask questions about their adventures at www.thehollowellsinchina.info.
8 THE LAKER CONNECTION