Trying to answer the question what we need to live for, I found an old file in which I wrote some personal reflections in a rather self-promoting because I was writing about myself following a nomination of me as a John Edwards Fellowship candidate. We are what we are and will be for some historical, sociopolitical and psychological reasons, I guess.

Submitted to the Edwards Fellowships Committee at Indiana University in 2004.
I was nominated by the department and luckily won this prestigious award.
[More about the John Edwards Fellowships]

My academic goals have changed through the course of my academic paths, and IU has done tremendously to transform me as a scholar and as a person. Please let me tie the changing goals with my life history because they are very closely interrelated. I will also show you why I have recently been involved in services or tasks that marry happily with my academic goals.

I am the same person as a very thin, pale boy who raised buffalos, who helped out in the rice fields as the first son of a poor farming family with nine children while other kids were playing, and who loved school because it was the only place where he could hide away from the recurring reality of poverty, low life quality, complaints about debts and poor fates, and other depressing situations expressed by both his own parents and his neighbors. Luckily, he was saved from being trapped in that hopeless circle just because he, at Grade 4, received the highest percentage on the exit exams among the students in his district. The scholarship awarded for that achievement enabled him to pursue the non-compulsory education back then (Grade 5 onward) instead of having to work on the farm. Yet, his life was not easier at all after that. The boy went to his new school without a lunch box or any pocket money. His experience with real hunger helped him understand hardship better and feel compelled to escape it.

Before starting junior high school, the boy needed a new uniform. Without any money for the uniform, his father carried him on a bicycle back to a familiar Chinese store to beg for credit. Humiliation caused by the lacks made the boy humble, but determined to excel at school. At high school, the boy, equipped with excellent academic records, managed to become the English club president as well as the president of the Phayao provincial youth club. The same boy became a young man winning a seat to study in arguably the best regional university in Thailand. He had a chance to study in education to become an English teacher, the job of his dream to make students as happy in class as he always was. At the university, he developed his confidence and leadership to a level that he was elected President of the Social Development Voluntary Club, leading the club members to villages and rural schools and contributed materially, academically, and politically to the local community. Less than a year later, he was also elected Vice President for the university’s Student Council, acting mainly on issuing policies and approving budgets for all proposed student activities.

Looking back now, I realize I always wanted to do what I could to make good changes to the community of which I was a member and I always looked out for the opportunity to help the disadvantaged and the lesser. After my graduation, I was offered a job to teach at a language school right away, but I, without reluctance, turned it down because I also heard of the new openings for English teachers to work for a U.S. State Department-sponsored organization that prepared Indo-Chinese refugees for their resettlement in the U.S. My application was successful and I worked in many positions, including English as a Second Language teacher, teacher trainer (called Senior Teacher), and weekend lab teacher for about five years. Right now, about 400 students that I taught have resettled in the U.S. and I have enjoyed visiting them during summer to see how well they have been coping with life in their new home. Triggered by the refugee problems, which were beyond my village, I wished to explore the world further and to learn more about the art and science of language learning. I applied for the Australian government scholarship, and I was granted such a wonderful opportunity to study for my master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second or Other Languages (TESOL) at Sydney University. Returning to Thailand, I was offered a job at Chiang Mai University right away in 1994. After a few years of teaching at the university, I started to feel that I could not contribute to the students’ progress as much as I wished. I saw the repeated themes of unmotivated, or intimidated, or discouraged students despite the hard work and good will of my colleagues. In 1995, I started to look into other tools to help add positive forces in my teaching that would help the students achieve or at least feel better about their learning. I found Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) as a potential alternative or addition. At the same time, the more closely I worked with the students, the more convinced I became of the gaps in the whole systems. Feeling unsatisfied with my contribution, I sought to extend my services to helping to train, observe teachers and give them feedback, as well as give advice to the management and design curricular for specific needs of the customers. I decided to get involved in CALL more seriously. Between 1997 and 2000, I was involved in several technology-related projects both within the university and at the national level. Recognizing my determination to make CALL work, the university granted a competitive scholarship for me to do my PhD in England. I spent almost a whole year in England, teaching CALL-related courses as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and looking for the right research paradigm. However, at the end of the year, I learned that I was among the three university faculty members in Thailand who were selected to receive the Fulbright Scholarship to study in the U.S. Learning about the limited access to technology advancement in the U.K. and feeling that CALL might not be the best and only answer to my inquiry, I decided to move to Indiana University to study for a PhD at the Language Education Department, School of Education.

Trained solely in hardcore traditional foreign language learning and teaching, I did not see relevance in what I first heard in the seminars about equity, power relations, access, social justice and the like. After a year at IU, however, I realized that language learning, with or without technology, is part of education that occurs within socio-economic and socio-political contexts. Having developed my interest into critical literacy because of inspiration from the work of Professor Jerome Harste, and several other professors, I realized, too, about the power of words in positioning, sensitizing, and changing people and the society. I now see language learning as more than mere encoding and decoding, but as a way to transform the selves and the society. I started to understand at some point why I led my fellow students to villages, worked with refugees, conducted research about the needs of non-teaching staff at Chiang Mai University (which had not been done before), noticed and always shared money for food with homeless beggars, etc. My impoverished background indeed has shaped me to be one who more deeply understands the sufferings, depression, oppression, humiliation and restriction that many people around my immediate world are facing. I also can see that, at all levels of society, local to global, there are people in power who benefit from the unfair systems within what we call the status quo. The powerless, or often oppressed, people, on the other hand, are usually desensitized or made to accept their fate and not to question things around them, not to mention the effort to take actions that will lead to changes. I know that I am a living proof of how the son of the latter group who has managed to escape from the deadly circle and establish himself within the system and who is trying to use the system within the status quo to generate positive changes.

The frustration that I carried with me for a long time since my return from Australia seems to be partly lifted by such knowledge and understanding above that I have gained at IU. Critical literacy has become my new area of interest, and I am determined to pursue and make it work in the real world. When I was asked to compile a list of what I have done as part of the application for this award, I learned that there is a pattern in what I have achieved and been trying to do. The pattern is that I have been trying to change the world around me so that people in the disadvantaged positions will be empowered through realization of reality, the causes of their problems, and what they can do to change the conditions around them. I also found out that lot of what I do at IU and in the past (see the resume) can be categorized as efforts to sensitize myself about the unfair systems, to share my reflections with people around me, both the privileged and the oppressed, and to take actions that I can to create positive changes to the world around me. In light of all these conflicts of interest among roughly two groups of people in given societies and as I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given throughout my life to progress in all aspects, I also believe that inclusive atmosphere, mutual respect, giving hearts, equal opportunities, and positive actions will make the world a more peaceful place in which to live. My dissertation will be on a specific topic within defined efforts to push critical literacy practices towards a more constructive end, where social justice and peace prevail without violent revolutions or destructive acts or wars.

At Indiana University, I felt honored and pleased to have been serving as an Associate Instructor to teach X152 (Learning Strategies for International Students). I owe to the American people because Fulbright has sponsored my education and IU has never left me alone with financial gaps in this foreign land, therefore, this service is one that I always take seriously. I know hatred against the U.S. as a country and a culture is real and based a lot on stereotypes or overgeneralization. I challenge my students to think critically on any given issue and bring in multiple perspectives to the table so that they can become a person that fits in the U.S. culture and academia comfortably without sacrificing their valuable cultures. In efforts to return favor to the U.S. and the world for the gifts that they have given to that buffalo boy, I have tried to do whatever within my capacity, no matter how little they are. Some of them are not even significant enough to boast about, but I was happy to do them, such as being a speaker to share my research and expertise to fellow students, helping to organize an orientation for new students, trying to be sharing and giving in all the classes that I take, or regularly presenting at conferences to share what I have learned.

Another task that I am also very happy to do while at IU is being a webmaster for the Nyaka AIDS Orphans School in Uganda (http://nyakaschool.org) . I had learned that their website needed a lot of improvement, so I volunteered to assist. The website does not only elicit donation, which is crucial for this school to continue; it also educates people about problems in the real world and how individual or collective efforts can make a difference. I redesigned the whole site and now try to update it regularly with current information and additional informative contents.

Keen on constructive, educational use of technology, I also offer myself as moderator for a group of Fulbrighters from around the world who attended a training at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2001 (fbright2001@yahoogroups.com). Fulbrighters, who came to the U.S. for their education and U.S. experience, have gone back to their countries, and many have lost connection with one another. Members of this community are expected to be ambassadors for peace at all levels. Many of whom may advance to take higher positions in their countries. Therefore I volunteered to set up and moderate an email list for them to remain networked, hoping that the connection will remain instrumental when concerted efforts are needed. In this forum, we share information about world situations, on top of strengthening personal connections that we have established. The group has been active for over 2.5 years now. Lastly, my experiences at IU have shaped my interest into feministic issues. I have been interested in power relations between males and females. In particular, I am trying to understand the prostitution problem in Thailand by running an inquiry project as part of L750. I am still trying to elicit opinions from people around the world using webboards as a stage. Right now, I share the housework with my wife: wash dishes, clean the house, cook, and do my own laundry, which is a good step toward sensitizing my self. I learn to expect less and give more, on personal basis as well. If you wish to know other details about me, I invite you to visit my personal home page at http://thinsan.com/.