February 2020
This month's voice:
"Grokking Myself" by Maria Lisak
Introduction
When I first met Maria Lisak, she was giving a workshop at a KOTESOL conference. I remember being impressed (and, to be candid, a little intimidated) by her energy, professionalism, and insights; since then, I've had the pleasure of attending her workshops many times and getting to know her as a teacher, researcher, advocate, mentor, and friend. Maria absolutely resonates with passion and energy, and her empathy and optimism seem to fuel her continuous quest for social justice and self-understanding. It was with all this in mind—and an eye toward her many years in Korea, her reflective practice, her manifold life experiences, and the way she actively elevates and supports others—that I invited her to contribute to this month’s KOTESOL Voices. I was delighted when she accepted and even more delighted when I read her contribution. I hope you enjoy reading her reflections and explorations as much as I did!
—Lindsay Herron
KOTESOL President
Grokking Myself
By Maria Lisak
Every couple of years I return to a poster and multimodal presentation I made in grad school about crossing borders and the space “in between spaces” I have chosen to live in for the past 24 years.
Multimodal Reflection Voicethread: https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/9495420/54639120/53786274
The interconnection of power, agency, and identity within community stand out for me when I reviewed my poster this year. From the perspective of sociocultural theory, a theory that sees human learning as mostly a social process (Lewis, 2003), power, agency, and identity are in motion, discursively performed in community. These concepts are imaged in each letter in the poster. The poster takes the word grok (meaning “to understand,” from the book Stranger in a Strange Land) and visually represents each letter as an aspect of my view of my life living and teaching in South Korea.
The “G” in grok is a word cloud of English and Korean. Language is power. Translanguaging (Canagarajah, 2012) lets us move between languages as we make meaning.
The “R” in grok is a chopstick font. I didn’t even know how to use chopsticks when I arrived. The very real action of eating helped me to develop embodied agency for a practice that I daily take for granted.
The “O” in grok is a stereotype: me as an egg. When making this original poster, eggs were everywhere in art in Gwangju, where I live: plays, art exhibits, sculptures. It represents my internalization of what I perceive to be the conservatism of Korea, where I had been living for a couple of decades. But now when I look at it, I think it may just be the conservatism of aging. LOL! How time lets you see your ideas through social and historical backdrops is an important part of the fluidity of our identity-building.
The “K” in grok is a screenshot of a book I edited, Myeangsim Bogam, with a dear Korean friend who has since passed. The first three letters can easily be outlined in the power, agency, and identity of sociocultural theory. The last letter, to me, is about relationships—how we leverage our power, how we connect our agency, how our identity fluidly unfolds. But it is within community that all of these concepts dynamically evolve to make each new moment a new learning, a new self.
Being “in between” cultures continuously gives me a privileged stance to analyze and reflect on this growth. Visual and multimodal documentation of my living and teaching in South Korea as a U.S. American help me to uncover, recover, and discover myself.
References to help you grok my voice:
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York: Routledge.
Heinlein, R. A. (2014). Stranger in a strange land (Original uncut edition). London, UK: Hachette. (Original work published in 1961)
Lee, H.J. & Lisak, M.H. (2012). Myeangsim bogam. Jimoondang.
Lewis, C., & Moje, E. B. (2003). Sociocultural perspectives meet critical theories. International Journal of Learning, 10, 1979-1995.
About the Author
Maria Lisak just celebrated her 24th year in South Korea. This year is also her 35th anniversary of graduating from high school. Since then, she's never left learning! Flight school, philosophy, economics, business, teaching English, educational technology, Reiki, mediation, reflexology, Swedish massage, and now Literacy, Culture, and Language Education. Maria is a lifetime KOTESOL member and loves reflective practice and material-making for classroom adventures.
