Class Reflection - Brian Brooks

I enjoyed Brian Brooks' lectures in the semester. Brian Brooks is our discussion instructor. He taught us how to exactly think global. He related his experience with principles of topics. For example, while our topic was globalization, he explained the definition and ideas of globalization by sharing his thoughts about other countries such as China. I was an international student coming from China. While our topic related to China, Brooks would ask me whether it was correct or not. I was very appreciated it. He showed the respect to us. Sometimes articles were about old China such as Asian Values, which I did not agree with it.

I remembered we have been discussed the political spectrum in class. Brooks drew a political spectrum on blackboard and asked students to write down countries’ name under the political spectrum on the basis of own knowledge. He didn’t punished students who wrote it wrong; instead, he would ask the reason for why he/she wrote it. If he thought that the answer was reasonable, he would not force students to change it. In addition, he was a knowledgeable instructor. He had lots of experiences and he would like to share with us. Sometimes he would share his ideas about what was going on at present. For example, he talked about recent event happened in Paris in our discussion. Even though it seemed not relate to the current topic we learnt, it was important to share our thoughts about the event. It was another way to encourage us to think global. 

I like Brooks' lecture very much. Sometimes he would show us some videos to explain his topics, which really helped us understand what was going on. I chose Costa Rica to be my region country, and I really enjoyed sharing my research on Costa Rica when I was doing the project. I enjoyed taking J3510 this semester.