Fostering Global Community Engagement by Connecting Classrooms Across Borders
“Do you know the Model Minority Myth? What is social justice?”
Haruka Furusho, a graduate student in the Master of Science in Community Health & Social Justice (MSCHSJ), and her mentor, Dr. Kosuke “Ko” Niitsu, Associate Professor in the School of Nursing & Health Studies at the University of Washington (UW) Bothell, delivered a special lecture for undergraduate nursing students enrolled at the Institute of Science Tokyo (IST) by connecting classrooms between the United States and Japan (Photo 1). Haruka delivered her lecture titled, “From Clinical Nursing to Community Health: My Journey from Japan to the U.S.” (Photo 2).
In her lecture, Haruka reflected on her experience as a nursing student at a university in Japan and a professional nurse at a hospital in Tokyo (Photo 3). She then described the challenges she faced when she immigrated from Japan to the United States, including a language barrier, cultural differences, feeling isolated, and difficulty speaking up. In early 2024, Haruka met Dr. Grace Lasker, a former Teaching Professor in SNHS at UW Bothell and now the Dean at Bellevue College, who encouraged her to apply to the MSCHSJ program and introduced her to Dr. Niitsu. She has been learning in MSCHSJ and receiving mentorship from Dr. Niitsu since the Autumn 2024 quarter.
Haruka introduced a concept, the Model Minority Myth, a form of stereotype that Asian immigrants, including those from Japan, often face in the United States. When she taught the definitions of community health and social justice, she made the learning experience more interactive by using Kahoot!, a game-based learning platform that allowed IST nursing students to vote on answers and learn these concepts in a more fun and engaged way (Photo 4). She also described the capstone project that she has been working on with her community partner, FLAT, a non-profit organization that provides medical and health support for Japanese people living in the United States. Through her capstone, she developed educational materials about cancer screening in linguistically appropriate and culturally sensitive ways by incorporating consumers’ voices. She concluded her lecture by emphasizing, “Healthcare and being healthy are everyone’s right, no matter who you are”.
Zhexi Ying, a PhD student and a Teaching Assistant at IST, asked Haruka a question, “I’ve been thinking, do immigrants/foreigners tend to experience greater health inequity/discrimination in multi-cultural societies like the USA or relatively homogenous societies like Japan? What do you think?” As an individual who grew up in China and currently lives in Japan as an immigrant/foreigner, Zhexi reflected on her life and shared her experiences with the class. Haruka mentioned a project in which she interviewed Muslim women living in Japan when she was a graduate student in the Master of Science in Nursing program at a university in Japan. Zhexi and Haruka brought their perspectives to the class and had an insightful discussion in the virtual classroom connecting two countries (Photo 5).
In addition to Haruka’s lecture, Dr. Niitsu described nursing education and workforce issues in the United States (Photo 6).
He also discussed the UW Study Abroad program for IST students that he developed, and Haruka assisted:
Dr. Niitsu is one of the COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) fellows. For this lecture, instead of having each participant join Zoom individually, the IST classroom and the UW Bothell classroom were connected via Zoom. This style allowed individuals in the same physical space to interact more organically and encouraged more active discussions across the classrooms connected virtually (Photo 7).
While in the same classroom, some IST students brought their laptop computers and opened their cameras, with only one microphone in the classroom being open to avoid audio echo, so that the lecturers at UW Bothell could see their faces. The class concluded by thanking one another and waving (Photo 8).
Haruka reflected on the global teaching experience and stated, “This experience gave me a chance to look back at my own journey and think deeply about what message I want to pass on to future Japanese nurses. I am glad I was able to share my perspective as a minority, and to emphasize the importance of speaking up—especially for those who may work as part of the majority while caring for minority populations. I enjoyed connecting with the students, and I hope more of them are inspired to explore global health and social justice.”
Zhexi said, “The lectures by Haruka and Dr. Niitsu were very inspiring. As someone with experience studying and working outside my home country, I deeply related to Haruka’s story and appreciated the opportunity to join this class and discuss health equity and social justice with students and faculty across countries.”
Dr. Akiko Kondo is a professor of nursing at IST and affiliated faculty with UW Bothell. She is teaching a course titled, Practicum of English for Nursing, and invited Haruka and Dr. Niitsu to her class. “Students’ motivation to study abroad should have been increased by lectures from Haruka and Ko. Thank you for having a great time with us,” Dr. Kondo said.