Nine discusses their experience as a Student Ambassador and President of the organization at their international high school. They focus on how the ways of knowing, specifically language and emotions, impacted their role. As communication was challenging with diverse students, Nine learned to consider word choice and nonverbal cues to facilitate understanding. While reasoning helped Nine understand students, they recognized its limitations and learned to adjust their approach based on the situation. Overall, Nine believes reflecting on their experiences has helped them develop skills that will aid their engineering studies.

1. Nine Singhara
Interview Script
Slide 1: Introduction
Nine: Hello, my name is Sunatthacha Singhara Na Ayuthaya. I go by Nine. I am eighteen years
old and am currently a senior in High School. I’ve been going to International School Bangkok
for about six years now. I’ll be going to Georgia Tech this fall to study Mechanical Engineering.
And this presentation will be my final graduation project.
Interviewer: Hi Nine. What will you be talking about today?
Nine: What I’m going to be talking about today is how the different ways of knowing have
affected my learning and performance, specifically in one of the activities that I have participated
in throughout my entire high school career, and is something I am extremely passionate about.
Slide 2: Student Ambassadors
Interviewer: That’s great! What would this activity be?
Nine: It’s a student/counseling department collaborative organization called “Student
Ambassadors”. I had been part of it as soon as I was eligible for application, which was around
the end of my freshman year, and have been largely involved ever since. I was a devoted
Student Ambassador for two whole years before I was elected president for the past 2011 –
2012 school year. I would say that, especially with this leadership role, I have definitely
cultivated enough experience and insights to be able to reflect and expand upon, the way I will
for the next few minutes.
Interviewer: So what does this organization do?
Nine: It basically plans and organizes different events to help new students transition smoothly
into our international school community and to make sure the leaving students feel like they
would still be part of us in spirit despite their moving on to a new location and a new life. The
Student Ambassadors’ main event has always been the New Student Orientation at the
beginning of every school year and second semester. This is where we set up different activities
to let the new students mingle amongst each other as well as with the current students, and for
us ambassadors to introduce them to the school itself, and the opportunities that it provides. For
the first week or so of school, we are completely responsible for the their class schedules and
social adaptations.
Slide 3: Ways of Knowing
Interviewer: You mentioned the “ways of knowing”, could you maybe explain what they are and
which of them you will be talking about?
Nine: The ways of knowing are the different aspects that could contribute either positively or
negatively to the construction of knowledge. They are factors that could hinder your learning
when used in certain ways, and could help it when used in other ways. The four ways of
knowing that we’ve learned are 1. Language 2. Perception 3. Reason 4. Emotions. I’ll mainly be
talking about the role that language and emotions have on my learning.
Slide 4: Language

2. Interviewer: Then let’s start with language. How did the aspect of language affect your
experience as both a Student Ambassador and the President of the organization? What did you
learn from that and how do you plan on carrying your knowledge onto other things that you will
do in the future?
Nine: In such a diverse international community like ours, our means of communication,
language, becomes even more critical than it already usually is. One of the issues that we see
predominantly with a scene like this is the definition theory. There are many new students with
different cultural backgrounds and different levels of English proficiencies. Communication
issues are naturally unavoidable. They can try to look up each word’s literal meanings in the
dictionary but they are only explained through use of other words which makes it more
complicated. Moreover, the context of the word or the associated connotation may differ from
situation to situation. Some even refer to meaning as know-how, which means that you can’t
know the meaning of the word until you use it. Even among fluent English speakers, something
said by one person could be interpreted or completely differently by another person. It is
unthinkable how many interpretational problems could come up with people who speak English
as their second or even third language. This becomes a barrier that I and my fellow Student
Ambassadors have to deal with by carefully selecting our words and expressions in order to
evoke good emotions in the new students that would result in their feelings of comfort.
Since language and communication is such a sensitive issue, especially in dealing with a
diverse group of strangers whom we are trying to make feel welcomed and at ease, I learned to
take note of this fact over the years and as President, tried to address it by grouping people of
similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds together to help them adjust. I also learned that if I
have to speak to any of these students individually, sign language and body language are
essential components of effective communication. If I have to speak to a larger group of
audience that includes non-native English speakers parents and students as well as the native
ones, I would try to choose my words carefully to reduce the vagueness that allows room for
misinterpretation and double meanings. I also found that a sincere smile goes a long way. It
helps send the message of what us student ambassadors are trying to do across even with the
limited use of language.
Slide 5: Reason
Interviewer: What about for reason?
Nine: Reasoning skills are something I have personally found to be very helpful in my attempts
to help out new students. By knowing their background information and deducing some things
about them, I could learn more about them as a person even without having met or talked for a
very long time. Same goes for induction. If the person reveals or hints one little thing about
themselves, it can sometimes be very easy to induce that what they might or might not like in
general, which always helps in getting them involved and putting them with the right group of
people that they would feel comfortable with.
However, these methods of reasoning have their limitations and may not hold true for
everybody, and the reason for this is apparent when we look at the danger of failure of
induction. The idea of working with small samples of students alone and trying to derive a bigger
picture or assuming something to be true based on that in itself is flawed and may cause

3. problems in some cases. Depending on the context and the situation, I found myself at times
having to read the atmosphere or the person and act accordingly on spot.
All in all, it is very difficult to achieve any desirable degree of certainty with just our humanly
reasoning alone, because there are many things that would undermine it, such as confirmation
and belief biases as well as invalid premises. And although the reasoning that goes behind this
organization in particular is flawed, I feel that with a little exercised caution, it’s brief and shallow
nature could be a positive thing within this context where we are trying to just initially get the
new students settled in and feel comfortable around the group of people they’re with and the
activities they’re participating in.
From this experience, I have come to conclusion that if I were to apply reason for the use of
learning under other circumstances, I would reevaluate the approach and the degree of
mindfulness depending on the context of the situation.
Slide 6: Conclusion On Learning
Interviewer: Do you have anything else to add?
Nine: By reflecting on these two main aspects of the four ways of knowing, I realized that
although one may have hindered and one have helped my learning, my experience with both of
them have allowed me to grow as a better person and as a leader. Just as I have learned from
them and developed myself over the years, I hope to keep learning from them so that I can
strive for success in my future endeavors. Especially in my college studies in the field of
engineering where the use of language and well as reason becomes extremely important and
crucial.