Alumni Spotlight: Gregory Stock
Our first Spring 2023 Alumni Spotlight is Gregory Stock. Greg graduated from the Asian Studies Program with an MA focusing on conflict regions within Southeast Asia. Now Greg is a high school teacher at Green School in Bali, Indonesia.
Read more about Greg’s journey from academia to Green School in Bali, Indonesia!!!
Greg was born and raised in Central Minnesota, and he later lived, worked and studied in Hawai’i for approximately 20 years. Greg currently lives in Bali, Indonesia, and is a High School teacher at Green School. While at UH, a large part of his research focused on current conflict regions within Southeast Asia. He also studied and learned various conflict resolution practices and modalities, and received a graduate certification with the Sparks Matsunaga Institute. The practical Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana was a focus of his research, too, and he compared this with the ideals and applications of Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Organism as these were manifesting in various parts of the Philippines at the time of his studies.
After earning his M.A. in Asian Studies, Greg later returned to UH with the help of a second FLAS Fellowship, and he continued his studies of Indonesian language. Greg also earned an MLISc degree in Library and Information Sciences, and his focus in this program centered on Asian and Southeast Asian Collections. As part of an internship in the Asian Collections section of Hamilton Library, he curated an exhibit on the life and work of Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, which was displayed in the library in early 2018. Some other research interests during his time in this program included: Information Ecology, Digital Addiction, Informatics Hygiene, Independent Media, Indonesian Folktales/Storytelling, and Techno-sophy, and he particularly emphasized and focused on how these informatics topics and issues might be more consciously approached and addressed within Secondary School settings and pedagogy.
His main current research centers around the students whom he gets the honor of working with every day, and how to most effectively bring them engaging and relevant content, activities, skills/capacities and questions in both the social sciences and the humanities. Greg came to this research decades ago when he realized that the joys and challenges of working with adolescents deeply nourished him. Some ongoing research that informs his teaching and his personal life include: Goethean Science (particularly as it relates to plant observation), Epistemology, Anthroposophy (particularly in the areas of social science, spiritual science, Biodynamic Agriculture, and Waldorf pedagogy), Corporate Colonialism, Indonesian History, Social Threefolding, Futurology, and Collaborative Governance/Leadership in schools.
The link to the Hamilton Library Pramoedya Ananta Toer exhibit: https://manoa.hawaii.edu/library/about/news-events/exhibits/pramoedya-pram-ananta-toer-1925-2006/
Fun Fact:
Greg and his wife (Kaori) both enjoy playing Balinese Gamelan music, and they were involved with both the Gong Kebyar and the Angklung Gamelan Orchestras while they lived in Honolulu. They have been involved with the Gamelan orchestra at Green School in Bali, too, and his wife is currently intensively studying and practicing the gender wayang instrument. She plays with numerous Gamelan groups in Bali, including a Selonding (iron keys) orchestra. They both love ocean activities such as Stand-up Paddle board surfing and longboarding as well, and Greg is currently learning to foil surf with a wind wing.
Durian is truly the “king of fruits.” He could live on Coconuts, Bananas, Durian and Bali Coffee! He does miss Macadamia Nuts and Avocado from Hawai’i…