September 13. "Select a Set" Saturday: Three Workshops on Asia. In Conjunction with The 2008 Western Regional Conference on Asian Studies. Register Now! Colorado teachers interested in Asian studies have a rare opportunity to learn from national leaders in the field at the annual Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (WCAAS). This year, the University of Colorado-Boulder will host the event, September 12-14. The Program for Teaching East Asia has received a grant from the AAS to coordinate a K-12 education component at the regional conference. The K-12 education component will be offered on Saturday, September 13. Through this special opportunity, Colorado teachers may participate in one of three special areas of concentration at the conference: (1) Through Asian Eyes: World War II and the Occupation of Japan; (2) Issues in Contemporary China; and (3) Religious Foundations of South and Southeast Asia: Perspectives for Secondary Educators. Each set is limited to 15 teachers at the reduced teacher registration rate of $25 if registered by Aug. 29 or $30 if registered by Sept. 5. Teachers who register for one of the three areas of concentration will attend two or three academic sessions in that topic, along with a final session that will help teachers apply the scholarship of the day’s sessions to the classroom. Registrants will each receive a box lunch and curriculum materials related to the topic. Teachers may also attend the conference separately from the TEA outreach component and attend sessions of their choice. Registration for this option will be at a reduced rate of $20 but will not include box lunch or curriculum materials. For more information or to register, click here. For questions, contact Jenny Spolnik at 303-735-5127.
September 15 (Deadline). Fall Boulder NCTA Seminar Offers New Design. Boulder Valley secondary teachers can take advantage of the fall 2008 National Consortium for Teaching about Asia seminar being conducted in cooperation with BVSD. The NCTA 30-hour seminar provides content and resources to enhance your teaching about East Asian history, geography, literature, and culture. The seminar has not been offered in Boulder since 2004 and this year will be offered during Monday release days and Saturday sessions. In cooperation with BVSD, teachers enrolled in the seminar will receive substitute coverage from NCTA to attend three Monday sessions and will receive a professional stipend from NCTA to attend three Saturday sessions. Each session is seven hours in length and full attendance is required. In addition to substitute coverage and professional stipend, participants receive course texts and their school buildings receive a package of SPICE curriculum units on China and Japan for their teacher resource room. Teachers may register for graduate credit through CU continuing education at their own expense.
Those who complete the program are eligible to apply for the NCTA study tour to East Asia in summer 2009. The seminar, coordinated in BVSD by New Vista teacher Marco deMartino and Social Studies Specialist Deann Bucher, will feature presentations from CU East Asian specialists, as well as master secondary teachers. The seminar is open to social studies teachers who teach about East Asia as part of world cultures, world geography, world history, and IB courses, as well as BVSD world literature teachers. Teachers of other subjects such as Japanese, Chinese, or art may register for the course after approval by the seminar leader, Marco deMartino.
Registration is limited to 20 teachers and registration deadline is September 15. Seminar dates are Monday, September 29; Saturday, October 11; Monday, October 13; Saturday, October 25; and Monday, November 3, 8:15-3:45 with two 2-hour follow-up sessions in winter 2009 on dates to be decided. For more information, contact Marco deMartino or Lynn Parisi at TEA.
September 2-13, 2008. Japanese Calligrapher at Boulder Library. Master Rikuden Oishi will be visiting Colorado from Japan for an exhibition of his work at the Boulder Library, September 2-13, 2008. He will be presenting a lecture and demonstration on September 20, 2:00-4:00 pm in the Boulder Library Demonstration Room. Oishi-sensei will also be teaching calligraphy classes to 4th through 12th graders September 15-19 at Denver/Boulder area schools, by special invitation.
June 28 – July 28, 2009. Journey to the Interior. A Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Seminar for Teachers of Japanese Language, Literature, and History. The Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado announces a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Seminar in Japan designed for secondary teachers of world literature or history; teachers of AP Japanese Language and Culture; as well as university instructors of Japanese. Participants will spend four weeks studying Japan through the lens of the famous travel diary Journey to the Interior (Oku no hosomichi), composed by the haiku poet Matsuo Basho after his journey through northern Japan in 1689. As they travel, they will build their Japanese language and culture skills, expand their knowledge of Japanese history and literature, and collect materials for use in preparing curricular units. Applications will be available September 1. Please contact Laurel Rasplica Rodd, Project Director, 303-492-1138, or Catherine Higbee Ishida, TEA Japan Project Coordinator, 303-735-5115.
September 18 (deadline). The Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Program provides opportunities for overseas experience. The program is open to educators and administrators with responsibilities for curriculum development in fields related to humanities, languages, and area studies. Topics and host countries of the seminars vary from year to year. All seminars are in non-western European countries. Seminars are designed to provide a broad and introductory cultural orientation to a particular country (ies). The program is geared towards those educators with little or no experience in the host country (ies) who demonstrate the need to develop and enhance their curriculum through short-term study and travel abroad. There are nine seminars being offered for Summer 2009 with 16 positions per seminar, subject to the availability of funds. Seminars take place from late June to mid-August for a duration of four to six weeks. Country seminars to be offered in 2009 include: Elementary Seminars: India, Mexico, New Zealand & Mongolia; Secondary Seminars: China - For Language Instructors, Poland, Turkey; Postsecondary Seminars: China - History & Culture, Jordan & Oman, Senegal.
Join a National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) 30-hour professional development seminar on East Asia in your area in 2008-09, offered through the NCTA national coordinating site at Teaching East Asia, University of Colorado. Fall 2008 seminars have been finalized. Winter 2009 sites are tentative.
Fall 2008
Boulder, CO
Arlington, VA
Norfolk, VA
Winter/Spring 2009
North Denver (Adams 12), CO
South Denver (Cherry Creek), CO
Phoenix, AZ
Charlottesville, VA
Beloit, WI
Omaha, NE
St. Louis, MO
Orange County, CA
Sonoma County, CA
Central Iowa
Thirty teachers will be selected for the program during a winter 2009 recruitment. During the project, teachers will work in teams, mentored by workshop faculty, to create lessons for teaching with the Visualizing Cultures online resources.
This summer, 14 elementary teachers from ten school districts in Colorado spent four weeks in Japan on the Program for Teaching East Asia’s 2008 Texts and Contexts: Japan through Children’s Literature study tour. This project was funded by The Freeman Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. With study tour leaders, Catherine Ishida, TEA’s Japan Project Coordinator; Professor David Henry, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; and Jessica Rodd, TEA’s Japan Project Assistant, the group visited six cities: Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Okayama, Yamagata, and Yokohama.
Group at the Faithful Elephants memorial at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo.
Sakuramoto Elementary School students greet study tour participants during welcome assembly.
Highlights from this year’s Texts and Contexts study tour include the following:
- On July 5th, we spent a day with author Holly Thompson in Koshigoe-town, the setting of her latest book, The Wakame Gatherers. With Holly Thompson as our guide, we walked by shops, houses, and beach scenes that are illustrated in the book.
- In Kyoto, teachers had a quiet day to reflect upon how the samurai cultivated inner-peace during an age of war. The group participated in a tea ceremony and an overnight at a Zen temple including an introduction to meditation and vegetarian Buddhist cuisine.
- Each teacher spent a weekend with a family in Yamagata prefecture. The teachers experienced a family’s weekend lifestyle, visited some famous sites in Yamagata, and shared ideas and laughter over delicious meals.
China's Transformations on the Eve of the Olympics was the 24th summer institute conducted by TEA. Twenty-four educators from across the United States were on the University of Colorado-Boulder's campus, July 20-July 30, to study what happens to the world's most populous country when it is rapidly transformed socially, politically, and economically.
Tim Weston, Department of History at the University of Colorado, was the lead faculty for the institute. His first lecture China at this Global Moment set the stage for the institute. TEA staff for the institute included Lynn Parisi, Director of TEA; Karla Loveall, TEA Senior Staff Associate; Jennifer Ryan, China Project Assistant; and Jenny Spolnik, Outreach Coordinator. Participants took part in the faculty lectures, curriculum sessions, documentary viewings, and discussions as part of the institute.
Melanie Schulze (TX), Sarah Campbell (AK), and Brady Schmidt (CO) participate in a final synthesis project at the summer institute. In the projects, groups made a PowerPoint of the "Top Ten Things to Know about China's 21st Century Transformations."
Roz Kim (NJ), Kristy McGuire (NE), and Eric Schulz (IA) demonstrate a balance of the positive and negative attributes of China's growth in an activity led by guest presenter Harris Payne, Supervisor of Social Studies at Omaha Public Schools.
The group at the Byodo-in Temple in Uji.
Keller Kimbrough, CU professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, met the group in Uji at the Byodo-in Temple. The group explored the grounds outside the temple, a museum, and the statue inside, Amitabha, Buddha of infinite light. The statue was made by Jocho, a man revered as the greatest Buddhist carver in the Heian Era.
Tom Kirchner, a Buddhist monk, hosted the group at a Zen Buddhist temple and garden where the group spent one of their nights in Kyoto. He led the group in meditations and shared Buddhist vegetarian meals with them that had been prepared at the temple.
At the Hiroshima Peace Museum, Keijiro Matsushima, an atomic bomb survivor, talked to the group about his experience when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 63 years ago when he was 16 years old.
The group also had homestays while in Yamagata and visited Kawasaki City Commercial High School, where they sat in a bookkeeping class, participated in a tea ceremony, and watched martial arts demonstrations. In Tokyo they went to a baseball game, sumo tournament, Studio Ghibli (anime museum and studio), and Pokemon store (to name only some of their adventures).
During these weeks, Jenny Spolnik created a travel blog of the trip, which can be viewed at http://nctajapan.blogspot.com/.
Sue Protheroe visits Zao Crater in Yamagata with her host family.
The Program for Teaching East Asia
University of Colorado at Boulder
595 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
(303) 735-5122
New SPICE Unit: The Road to Beijing. SPICE has just released a new curriculum unit entitled The Road to Beijing. Students are introduced to the modern Chinese city of Beijing through its history, geography, and major attractions and sights. The unit include PowerPoint presentations with images and information about major historical sites in Beijing and modern scenes of the city. Students also learn about the rapid development of the city in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and the effect it's had on the city and its residents. Two documentaries (one by NBC Beijing Olympics and one by the Silk Road Project) are now available on SPICE's website. Middle School and High School versions of the curriculum unit are available for $34.95 each.
China: Fact and Details web site. This new comprehensive site includes information, maps, and pictures on virtually every aspect of China, including history, religion, customs, society, minorities, Tibet, arts, sports, government, education, economics and nature, and many subtitles under each of the main topics.
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