Teaching East Asia: Japan has been providing services to K-12 educators and schools since 1985 through grant-funded projects that sponsor summer institutes, study tours, one-day workshops, and classroom visits. Current grants funding Teaching East Asia: Japan activities are the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, funded by the Freeman Foundation.
Japan Summer Institutes
TEA Japan periodically hosts intensive summer institutes on Japanese history and contemporary issues at the University of Colorado Boulder. In recent years, summer institutes have focused on transborder issues relevant to teaching and learning about East Asia as a region.
TEA’s summer institutes are open to teachers from around the country and are generally targeted to secondary teachers of world history, world literatures, Asian studies, and international relations, but teachers of other subjects such as U.S. history, art, and English are also welcome to apply.
Participants work with scholars from CU-Boulder and other leading institutions and develop plans for revising their own curriculum related to the topic of the institute. TEA covers lodging, meals, and the majority of travel expenses. In addition, participants receive institute texts, relevant curriculum resources, and, upon completion of all follow-up responsibilities, a final stipend. Teachers may elect to take the institute for graduate credit through the University of Colorado.
Please check back around January 15, 2023 for our 2023 Summer Institute information and application.
Recent Summer Institutes
2021 TEA-NCTA Virtual Summer Institute: East Asia in the Early Modern World. What do sources from and about merchants, pirates, diplomats, missionaries, soldiers, and artists tell us about early modern East Asia? Examining various transborder voyagers, institutions, and practices that contributed to the formation of the interconnected East Asian world (1271-1842), this institute offered secondary teachers an opportunity to work with scholars and specialists to consider East Asia as a system that included but transcended the collective national histories of China, Japan, and Korea. In this institute, teachers will gain an understanding of the political, economic, and cultural systems of the early modern East Asian world and reconsider narratives of encounters and conflicts with European imperialist powers.
During the Covid pandemic, TEA moved to virtual online workshops and webinars and we remain in this venue during the 2022-23 academic year. Please visit the NCTA Seminars and Offerings page for current and upcoming offerings as well as courses now open to registration.
Built with support from the Japanese Consulate, the US-Japan Foundation, the Freeman Foundation, and contributions from teachers and publishers, TEA’s Japan Resource Center offers teachers in the western United States an extensive collection of curriculum resources on Japan. Most materials are lent free of charge to teachers within commuting distance of the TEA offices; artifact trunks rent for a nominal fee. Please see our Japan Resource Center page for full details.
TEA offers a collection of 30 late-Edo period (1800-1850s) woodblock prints for instructional use to educators at all levels. See sample prints and learn how to borrow the collection for use in your own classroom.