J-Center K-12 Education Resource Guide

EDUCATION RESOURCE GUIDEK-12 Japan-Related Lesson Plans & Materials

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The J-Center at the Center for Citizen Diplomacy was established with grant funds from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership to identify, network, and promote organizations that offer opportunities related to Japanese culture, language, and art in the American Midwest. The J-Center unites the efforts of leaders dedicated to fostering the important U.S.-Japan relationship through purposeful cultural and educational interactions. One of the core objectives of the J-Center project is to expand educational outreach about Japan to K-12 schools in the American Midwest through promotion of and greater access to available curricula and teaching materials. The J-Center partnered with seven trusted organizations dedicated to curriculum development, offering lesson plans and collateral materials aimed at introducing key components of Japanese culture and history to English-speaking classrooms around the world. The J-Center brings together these sources of classroom content to ensure the highest quality materials are available here, reducing the time teachers spend searching online for Japan-centered lesson plans. Educators are encouraged to read the lesson plan overviews available from the content providers listed below and to click the purple link at the top of each lesson overview or to visit the website address listed on each provider page to download the related materials.

K-12 LESSON PLANS

The Center for Citizen Diplomacy

The Asia Education Foundation (AEF) is a joint activity of Asialink at the University of Melbourne and Education Services Australia. Established in 1992, the Foundation advocates for and supports Asia literacy in Australian schools. Asia literacy is knowledge, skills, and understandings about the histories, geographies, societies, cultures,

literature, and languages of the diverse countries throughout Asia.

In order to achieve Asia literacy for every young student, The Asia Education Foundation underscores collaboration with education systems and jurisdictions. Designed to equip young students for the 21st century by ensuring that they all gain knowledge, skills, and understandings of the countries and cultures of Asia through their schooling, AEF lesson plans can be tailored to fit the styles of educators around the world. | www.asiaeducation.edu.au

K-12 LESSON PLANSJ-CENTER K-12 RESOURCE GUIDE

Poetry Into Performance

A wealth of traditional and contemporary poetry hails from countries in Asia. This unit requires students to read a wide variety of poems, to select a poem for performance, and to write and perform their own poems. Student choice and creativity is encouraged, with students given ample opportunity to move beyond the class study of individual poems.

TaikOz: Japan-Australia Taiko Drumming

In this unit students will explore the music of TaikOz, an Australian group formed in 1997. They will learn how taiko drumming pieces are created and analyze the movements used in taiko drumming. Students will get the chance to make their own piece of music, drawing on elements of the taiko drumming style, and look at the techniques used by other taiko composers.

Visual Haiku

Students will discover, adapt, and present elements of traditional Japanese haiku poetry in non-traditional ways. They will develop visual haiku incorporating imagery and text to interpret and represent a haiku poem. In developing this visual haiku, students may use digital cameras (moving and/or still), electronic imaging software and traditional art-making techniques to construct a series of images. Sounds may also be used. Discussions about how art forms convey beliefs and values form an important part of this unit.

centerforcitizendiplomacy.org

The Asian Art Museum Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture is one of San Franciscos premier arts institutions and home to a world-renowned collection of more than 18,000 Asian Art treasures spanning 6,000 years of history. Through rich art experiences, centered on historic and contemporary artworks, the Asian Art Museum unlocks the past for visitors, bringing it to life, while serving as a catalyst for new art, new creativity, and new thinking.

With Asia as its lens and art as its cornerstone, the museum sparks connections across cultures and through time, igniting curiosity, conversation, and creativity. At the Asian Art Museum, artistic and educational programs empower visitors to discover the relevance of great artworks in profoundly personal ways. Immersed in the museums galleries, visitors ponder the universal values found in human expression. Through the bustle of daily programs, students of the world steep in cultures through art, music, dance, and tradition. In the clamor of the museums classrooms, children build bridges to old and new worlds. | www.asianart.org

K-12 LESSON PLANSJ-CENTER K-12 RESOURCE GUIDE

Samurai as Cultivators of the Arts

In addition to superior strategic and military ability, most elite samurai were expected to be versed in the cultural arts. The terms bu and bun refer to the combination of military (bu) skills and cultivation of peaceful arts (bun) that were expected of most samurai. Excellence at archery and swordsmanship are examples of bu, while composing poetry, watching Noh plays, or learning the Way of Tea (Chado) are all examples of bun. In this lesson, students will learn the significance of this balance of military and cultural arts and write their own waka poems.

Telling Tales with Kamishibai

In Japan, the tradition of storytelling with art dates back to the 9th century when Buddhist monks would use storytelling scrolls to teach religious stories and lessons to an illiterate public. During the early 20th century, picture storytelling, then known as kamishibai became a way to escape from the hardships of war and economic depression. As kamishibai became less popular, artists adapted their skills to the popular manga and anime to tell stories. In this lesson, students will summarize and illustrate the main events of a folktale from Japan in the format of kamishibai slides.

The Spiritual Life of the Samurai: Meditation and Brushpainting

Like most Japanese of their time, the samurai followed Buddhist religious teachings as well as the practices of Japans native religion, Shinto. In this lesson, students will discuss the ways in which spiritual belief supported and enhanced the military function and cultural values of the samurai. They will experience this practice through an ink painting activity.


J-CENTER K-12 RESOURCE GUIDE

K-12 LESSON PLANSEDSITEment (a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities) offers a treasure trove for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.

All EDSITEment materials have been reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in the classroom. They cover a wide range of humanities subjects, from American history to literature, world history and culture, language, art, and archaeology, and have been judged to be of high intellectual quality. | www.edsitement.neh.gov

Say Hi to Haibun Fun

The Japanese art of haibun, developed in Japan in the late 17th century by Matsuo Munefusa (Basho), focuses on objective reporting of the everyday moment and focusing the insights of that moment into a theme developed in a concluding poem. This cross-curricular lesson is designed to introduce students in language arts or social studies classes to elements of the Japanese writing style and the Japanese cultural concepts incorporated by the haibun.

Hamlet Meets Chushingura: Traditions of the Revenge Tragedy

Students will learn about the Elizabethan revenge ethic as reflected in Hamlet and about the Tokugawa revenge ethic as reflected in the Japanese Bunraku/Kabuki play Chushingura or the Treasury of the Loyal Retainers. This lesson sensitizes students to the similarities and differences between cultures by comparing Shakespearean and Bunraku/Kabuki dramas.

Life in the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Prints and the Rise of the Merchant Class in Edo Period Japan

The Edo Period in Japan was a time of great change. The merchant class was growing in size, wealth, and power, and artists and craftsmen mobilized to answer the demands and desires of this growing segment of society. Much of the art of this period reflects both the tastes and the circumstances of this increasingly powerful class. This lesson will help teachers and students to investigate Edo Period Japan through the window provided by these images of the landscape, life, and interests of the rising townspeople.



K-12 LESSON PLANSJapan Society is an American nonprofit organization supported by individuals, foundations, and corporations that brings the people of Japan and the United States closer together through mutual understanding, appreciation, and cooperation. More than a hundred years after the Societys founding, its goal remains the samethe cultivation of a constructive, resonant, and dynamic relationship

between the people of the U.S. and Japan.

The Societys About Japan teachers resource center provides educators and specialists in Japan Studies a space for sharing, discussing, and developing teaching ideas and resources about Japan, especially as they relate to K-12 classrooms. The centers website features thought-provoking essays; classroom-ready lesson plans; an area for asking and answering questions; and resources including historical documents, maps, and images. In addition to user-generated content, the editorial team develops original materials organized around different themes. Users are invited to contribute materials of their own and join the discussion. | www.japansociety.org

Nature and the Environment in Postwar Japan

Japanese culture is suffused with a profound aesthetic appreciation of nature; traditional value systems place great emphasis on respect for the natural environment; and Japanese people, even today, often express the belief that their society is more sensitive and attuned to nature than Western societies are. On the other hand, Japan has a long history of efficiently exploiting the environment and degrading the natural world to meet human needs and the demands of industry. This lesson explores Modern Japans complex attitude towards the environment, stemming from the inherent tension in reconciling a tradition of reverence and a self-proclaimed affinity for nature with the degradation that can accompany rapid economic growth.

Popular Culture and Japans Gross National Cool

The rise of Japanese popular culture has been one of the undeniable global phenomena of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Japanese anime and manga have become youth favorites internationally; Japanese video games and television series claim devoted followings from Cambodia to Copenhagen; Godzilla and Pokmon are international icons; sushi is readily available in the supermarket cases of suburban America from coast to coast; Japanese fashion defines chic in Asia as well as Europe. This lesson explores modern Japans ability to create pop culture trends and icons that are embraced worldwide, thus giving Japan significant soft power.

Life in the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Prints and the Rise of the Merchant Class in Edo Period Japan

The Edo Period in Japan was a time of great change. The merchant class was growing in size, wealth, and power, and artists and craftsmen mobilized to answer the demands and desires of this growing segment of society. Much of the art of this period reflects both the tastes and the circumstances of this increasingly powerful class. This lesson will help teachers and students to investigate Edo Period Japan through the window provided by these images of the landscape, life, and interests of the rising townspeople.



K-12 LESSON PLANSVisualizing Cultures (VC) was launched at MIT in 2002 to explore the potential of the web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be).

Topical units to date focus on Japan in the modern world and early-modern China. The thrust of these explorations extends beyond Asia per se, however, to address culture in much broader wayscultures of modernization, war and peace, consumerism, images of Self and Others, and so on. | www.visualizingcultures.mit.edu

Black Ships & Samurai

On July 8, 1853, residents of feudal Japan beheld an astonishing sightforeign warships entering their harbor under a cloud of black smoke. Commodore Matthew Perry had arrived to force the long-secluded country to open its doors. In these lessons, students consider how cross-cultural encounters, or any event, are variously experienced.

Asia Rising and Yellow Promise/Yellow Peril

Imperial Japans 190405 war against Tsarist Russia changed the global balance of power. The first war to be widely illustrated in postcards, the Japanese view of the conflict is presented in images from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection of Japanese Postcards at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of visual literacy through postcards of the 1904 to 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

Selling Shiseido

The 20th-century history of the Shiseido cosmetics company provides a vivid image of the efflorescence of modernity in Japanreflecting the changing ideals of feminine beauty, the emergence of a vibrant consumer culture, cutting-edge trends in advertising and packaging, and the persistence of cosmopolitan ideals even in the midst of the rise of militarism in the 1930s. In these lessons, Shiseidos vast archives are used to explore marketing concepts of modern beauty from the 1920s through 1943, when wartime exigencies eventually curtailed the promotion of an international aesthetic of worldly chic.



K-12 LESSON PLANSThe National Association of Japan-America Societies, Inc. (NAJAS) is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization that offers educational, cultural, and business programs about Japan and U.S.-Japan relations to the general public through its member Japan and Japan-America Societies. NAJAS is the only national non-profit network in the United States dedicated to public education about Japan. NAJAS consists of

approximately 40 independent Japan-related organizations located in 32 cities around the country. Its membership cuts across usual group boundaries (business, political, academic, American, Japanese, etc.) and affords a variety of perspectives on U.S.-Japan relations.

The mission of the National Association of Japan-America Societies is to strengthen cooperation and understanding between the peoples of Japan and the United States by providing programs, services, and information to and facilitating cooperation among its member societies throughout North America. |www.us-japan.org

Super Clean Japan

Recycling plays a major role in global society. Waste is a big issue and countries are struggling with ways to keep the situation under control. Japan is a model country in terms of recycling. Their efforts have surpassed many countries. Japan has recently passed a number of laws that have helped the countrys recycling issues. These laws have produced tremendous results in Japans favor. Through enforcement of these laws the country sends only 16% of its solid waste to landfills. The United States sends close to 70% to landfills. In this lesson, students will learn about both everyday practices and societal initiatives in Japan to recycle and harmonize humanity and the environment.

Japanese Women Make An Impact In and Out of the Home

Japanese women have held many roles throughout Japans rich history. Women were quite powerful in and out of the home in ancient Japan. Japanese goddesses are credited with the creation of Japans islands and are believed to have familial connections to the Japanese imperial family. Womens power declined as Confucianism became widely practiced in Japanese society. Confucianism describes womens roles as subordinate to those of men and it became difficult for women to maintain positions of power under this belief system. This lesson exams how modern Japanese women are working in and out of the home.

Baseball, Bushido, and Boundaries

Students will recognize and identify the presence of enduring traditional values in modern institutions, including: the appreciation of group harmony (wa) over individual acclaim; the combination of the sacred and the secular inhabiting the same space; the bushido mentality applied to sport; and the continuing tension that exists in society in defining what it means to be Japanese, specifically issues of hierarchy and group identity in a democratic society.



K-12 LESSON PLANSPrimary Source promotes history and humanities education by connecting educators to people and cultures throughout the world. In partnership with teachers, scholars, and the broader community, Primary Source provides learning opportunities and curriculum resources for K-12 educators. By introducing global content, Primary

Source shapes the way teachers and students learn, so that their knowledge is deeper and their thinking is flexible and open to inquiry.

Primary Source is guided by a commitment to change the way students learn so that their knowledge base is broader, their thinking more flexible and given to inquiry, and their attitudes about peoples of the world more open and inclusive. By equipping teachers with knowledge and resources, Primary Source prepares students for the challenges and complexities of our diverse nation and world. |www.primarysource.org

Bent: Appreciating the Aesthetics of Food

Bent (or the more formal word obent), in Japanese, is the generic word for a portable meal, similar to a boxed or bagged lunch in American culture. Food is carefully presented in ready-to-eat, individual portions in an attempt to provide a nutritious meal away from home. In this lesson activity, students will examine the characteristics of bent and think about how bent reflect an appreciation of food, aesthetics, and nutrition. Students will apply these understandings as they create their own bent through art.

Haiku: 17 Syllables of Significant Seasonal Sentiment

Haiku is a short, 3-line poem consisting of 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third. In the United States, haiku is often taught in elementary schools as simply another form of poetry. However, in Japan, haiku is a popular way among people of all different ages of capturing snapshots of daily life and events, often in humorous ways. In this lesson activity, students are encouraged to explore the significance of seasons in Japanese culture as illustrated through haiku poems.

Trains: More Than Just Getting People from Point A to Point B

Millions of Japanese take the train every day to school or work, making trains a fundamental part of daily life. Since so many people rely on trains, careful attention is paid to punctuality and efficiency on Japanese railways, traits for which this system is world renowned. In this lesson activity, students will not only learn about why trains are so important in Japan, but also what trains and their operations can tell us about Japanese culture and values.



Connect with us online

The J-Center works to identify, network, and promote organizations that offer opportunities related to Japanese culture, language, and art in the American Midwest.

The J-Center unites the efforts of leaders dedicated to fostering the important U.S.-Japan relationship through purposeful cultural and educational interactions.

The Center for Citizen Diplomacy is a signature initiative of PYXERA Global that promotes and expands opportunities for all individuals to engage across cultures and create shared understanding through meaningful person-to-person interactions. The Center believes citizen diplomacy is a powerful force in building and sustaining a secure, economically sound, and socially interconnected world.

PYXERA Global creates groundbreaking partnerships between the public, private, and social sectors that leverage the unique attributes of each to create shared value and innovative solutions to complex challenges. PYXERA Global creates opportunities for purposeful global engagement.

The J-Center at the Center for Citizen Diplomacy was established with grant funds from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP). The Center is proud to work with the CGP toward achieving shared goals of strengthening the global U.S.-Japan partnership and cultivating the next generation of leaders necessary to sustain and grow this relationship.


J-Center K-12 Education Resource Guide

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Transcript of J-Center K-12 Education Resource Guide