why teach about East Asia?

[Anonymous]

Like I said earlier, I am a UCLA graduate and during my time there I distinctly remember not knowing anything about Asian culture and thinking every Asian I met was Chinese. As I started to talk to people about their heritage and learn about the different Asian cultures, I became fascinated with that region.

Now I see my low-income Latino elementary students are in that same mind set of thinking every Asian is Japanese. I believe music is a wonderful medium to introduce the vast differences of cultures to young students. Last year, my students performed a song in complete Japenese and it totally quieted the room. We learned so much of the culture just by singing this simple song. I am looking to expand on that experience. That's why we teach about Asia!

[Anonymous]

My students are exactly the same way. Fortunately, I grew up in a very diverse area so I met people from many different ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. However, I was in shock when I started teaching and my students started assuming that every Asian was Chinese and that they jumped up and down and started screaming every time they saw a blonde young women with blue eyes. My students are only familiar with other Latinos and everything else is completely foreign to them.

The first country I visited outside of the United States was China and it was not until college that I took this trip. I taught English at a summer camp in Dongguan and immediately fell in love (everyone falls in love with the first country they visit).

I wanted to take this seminar to learn more about East Asian cultures for my students and also my own personal knowledge. Obviously teaching math and science is a necessity, but I also want my students to be knowledgeable and mindful about the world around them and I believe this seminar will help me do that. I teach a violence prevention program called Second Step and I want to incorporate a greater awareness for different cultures within this program.

[Anonymous]

Hola! My Name is Irella Perez Martinez and I am a school Principal in Compton Unified. I also have 4 lovely kids and I love my US China Institute.

[Anonymous]

Many of my students are Korean. When I used to teach World History, and even now when I am teaching US history, my students often a ask me why the school doesn't have a chapter devoted to Korea. My response is that "I don't know". In our previous book, before History Alive, I know that there was one paragraph, or maybe it was two.

I am not sure what History Alive teaches, but now I must find out. I also want to learn as much as I can in this seminar, because I could share this information with my fellow World History teachers, during a PDD.

There is such a diverse population in my classes, Mongolian, Indonesian, Philippino, and others I cannot think of right now. I even have a child who is Korean, but speaks with an Aussie accent, after living there for 8 years. This seminar will help me understand this diverse Asian culture.

[Anonymous]

It is important to teach about all cultures. Many of my students don't even have a very good understanding of their own culture (most of them are Hispanic). Teaching about Asia is one of those things that people always assume others will eventually learn somewhere along the way. Luckily for me, teaching about East Asian history is part of my curriculum, so I have an actual block of the year devoted to it. However, the more I learn about Asian culture, the more I see how much of an impact those countries have on us here in the US, and how much I would want to tie in some of that history into any course I may teach. Even if it is teaching something seemingly unrelated just within the context of some sort of Asian history, current event, or cultural characteristic, students will be able to build a connection with another part of the world.
Many of my students never experience much outside of their Los Angeles bubble, so when they are exposed to other cultures, they are surprised at how similar other cultures are to theirs. I was feeling kind of silly when at our first seminar, I had no clue about half of the things that were currently going on in Asia. That is my own fault for being so US-centric, but I definitely can help my students be more up to date by including teaching of Asia in my classroom.

[Anonymous]

Isn't there already too much ground to cover? Yes, there is too much ground to cover. But there is also too much ground to uncover. There is also too much ground covered with sand and many tend to hide there heads there. The ground to cover is as much as it is and it must be covered (discovered, uncovered, and recovered). Every region of the world deserves more or less attention depending on the point of view. Some factors (mostly of economic and political nature) make some regions more “important” at a certain moment, which is the case with East Asia nowadays.
East Asian content shouldn’t be just “added” to the curriculum. It must be part of a well organized curriculum that considers the major descriptors of a region.
What is to be gained? Besides the concrete knowledge about the region, a curriculum design strategy could be developed.
Lost? Just curricular “white spots” could be lost.

[Anonymous]

As was mentioned during the last class, our students live in a highly connected society because of technology like the internet, gaming, and even television. However, what saddens me is that when I try to incorporate elements like history and geography into my lessons, I get a lot of blank stares or questions like, "Is France a city?" Our kids live in a little bubble and I don't think a majority of our students are getting enough exposure to what lies outside America beyond pop culture phenomena, which isn't going to help them very much in "the real world". Therefore, I really think it is our job as educators to open our students' eyes to what lies beyond America so that they can function and ultimately succeed in a society that is becoming more global year after year. As we saw during the last class, Asia in particular is an ever strengthening influence on the world today and we need to prepare our students to be able to understand that as well as understand the context that the Asian population is coming from by looking at Asian history, philosophy, literature, art and more.

[Anonymous]

I don't think study of East Asia should dominate any curriculum, but it could and should be introduced and touched on in the classroom. Our primary objective as educators should be to prepare our students for the jobs of the future, and to ignore the role of Asia in the cultural, economic, and political future of the world would be doing a great disservice to our students. Perhaps more than any time in history, a knowledge and understanding of Asia is in our students' economic and strategic best interest. Just my humble opinion, for whatever it's worth.

[Anonymous]

I am in a similar situation as ebeneke, where I have a very large Korean population in my classroom. I also have several students from Japan and China (my school is starting an exchange program with a school in Beijing), so it is imperative that I understand where these students are coming from and intertwine their history within our curriculum.

Last year a student of mine wrote on the Dokdo islands for his research paper, so it was interesting seeing that come up in the beginning of last week's presentation. This student also described how when going to primary school in Seoul his education was very anti-Japanese yet here in America, a country that was attacked by Japan, was very pro-Japan. It was an interesting paper with an interesting viewpoint presented, especially for a 15 year old. This was the first time I had heard of the Korean/Japan conflicts so I hope this class will enlighten me even more on issues and the derivations for conflicts in the east.

[Anonymous]

I kind of ran into the same situation as "eisler" when teaching my Korean and Japanese Jr. High students. It was a ticklish situation, but was diffused with a little humor. The class was small enough that all got to know each other well, and did not hold past historical grudges against each other in the classroom. I would imagine with older "students", let's say adults, it could have been a lot more uncomfortable. I don't how much has been done to undo past hurts, but I'm pretty sure from what I have heard in the news about Japan, it hasn't been nearly enough. I'm also fairly sure that the Japanese have basically not admitted to much wrong doing.[Edit by="ebeneke on Oct 4, 7:57:48 PM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="ebeneke on Oct 4, 7:59:08 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Hello, I'm very excited about this course. I have limited experience with Asian culture and would like to become more knowledgeable to be able to enrich my teaching. I work with a predominately Latino community that could benefit from culture rich lessons.

[Anonymous]

In my seven years of teaching experience, I feel I've yet to scratch the surface in terms of teaching about, or more importantly learning about Asia. My knowledge is VERY limited and I hope to learn more. Most of my knowledge in philosophy stems from 19th century continental philosophy, so the though of learning Asian philosophy outside of that, intrigues me. In addition, I'm an art/architecture lover. My interest was peaked when it was mentioned that Frank Lloyd Wright made a great deal of his money selling Asian art. I had no idea. I also attended a university in the Bhutanese style of architecture, which has left a serene, beautiful image in my memory that is great to revisit. I'd love to learn more about the Asian influence on art in our society.
- danny magana

[Anonymous]

Why study about Asia? Why not? Let me share how my studies about Asia have help me in this past short week already!So we are learning about the four MAjor School of Thoughts. I was specifically assigned to Daoism. I will share a quote that I just read... "The way is not like a superhighway; the Way is like a bird flying in the sky - it leaves no footprints behing."
Would it not be nice to live ones life under this principal.
My life is so fast pace. My life is so GO GO GO and next! My life and specifically my job is about the Goal! Tao is a balance a balance that I can learn to bring into my life. Let me go read more about it, maybe I can even bring this to my staff and scholars.

[Anonymous]

That is correct, jbaxter, East Asia shouldn't dominate the curriculum but should be present because of number of reasons. It is not about domination, it's about priorities and thoughtful balance.

[Anonymous]

Over the past years I have witnessed the Asian and South Pacific student population at my school increase drastically. They are now at 20% of the student population. In light of this, I feel it is imperative for me to learn more about the history of Asian culture so that I can expand on my culturally diverse curriculum. In doing this, I can not only help my Asian students feel more of a part of the school community, but I can also open the eyes of my other students whose cultural experiences are limited to their immediate neighborhood.

[Author]

Posts