10,000 Shovels examines China's breakneck growth through a short documentary that integrates statistics, video footage, and satellite images. The documentary focuses on China's Pearl River Delta region while the accompanying teacher's guide takes a broader perspective, exploring many current national issues.
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
The Stanford Program on International and Cross-cultural Education (91³Ô¹Ï) has just been named the winner of the 2007 Franklin R. Buchanan Prize for the curriculum unit China's Cultural Revolution. The Buchanan Prize is awarded annually by the Association for Asian Studies and recognizes high-quality curriculum materials on Asia. This is the third time that 91³Ô¹Ï has won the Buchanan Prize since it was established in 1995.
The Cultural Revolution in China (1966-76) was a decade of enormous change and upheaval with a lasting impact on the country, its citizens, and the world. China's Cultural Revolution teaches students about the social, cultural, educational, political, and economic changes through hands-on activities requiring critical thinking skills.
This unit was written by 91³Ô¹Ï Curriculum Specialists, Stefanie Orrick Lamb and Greg Francis.
The Association for Asian Studies publishes the Journal of Asian Studies and is the largest scholarly association on Asian countries, cultures, and regions in the world.
The Cultural Revolution in China (1966-76) was a decade of enormous change and upheaval with a lasting impact on the country, its citizens, and the world. China's Cultural Revolution teaches students about the social, cultural, educational, political, and economic changes through hands-on activities requiring critical thinking skills.
This unit was written by 91³Ô¹Ï Curriculum Specialists, Stefanie Orrick Lamb and Greg Francis.
The Association for Asian Studies publishes the Journal of Asian Studies and is the largest scholarly association on Asian countries, cultures, and regions in the world.
Hero Image
All News button
1
Date
Paragraphs
Chicago Tribune article features Yo Yo Ma's introduction of 91³Ô¹Ï Silk Road curriculum to Chicago public schools. 91³Ô¹Ï director Gary Mukai, who helped design the curriculum, is quoted.
Yo-Yo Ma sat on the edge of the small stage at the Art Institute, his cello resting across his lap.
"See this fingerboard?" the acclaimed cellist asked the audience. "It is made out of ebony, which comes from Africa."
"The red varnish," he said, massaging the body of the instrument, "comes from as far away as Malaysia."
"The hair on the bow comes from Mongolia and the wood of the bow can be found only in Brazil," he said.
Ma's multicultural cello seemed the perfect metaphor for his most recent endeavor: bringing the rich artistic and cultural history of the Silk Road to Chicago Public Schools students.
The Silk Road, the ancient network of trade routes that crisscrossed Eurasia through the 1500s, served as the main conduit for the cultural exchange of goods, art and music. And when Ma sat down and played a soulful partita by Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun, he showed that cultural exchange enriches the world.
"This is a global instrument," he said. "And by bringing the world together ... beautiful music can be made."
Ma was in town Monday as part of Silk Road Chicago, a yearlong citywide celebration inspired by the art, music and culture along the historic road that stretched from Japan and China through central Asia and into the Mediterranean. The Chicago series is part of the larger Silk Road Project, a multiyear, multicity odyssey created by Ma.
Specifically, Ma spent the day helping introduce a new Silk Road school curriculum to Chicago Public Schools teachers.
Through a collaboration with the Art Institute, 80 Chicago teachers will spend the week discovering the Silk Road and learning how best to explain its importance to students.
"It's sometimes difficult to get students to engage in something that seems so far removed from their lives," explained Gary Mukai, from 91³Ô¹Ï, who helped develop the Silk Road curriculum. "We hope we can help students make a link to their own lives by engaging them musically, mathematically and artistically in the Silk Road history."
Through the lesson plan, students can trace the history of Asia and the West through the important innovations that migrated along the Silk Road. Students will learn that gunpowder, the magnetic compass, lacquer crafts and, of course, silk, flowed from East and West and back.
Musical forms and instruments also traveled the Silk Road, as string, wind and percussion instruments from the East and the West influenced each other. Cymbals were introduced into China from India. The Chinese gongs traveled to Europe. And the Persian mizmar, a reed instrument, seems to have been the ancestor of the European oboe and clarinet.
Ma implored the teachers to reach out to students and help create a "spark" that will open their minds to the "amazing cultures around them."
"As teachers, you are incredible guides into a world that you can make a most exciting place," he said.
The Silk Road is a metaphor that "joins us together not only in material things but in spiritual ways," he said. "You can translate that to your students."
Don Gibson, a music teacher from Dyett High School on the South Side, said the Silk Road will help him incorporate history lessons into his music courses.
"Through the Silk Road music lessons, I can broaden their understanding of cultures and the history of those cultures," Gibson said. "To be inspired by the music, sometimes, you have to know its history."
READER CONNECTION
Would you like to learn more about the Silk Road Chicago events? Visit the .
All News button
1
This set includes Islamic Civilization and the Arts, An Introduction to Japanese Buddhist Art, and Religions and Philosophies in China: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.
This curriculum unit introduces students to the first 2,500 years of Chinese history and offers students an in-depth view of Chinese civilization from the nascent years of the Shang Dynasty through the golden age of the Tang Dynasty.
Paragraphs
Since Europeans first encounters with Japanese, reportage of Japan has been riddled with stereotypes and paradox-rendering Japan as the West's exotic Other. Of course cultural differences and stereotypes exist everywhere, but it is the negative manner in which information is conveyed about Japan that is disturbing and damaging. While the context of the articles may have shifted over time, these distortions still find their way onto the pages of the most elite newspapers in the United States. Despite the proliferation of electronic forms of media, daily newspaper articles often still function as the original source of reporting from which television and Internet sources borrow and truncate (Downie and Kaiser 2002).
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Age Range
Middle School - Community College
Paragraphs
It is important for teachers and students to develop a broad understanding of Japanese education. Americans who are knowledgeable of teaching and learning in Japan gain insights about a different culture and are better able to clearly think about their own educational system. This Digest is an introductory overview of 1) Japanese educational achievements, 2) Japanese K-12 education, 3) Japanese higher education, 4) contemporary educational issues, and 5) significant U.S.-Japan comparative education topics.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Age Range
Middle School - Community College
616 Jane Stanford Way
Encina Hall, C332
Stanford, CA 94305-6060
0
rybo@stanford.edu
rylan_sekiguchi.jpg
Rylan Sekiguchi is Manager of Curriculum and Instructional Design at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91³Ô¹Ï). Prior to joining 91³Ô¹Ï in 2005, he worked as a teacher at Revolution Prep in San Francisco.
Rylan’s professional interests lie in curriculum design, global education, education technology, student motivation and learning, and mindset science. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Symbolic Systems at 91³Ô¹Ï.
He has authored or co-authored more than a dozen curriculum units for 91³Ô¹Ï, including , , , and . His writings have appeared in publications of the National Council for History Education and the Association for Asian Studies.
Rylan has also been actively engaged in media-related work for 91³Ô¹Ï. In addition to serving as producer for two films—My Cambodia and My Cambodian America—he has developed several web-based lessons and materials, including
In 2010, 2015, and 2021, Rylan received the Franklin Buchanan Prize, which is awarded annually by the Association for Asian Studies to honor an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia at any educational level, elementary through university.
Rylan’s professional interests lie in curriculum design, global education, education technology, student motivation and learning, and mindset science. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Symbolic Systems at 91³Ô¹Ï.
He has authored or co-authored more than a dozen curriculum units for 91³Ô¹Ï, including , , , and . His writings have appeared in publications of the National Council for History Education and the Association for Asian Studies.
Rylan has also been actively engaged in media-related work for 91³Ô¹Ï. In addition to serving as producer for two films—My Cambodia and My Cambodian America—he has developed several web-based lessons and materials, including
In 2010, 2015, and 2021, Rylan received the Franklin Buchanan Prize, which is awarded annually by the Association for Asian Studies to honor an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia at any educational level, elementary through university.
Rylan has presented teacher seminars across the country at venues such as the World Affairs Council, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and for organizations such as the National Council for the Social Studies, the International Baccalaureate Organization, the African Studies Association, and the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. He has also conducted presentations internationally for the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools in Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines; for the European Council of International Schools in Spain, France, and Portugal; and at Yonsei University in South Korea.
Manager of Curriculum and Instructional Design
Instructor, Stanford e-Hiroshima
Manager, Stanford SEAS Hawaii
616 Jane Stanford Way
Encina Hall, E007
Stanford, CA 94305-6060
0
nfunahashi@stanford.edu
naomi_funahashi.jpg
Naomi Funahashi is the Manager of the Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP) and Teacher Professional Development for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91³Ô¹Ï). In addition to her work as the instructor of the RSP, she also develops curricula at 91³Ô¹Ï. Prior to joining 91³Ô¹Ï in 2005, she was a project coordinator at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California and worked in technology publishing in San Francisco.
Naomi's academic interests lie in global education, online education pedagogy, teacher professional development, and curriculum design. She attended high school at the American School in Japan, received her Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Brown University, her teaching credential in social science from San Francisco State University, and her Ed.M. in Global Studies in Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
She has authored or co-authored the following curriculum units for 91³Ô¹Ï: , , , , and .
Naomi has presented teacher seminars nationally at Teachers College, Columbia University, the annual Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning Conference, the National Council for Social Studies and California Council for Social Studies annual conferences, and other venues. She has also presented teacher seminars internationally for the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia, and for the European Council of International Schools in France, Portugal, and the Netherlands.
In 2008, the Asia Society in New York awarded the 2007 Goldman Sachs Foundation Media and Technology Prize to the Reischauer Scholars Program. In 2017, the United States–Japan Foundation presented Naomi with the Elgin Heinz Teacher Award, an honor that recognizes pre-college teachers who have made significant contributions to promoting mutual understanding between Americans and Japanese. Naomi has taught over 300 students in the RSP from 35 U.S. states.
Manager, Reischauer Scholars Program and Teacher Professional Development
Hide publication sections
Off
The Cultural Revolution in China (1966–1976) was a decade of enormous change and upheaval with a lasting impact on the country, its citizens, and the world. China's Cultural Revolution teaches students about the social, cultural, educational, political, and economic changes through hands-on activities requiring critical thinking skills.