Teaching China and East Asia in Middle and High Schools
Download an application for the program here.
Sponsored by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), the UTC Asia Program, Rhodes College, and the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies
NCTA, funded by the Freeman Foundation, is a multi-year initiative to encourage and facilitate teaching and learning about East Asia in elementary and secondary schools nationwide. NCTA is a premier provider of professional development on East Asia. The UTC Asia Program has been a recipient of NCTA funding for 21 years. Successful teacher completion of a 30-hour NCTA program qualifies educators to engage in additional Asian studies professional development programs in the US and abroad. NCTA alumni also receive professional development credit and are eligible for optional graduate university credit. Complimentary books are provided for teacher-participants and accepted participants who complete the professional development program each receive $200 stipends.
Funding is available for twenty middle school and high school teachers to learn more about East Asia through participation in leveled digital book studies, introduction to digitally published world history and geography instructional modules based on the new Tennessee social studies standards, and attendance at a one-day weekend NCTA teacher workshop at Rhodes College on January 20th, 2019 in conjunction with the 58th annual meeting of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (SEC/AAS).
Who is eligible for this professional development program?
Any public or private school Tennessee or mid-south middle or high school history, social science, and humanities teacher who is interested in learning more about China and East Asia as well as accessing field tested digital instructional modules Tennessee master teachers developed.
What are the expectations of participants?
Book Discussion
Each accepted participant will be expected to read, and complete brief digital book assignments beginning shortly after acceptance for the PD (late-September to early-October). Middle school and high school teachers will be responsible for separate readings.
Middle school teachers will read and discuss three short graphic novels from the Understanding China through Comics series authored by Jing Liu: (Vol 1) Foundations of Chinese Civilization: The Yellow Emperor to the Han Dynasty (2697 BCE - 220 CE); (Vol. 2) Division to Unification in Imperial China: The Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty (220–907); (Vol. 3) Barbarians and the Birth of Chinese Identity: The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the Yuan Dynasty (907–1368). Additional material will be provided about the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
High School teachers will read journalist Scott Tong’s A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World and an excerpt from professor Zhiqun Zhu’s Key Issues in Asian Studies volume, Understanding East Asia’s Economic “Miracles.” On three occasions (fall and early winter) each participant will be expected to engage in a brief digital book discussion with Professor Lucien Ellington. The participant will submit brief digital answers to questions that Professor Ellington poses on each segment of the readings and receive responses based upon the answers.
January 20th Workshop: Teaching China and East Asia in Middle and High Schools
Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee
The one-day teacher workshop at Rhodes College (Sunday, January 20th, 2019) is the culminating activity of the PD and will occur in conjunction with the January 18th–20th, 2019 58th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Conference for the Association for Asian Studies (SEC/AAS). There is a registration fee for the conference, but the SEC/AAS board approved a waiver of the conference fee for any NCTA PD participant who would like to attend Friday evening and Saturday Asia-related sessions. Accepted NCTA PD participants are encouraged, if their schedule permits, to attend conference panels and presentations on Friday evening and Saturday. However, conference attendance is optional.
For information about the SEC/AAS Conference visit: https://www.sec-aas.com/
Schedule: Teaching China and East Asia in Middle and High Schools
8:30 am-9:00 am: Light Breakfast and Introductions
9:00 am-10:15 am: “Understanding Traditional Aesthetics Through Chinese Gardens,” Han Li, Rhodes College
10:15 am-10:25 am: Break
10:25 am-12:05 pm: “China, the US, and Contemporary International Relations” Stephen Ceccoli, Rhodes College
12:05 pm-1:00 pm: Working Lunch, “Discussion of Two Asia Digital Teaching
Modules” Lucien Ellington, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
(Modules: Religion and Aesthetics in Japan by Rebecca Byrd, 7th Grade Teacher, New Center Elementary, Sevierville, TN and The Economic and Cultural Emergence of South Korea by Michael Robinson, High School Geography Teacher, Houston High School, Germantown, TN),
1:15 pm-2:25 pm: “Teaching East Asia’s Post-1945 Economic Development,” Lucien Ellington
2:30 pm- 3:15 pm: “Using the Best of EAA Archives in Middle and High School Classrooms,” Lucien Ellington
3:15 pm-3:30 pm: “Concluding Comments and Evaluation,” Lucien Ellington
Workshop Leaders
Stephen Ceccoli is the PK Seidman Professor of Political Economy at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He has enjoyed taking groups of Rhodes students to China and teaching conversational English in China for more than a decade. His teaching and research interests include studying comparative public opinion, international relations, and comparative politics. His work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly, the International Political Science Review, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism among other venues.
Lucien Ellington is UC Foundation Professor of Education at UTC and Director of the Asia Program. Ellington is founding editor of Education About Asia and editor of Key Issues in Asian Studies. He is the author of several books on Japan and numerous articles, essays, and reviews on East Asia, economic history, and social studies education. He is a Foreign Policy Research Institute Marvin Wachman Senior Fellow and has extensive experience as a workshop coordinator and study tour director.
Han Li is Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Her research interests include seventeenth-century century classical Chinese novels, material culture in late imperial China, and contemporary Chinese cinema. She has published in journals such as Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, Asia Major, Ming Studies, Journal of American Orientation Studies, ASIANetwork Exchange, Traditional Dwellings and Settlement Review, Journal of Curatorial Studies, and Asian Cinema.
How do I obtain an application and what is the deadline for applications?
An application form is available here.
Because of the chance to become an NCTA alumni and earn stipends, we expect more applicants than spaces available. The final deadline for receiving applications is October 12th, 2018.
However, qualified applicants will be selected on a first come, first served basis enabling participants who are accepted early to receive their books and begin the PD.