Improving teaching and learning about contemporary Asia
Asia matters to American education
The strategic importance of Asia is on the rise and so is the demand for instruction about the countries of the Asia-Pacific region in U.S. schools. Yet our schools often lack the resources and support necessary to provide such instruction, especially regarding contemporary Asia-related issues and U.S.-Asia relations.
Integrating Contemporary Asia-Related Content into the School Curriculum
Our Partnership with SPICE
Shorenstein APARC is committed to increasing access to education resources about contemporary Asia for students and teachers. We address the Asia-learning gap by helping bring Asia-Pacific issues to life in high school and community college classrooms.
We do this through our long-term partnership with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), a Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies outreach program that supports efforts to make international affairs an integral part of elementary and secondary school curricula. By collaborating with SPICE, we link students and teachers across the United States with APARC scholars’ research and expertise. Together we work to make contemporary Asia a subject taught regularly to young Americans.
We partner with SPICE on three types of education outreach activities:
Asia Curricula
APARC faculty and researchers serve as principal investigators and content advisers for SPICE’s Asia-studies curriculum units.
Curricula we helped develop include Korea-related teaching resources on topics such as South Korea’s economic development, inter-Korean relations, and U.S.-South Korean relations; lessons on U.S.-Japan relations and on China’s economic development; and Divided Memories, a unit based on APARC’s research project and its resulting publications that compare how prevalent history textbooks from five Pacific Rim societies cover sensitive historical episodes of the twentieth century, and probing into what happens when our interpretations of history differ. For more details view the SPICE catalog.
e-Learning Programs
Our faculty and researchers teach Asia-Pacific topics through SPICE video lectures and distance-learning programs designed for American and Asian high school students. Participants are offered opportunities to engage in learning experiences at Stanford.
Online courses, video lessons, and other free SPICE educational media resources we contribute to engage American high school students in intensive study of contemporary China, Japan, and Korea, and teach high school students in China and Japan about important issues in the relations between their countries and the United States. Watch selected videos below and visit the SPICE website for more details about multimedia resources and student programs.
Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan | Kiyoteru Tsutsui
U.S.-China Relations: Prospects for Cooperation and Conflict | Thomas Fingar
Korea Gone Global: K-Pop and the Technologies of Soft Power | Dafna Zur
Teacher Training
APARC co-sponsors and contributes content to SPICE teacher-training conferences and workshops that help educators incorporate contemporary Asia issues into their curricula.
By supporting professional development opportunities for educators, we help teachers engage students in contemporary Asia and issues of importance to U.S.-Asia relationships. Our faculty and scholars deliver content lectures on Asia-related topics at SPICE’s East Asia Summer Institutes for Middle School and High School Teachers. Previous APARC-sponsored teacher training opportunities include the Hana-Stanford Conference on Korea for U.S. Secondary School Teachers, which was held annually from 2012 to 2016. Learn more about this multi-year program from our archived news stories (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016) or visit the conference website.
