The Phila-Nipponica Project

For the last decade the University of Pennsylvania and the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia have partnered successfully with the US–Japan Foundation in the Phila-Nipponica Project, preparing educators in our area's schools to convey knowledge and understanding of Japan to their students and colleagues. We have prepared a total of 120 teachers in the introductory Phila-Nipponica projects: 20 teachers in each of six years intensively studied Japan during seminars conducted by Penn faculty and in faculty-led study-tours of Japan .

The results from these efforts over the course of the decade are both widespread and deep in impact. By a conservative calculation, the total number of students who have been taught about Japan in the Greater Philadelphia area as a result of the Phila-Nipponica Project is about 30,000. The depth of the outcome is measured in the classes, after-school clubs, and special inter-school projects that are now devoted to the study of Japan, and the on-going relationships that have been established between American and Japanese schools and students.

We are pleased to announce that the latest version of this program has received funding through 2010. It will be entitled Japan in the 21 st Century: Preparing to Teach about Contemporary Japan in the Greater Philadelphia Area

The goal of this project is the preparation of a new cohort of Philadelphia-area middle- and high school educators to teach about Japan , in three groups of 12, over the course of the years 2008, 2009, and 2010. We will recruit and select each year a group of highly qualified educators, through rigorous competition on the basis of proposals, recommendations, and commitment of support from their school principals.

The teacher preparation will encompass three periods throughout the year. In spring, the teachers will be given background education in three Preparation Seminars. In summer, the participants will engage in a Study Tour of Japan, and in fall, they will participate in three Curriculum Development Workshops.

The first cohort for 2008 has already been selected, but we encourage teachers to sign up for our list serve, in order to receive information about Phila-Nipponica Project deadlines for 2009, as well as other opportunities offered by the Center for East Asian Studies. You can do this by sending an e-mail to our Outreach Coordinator, Nicole Riley. Her e-mail is: nriley@sas.upenn.edu .