Education About Asia: Online Archives

Editor’s Message

Back to search results
Download PDF

Education About Asia is a journal that exclusively focuses upon teaching. Good teaching includes innovative pedagogy and deep understanding of subject matter. Honing the craft of teaching is also aided by constant reflection and conversations with colleagues. We hope the second issue of Education About Asia assists you in the development of these attributes.

In my inaugural editor’s message, I wrote that the creation of a first-rate teaching journal aimed at a broad audience is an evolving process. One change in this issue is the substantial expansion of material (nine articles/essays/reviews) intended for secondary teachers. Since “bridge building” across institutional lines is one of our major tasks, I challenege our readers to begin or continue to “build bridges” by paying careful attention to what Asianists at all levels are doing to better assist student understanding of the region.

EAA will only improve if more and more readers contribute to future issues. If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, serving as a referee, or offering criticisms and suggestions, please let me hear from you. Our Spring 1997 issue will contain a thematic feature article section on Teaching About Asian Religion, guest edited by Professor Thomas Coburn of Saint Lawrence University. We also hope to publish an extensive essay on books about Asia for elementary school students in the Spring 1997 issue.

About This Issue

Washington State University has won national recognition for development of a required World Civilization general education course. In Incorporating Asia in the General Curriculum, Thomas Kennedy, Fritz Blackwell, Roger Chan, and Theodore Nitz describe their efforts to promote understanding of Asia among beginning students.

Associate EAA Editor Peter Frost, in Framing Japan’s Constitution, interviews the late Charles Kades, the American most responsible for the development of that document.

The recently revised National High School History Standards are now being implemented by more and more schools through the country. Secondary teacher and Asianist Henry Kiernan reflects upon this document in Asia and the Voluntary Standards: A Teacher’s Perspective.

Lesley Solomon, a high school teacher who is also currently President of the Mid-Atlantic Conference on Asian Studies, is interviewed in Bridging the Gap Between University and School Asianists.

In our final feature article, South Asianist Joseph Elder explores mistaken beliefs about caste in our regular Enduring Stereotypes About South Asia column.

In my first editor’s message, I stated that we at EAA consider the resources section to be every bit as important as feature articles. We try to provide high quality resource material for our readers by subjecting all manuscripts in the resources sections to a peer review process that is similar to what we use with our feature articles. The resources section in this issue of EAA contains nine essays on a wide variety of topics and fifteen reviews of books, curriculum materials, and films. While the range, length, and depth of the resources section is so substantial that it is cumbersome to describe each article, please pay particularly attention to Teacher Outreach in Japanese Studies: A Case Study. The authors of this article describe their outreach efforts with school teachers, and there are three accompanying commentaries. I call your attention to the article because it is our first attempt at initiating a “conversation” about teaching. We hope to publish similar pieces in the future. Our goal is to make the section both encyclopedic and intellectually stimulating. I am particularly interested in your reactions to our resources section.

Special Thanks

Too many people contributed in one way or another to our second issue for me to thanks them individually, but rest assured that your work is greatly appreciated. There are three people, however, to whom I owe a special debt of gratitude.

Judy Walker, who will be leaving EAA for a full-time teaching position after this issue, has been my editorial assistant/secretary since the journal’s inception. Without her incredible effort and dedication, EAA would have never become a reality.

As this issue was about to go to press, I received the news of the death of Jackson Bailey. Professor Bailey was a pioneer in education about Japan. Earlier this summer Grayson Walker, who was Provost of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, also died. Both Bailey and Walker were special friends and supporters of EAA. This issue is dedicated to the memory of Professors Bailey and Walker.

Lucien Ellington