Hands-On Japanese Experience for K-12 Teachers

The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, sponsored the third in a series of K-12 Teacher Workshops at the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival, held this year at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, on Saturday, October 3. This year's workshop was entitled Layers of Meaning: Uncovering the Japanese Wrapping Aesthetic. It was attended by twenty K-12 teachers from Kansas and western Missouri. The teachers represented disciplines across the public school curriculum, from Gifted Program Facilitation to Art, ESL and Elementary Education.

Between the hours of 8:15 AM and 12:15 PM teachers were given donuts and coffee, heard lectures and participated in hands-on workshops. The workshop experience included an authentic albeit wasabi-free o-bento box lunch.

The first part of the program consisted of lectures designed to give teachers a cerebral introduction to the theme of the workshop and some preliminary insight into the Japanese wrapping culture. Elaine Gerbert, KU Associate Professor in East Asian Languages and Culture, presented a multimedia overview of the topic. Norma Sakamoto Larzalere, KU PhD candidate in anthropology, focused her PowerPoint-enhanced talk on wrapping as it pertains to and permeates the Japanese language.

The second part of the program consisted of workshops designed to allow teachers to experience the wrapping culture on the physical plane. Based on feedback from the previous year’s Japan Festival workshop, the activities were designed to be highly interactive and collaborative. The teachers worked in small groups in which they were able to learn and practice skills in close contact with the instructors.

These workshops, led by KU East Asian Librarian Michiko Ito and KU graduate students Takako Yano and Ayako Mizumura, were hands-on in the most concrete sense of the term: teachers wrapped things, from food to gifts. The workshops received consistently positive ratings with sushi wrapping garnering straight 5s, and furoshiki and yukata wrapping not far behind. The three workshops were:

• Sushi Making, led by Takako Yano, in which teachers made vegetarian sushi using nori, prepared rice, julienned vegetables and fruit, and bamboo sushi rollers. The sushi turned out both aesthetically pleasing and tasty (wasabi optional).
• Yukata Wrapping, led by Michiko Ito, in which teachers learned how to wrap yukata and obi.
• Furoshiki Wrapping, led by Ayako Mizumura, in which teachers were taught to wrap bottles and balls and boxes in furoshiki – beautifully woven Japanese cloths. The wrapping techniques were simple but elegant.

In addition, Education Outreach Coordinator Randi Hacker, who organized and oversaw the workshops, gave a quick presentation on the KU Center for East Asian Studies and how it can help teachers add East Asian content to their classes.

In conclusion, each teacher received a gift bag containing Japanese magazines, a Japan information kit and handouts to supplement the lectures and workshops, including one on the Japanese language (which one of the teachers said would be the most useful for her) and one each on furoshiki wrapping and yukata wrapping. A list of web resources on Japan and particularly the wrapping culture was also included.

All of the teachers commented on the insight they gained into Japanese culture through the context of wrapping. Many said that the experience would help them to be more accurate in teaching Japanese culture and that they would easily be able to use the wrapping techniques in their classes, especially art classes. It would appear that this workshop fulfilled their expectations and, in many ways, exceeded same.

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