Looking at the big picture (book) of East Asia
An innovative project in the Program for Teaching East Asia brings culture and history to Colorado K-12 students
Colorado students don’t need to book a flight or get a passport to experience East Asia, because a program from the University of Colorado Boulder is bringing the region’s culture and history to them.
For the past two spring semesters, students participating in a ĂŰĚŇ´«Ă˝ĆĆ˝â°ćĎÂÔŘ outreach program to K-12 classrooms have been using a favorite childhood medium: picture books.
The program is coordinated by Lynn Kalinauskas, director for the Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA); Catherine Ishida, assistant director for Japan and Korea Projects; and Christy Go, the program’s graduate student assistant. They have varied their program to involve many East Asian countries, yet the central goal of their program has always been to develop students' cross-cultural understanding.
Building a program
Three years ago, Kalinauskas, who is also the co-director of the ,Ěýenvisioned a new classroom outreach program that would bring East Asia into K-12 Colorado classrooms via picture books.
In spring 2024, with funding support from the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and the Freeman Foundation, the program used books that taught elementary and middle school students about natural science. Books in the program, such as ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚý, allowed students to see agriculture and plant cycles within an East Asian context.
“Picture books offer a wealth of information. You can look at an image and learn so much,” remarks Kalinauskas. Go noted in an article about the first run of the program that teachers were receptive to the medium that offered a beautiful window into another culture. One educator who is grateful for what the program has done for their classroom said, “The carefully chosen picture book prompted interesting reflections and questions. The artifacts enhanced children's understanding and appreciation of the topic. I appreciated how the presenter drew connections between the children's lives and the experiences of the protagonist of the story.”
As the program progressed, Kalinauskas and her colleagues expanded its scope to cover a new topic. In spring 2025, students learned about the geography of East Asia, and the spring 2026 semester will center on learning about the contributions of famous Japanese people.
Read the full article in Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine