By Sangsoo Im, Correspondent, Yonhap News, San Francisco
Translated by Annie Lim, coordinator and instructor, Sejong Korean Scholars Program, SPICE.

Stanford University, one of the most prestigious American universities on the West Coast, has launched an unprecedented online lecture series on Korea for American high school students. 

This is the first time a Korean Studies program has been made available to high school students.

Created as part of the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), this one-semester program offers courses on Korean history, culture, religion, art, and politics, consisting of lectures, online discussions, and assignments.

The name for this program is the Sejong Korean Scholars Program (SKSP).

The program, which launched last month, is managed under the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) under the leadership of Director Gi-Wook Shin and is funded by the Korea Foundation. 

Alongside Gi-Wook Shin, David Straub (former U.S. Department of State’s senior foreign service officer specializing in Korean affairs), Charles K. Armstrong (director of Center for Korean Research at Columbia University), and Michael Robinson (professor at Indiana University) are some of the top scholars involved in the program.

The program is free, and the instruction is in English. Approximately 60 students applied, and 27 were selected on the basis of their grade point averages, essays, and letters of recommendation.

SKSP’s coordinator and instructor Annie Lim says, “The students who applied are interested in a variety of topics ranging from Korean history to Korean pop culture.”

Upon completion of the courses, the students will receive credits through Stanford Continuing Studies.

A similar program on Japan has been in progress at Stanford University for 10 years.

Stanford University is the first among American universities to create textbooks and curriculum on Korean studies for high school students and has begun to reach out to the 50,000 high schools in the United States.

APARC’s director and one of the founding members of SKSP, Gi-Wook Shin points out, “Along with Yoko’s Story and so on, American junior high and senior high schools’ distorted history textbooks containing Korean history have received a lot of criticism, but there has not been much effort to rectify it. Through SKSP, we hope that American high school students can acquire a broader perspective and expand their range of knowledge and understanding about Korea.”

SPICE has been transformed from a small local high school program begun by Professor Victor Hao Li (formerly of Stanford Law School), a number of Stanford students, a visionary group of nearby teachers and educators, and me in 1973 into a major national project. SPICE began as a modest start-up focused on Asia and has evolved into an extraordinary asset contributing to broad global education. It is an honor to have been in on the beginning of such a noble effort.

—John Lewis, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics (Emeritus);        Center for International Security and Cooperation faculty member

Today, the efforts of the Stanford Program on International and Cross Cultural Education (SPICE) to internationalize the K–12 classroom span a broad range of topics—security, the arts, the environment, global health, and international relations. With the dawn of 2013, SPICE looks back to its roots and celebrates 40 years of promoting the study of China. The roots of the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) date back to the Bay Area China Education Project (BAYCEP), which commenced operation in 1973. John Lewis was instrumental in the founding of BAYCEP, and several other scholars of Chinese studies, including Albert Dien, Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures (Emeritus), were actively involved in BAYCEP’s early years and still remain involved with SPICE today.

The first director of BAYCEP was Dr. David Grossman, SPICE’s founding director. He noted the following about the creation of BAYCEP:

“The original impetus was the Nixon visit to China in 1972, and the realization that the general public and students were not prepared for this radical shift in geopolitics. The problem was how to bridge this profound knowledge gap.” 

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A BAYCEP publication from the 1980s

The purpose of BAYCEP was to serve as a bridge between Stanford experts on China and K–12 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. This was accomplished in two ways—China-focused curriculum development and teacher professional development. By 1976, other projects on Japan, Africa, and Latin America were established, and they along with BAYCEP came to form the nucleus of SPICE.

Continuing the 40-year tradition of teacher professional development on China, SPICE staff members Jonas Edman, Naomi Funahashi, Rylan Sekiguchi, and Johanna Wee recently collaborated with Dr. Clayton Dube, Executive Director, U.S.–China Institute, University of Southern California, to lead a series of China-centered sessions at the annual European Council of International Schools November Conference. The sessions were held in Nice, France, from November 22 through 25, 2012, and included an intensive daylong institute called “China in the Humanities.” The institute comprised four theme-specific mini-sessions—Dynasties, Cultural Revolution, Rural and Urban China, and China in the World—each of which involved both a lecture and a pedagogically-focused curriculum demonstration. The featured SPICE-developed curriculum units (with primary Stanford academic advisors listed) were Chinese Dynasties Parts One and Two (Albert Dien, Professor Emeritus); China's Cultural Revolution (Andrew Walder, Professor, Sociology); China in Transition: Economic Development, Migration, and Education (Scott Rozelle, Director, Rural Education Action Project); 10,000 Shovels (Karen Seto, former Assistant Professor, School of Earth Sciences); and Divided Memories (Gi-Wook Shin, Professor, Sociology, and Director, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center, and Daniel Sneider, Associate Director, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center).

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Authored by Rylan Sekiguchi, Curriculum Specialist, and HyoJung Jang, Curriculum Writer

As SPICE moves into its fifth decade, the staff will continue its China-focused curriculum development and teacher professional development seminars. SPICE recently began developing a curriculum unit on sustainable development in China in consultation with Len Ortolano, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering. Also, from January 2013, SPICE will begin its twelfth year of offering two 30-hour seminars on East Asia—one for middle school teachers and one for high school teachers. The seminars feature lectures by FSI and Center for East Asian Studies faculty and curriculum demonstrations by SPICE staff that focus on China, and other northeast Asian nations.

In addition, SPICE plans to create of a high school student-focused national distance-learning course on China that is parallel to SPICE’s current distance-learning course offerings, which include the Reischauer Scholars Program on Japan and the Sejong Korean Scholars Program.

With Stanford President John Hennessy’s announcement of the K–12 initiative in 2006, Stanford renewed its long-time commitment to improving public education in the United States. SPICE will continue to make FSI scholarship in the areas of security, the arts, the environment, global health, and international relations accessible to young students. FSI believes it has the opportunity and the obligation to utilize its resources to help address issues facing our schools.

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) honored three top students of the 2012 Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP)—Brooke Nowakowski (San Antonio, TX), Seunghwa Madeleine Han (San Ramon, CA), and Emily Waltman (Tenafly, NJ)—at the RSP Japan Day event at Stanford University on August 10, 2012. The RSP, an online course on Japan and U.S.–Japan relations that is offered to high school students across the United States, recognized the students based on their coursework and exceptional research essays.

The event featured remarks by Consul General Hiroshi Inomata, Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco; Renay Loper, Associate Program Officer, Center for Global Partnership (CGP), Japan Foundation, New York; Naomi Funahashi, RSP Manager and Instructor; and Gary Mukai, SPICE Director. Professor Emeritus Daniel I. Okimoto, Stanford University, gave a compelling talk on Japan’s energy options since the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Japan. SPICE also presented a plaque to Consul Midori Yamamitsu, Director of the Japan Information Center, Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, in honor of her longtime support of the RSP.

The program was highlighted by presentations by student honorees Nowakowski, Han, and Waltman, who wrote research essays on the modern consequences of cultural change in Okinawa, the rise of feminism in Japanese politics, and the role of propaganda in fueling racism and public support for Japanese-American internment, respectively. Many individuals and organizations from the San Francisco Bay Area’s Japan and U.S.–Japan community and Stanford University were in attendance. Funahashi noted the following about her three student honorees: “The poise and intellect of these young scholars is truly impressive. It is an honor to work with such bright, inquisitive, and engaging students who share a genuine interest in learning about Japan and fostering U.S.–Japan relations.”

Brooke Nowakowski	Seunghwa Madeleine Han

Entering its tenth year in 2013, the RSP presents a creative and innovative approach to teaching high school students about Japan and U.S–Japan relations. The program provides American students with unique opportunities to interact with top scholars and diplomats, and introduces both American and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues. 

Named in honor of former Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, a leading educator and noted scholar of Japanese history and culture, the RSP annually selects 25–30 exceptional high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from throughout the United States. Since 2003, the RSP has cultivated a model for reaching a diverse population of students by utilizing technology to share high-quality course material across large distances. Using online lectures and discussions, the program provides students with a broad overview of Japanese history, literature, religion, art, politics, economics, education, and contemporary society, with a focus on the U.S.–Japan relationship. Prominent scholars affiliated with Stanford University, the University of Tokyo, the University of Hawaii, and other institutions provide lectures and engage students in online dialogue. The RSP received initial funding for the program (2004–2006) from the United States–Japan Foundation. The program is currently funded by a generous grant from CGP, Japan Foundation, and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

The RSP will begin accepting applications for the 2013 program in September 2012. For more information about the RSP, visit www.reischauerscholars.org or contact Naomi Funahashi, RSP Manager and Instructor, at nfunahashi@stanford.edu.  

Stanford’s Korean Studies Program (KSP) has recently been awarded with a major gift from Hana Financial Group and a grant from the Korea Foundation, which will provide a major boost to Stanford’s already strong K-12 outreach education offerings. KSP will collaborate closely with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) on its outreach activities.

Hana Financial Group has provided $600,000 for the next five years in support of an annual Hana-Stanford Conference on Korea for U.S. Secondary School Teachers. The first conference took place this summer, from July 23 to 25, at Stanford. It brought together secondary school educators from across the United States and a cadre of Korean teachers from Hana Academy Seoul for intensive and lively sessions on a wide assortment of Korean studies-related topics ranging from U.S.-Korea relations to history, and religion to popular culture. In addition to scholarly lectures, the teachers took part in curriculum workshops and received numerous classroom resources developed by SPICE.

The Korea Foundation has awarded a three-year grant of $609,527 to support the new K-12 Education on Korea in the United States curriculum development project. Gary Mukai, director of SPICE, noted, “The coverage of Korea in U.S. high school curriculum is often limited to the Korean War.” To help address the identified need to broaden the coverage of Korea, KSP will work with SPICE to develop three high school-level curriculum units and Stanford’s first distance-learning course on Korea for high school students. The curriculum units will examine the experience of Korean Americans in U.S. history; various aspects of traditional and modern Korean culture; and the development of South Korea’s economy. The distance-learning course, called the Sejong Korean Scholars Program (SKSP), will be offered in 2013.

The SKSP will annually select 25 exceptional high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors (from public and private schools) from throughout the United States to engage in an intensive study of Korea. The SKSP will provide students with a broad overview of Korean history, literature, religion, art, politics, and economics—with a special focus on the U.S.–Korean relationship. Top scholars, leading diplomats, and other professionals will provide lectures to students as well as engage them in dialogue. These lectures and discussions will be woven into a broader curriculum that provides students with reading materials and assignments. The SKSP will encourage these students to become future leaders in the U.S.–Korean relationship and lifelong learners of Korea.

“We’re grateful to receive these two major sources of funding for Korean studies outreach education, and look forward to working with SPICE to establish Korea as a subject taught regularly in classrooms throughout the United States,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of KSP.