July 2017

Newsletter
The KKC Fellowship Program Alumni
Since 1980, more than 600 U.S. and Canadian social
studies teachers have taken part in the KKC Study Tourto Japan. The program aims to deepen participants’
understanding of Japan and contribute to international
mutual understanding across the Pacific.
In this newsletter, we have asked KKC alumni to sharewith us what they have been doing in their classrooms andcommunities after participating in the Japan Study Tour.

My KKC Update
Mike Raymer, 2009 Fellow
Associate Director
Georgia Council on Economic
Education

Upon returning from my KeizaiKoho Center (KKC) fellowship program, I set out to find ways to capitalize on what I learned and experienced while I was in Japan in orderto share my experiences with fellow
educators. During my KKC program,
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit a number of Japanese
corporations and I was impressedwith how these companies approached business and how they interacted with their workers, customers, and society as a whole. It wasduring my visit to Dowa Holdingsthat I learned about Corporate Social
Responsibility and the company’s
practice of taking full responsibility
for their impact on the environmentand social wellbeing in their localcommunity.
Soon after returning from my KKC
visit, I left the classroom and became Program Manager of the Georgia Council on Economic Education(GCEE). In that role I had the oppor-tunity to connect hundreds of Georgia teachers with the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta, the JapanAmerica Society of Georgia, and numerous Japanese-owned companies
doing business in my state. My goalfor making these connections was toshow Georgia educators just how
important the Georgia-Japanese relationship is for our state’s overall
economy and the important role thatCorporate Social Responsibility plays
at Japanese-owned companies inGeorgia.
In the time since my return fromJapan, GCEE has partnered with theJapan-America Society of Georgiaand Consulate General of Japan in
Atlanta, to deliver numerous Japanfocused economics workshops for
Georgia educators. Additionally, theJapan-America Society of Georgia
has connected GCEE with many
Japanese-owned manufacturers whoare employing thousands of Georgians.
These connections allowed me totake teachers on manufacturing facility visits to Hoshizaki America, Kubota Tractor, Mitsubishi Turbine,Panasonic, Suzuki, Toto USA, Yamaha, and YKK. At each of thesevisits, teachers learned about Japanese manufacturing practices, theimportance of global trade, the reasons why these companies chose to
do business in Georgia, and theoverall economic impact these companies continue to have on thestate’s economy.
Looking into the future, it is
my goal to continue to connect
Georgia teachers to Japanthrough visits to Japaneseowned businesses in my state

Congratulations to the
10 teachers selected toparticipate in the 2017
Japan Study Tour!
Daniel Boyer, Morley Stanwood
Middle School, Morely, MI
Belinda Cambre, Louisiana State
University, University Laboratory
School, Baton Rouge, LA
Haley Franca, Central Valley HighSchool, Ceres, CA
Andrew Hartman, Middleton HighSchool, Middleton, WI
Joel Hinrichs, Branford High School,Branford, CT
Jacqueline Katz, Wellesley HighSchool, Wellesley, MAJoshua Keliiheleua, Lake Nona HighSchool, Orlando, FL
Kate Sutter, Lebanon High School,Lebanon, MO
Zachary Taylor
Commodore John Rodgers School,Baltimore, MD
Sarah Van Nuys
Pitt Meadows Secondary School,
Pitt Meadows, BC, Canada
See p.3 & 4 for more informationon the 2017 Japan Study Tour.

and through learning opportunities delivered in partnership with
the Japan-America Society ofGeorgia and the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta. I will also
encourage Georgia teachers to continue to apply for the Keizai Koho
Center fellowship program as I know
the value this program offers educators and how important it can be inhelping these educators learn more
about contemporary Japanese society while enhancing their global perspectives.

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Global Awareness Project
Connect and Collaborate with Japanese Students
Cindy Downing, 2016 Fellow
The objective of my lesson plan is
to encourage students to explore
new ways to connect, learn, share,
and collaborate globally. Students atSouth County Middle School(Virginia) and Mejiro Kenshin Juniorand Senior High School collaborated
on a reading of the picture book I
Will Never Forget that Day by Kiyomi
Kohno. South County students usedhistorical thinking skills to develop a
deeper understanding of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, while Mejiro
Kenshin students had the opportunity to work with native English
speakers to expand their spoken language capacity. Students at bothsites used technology to develop a
deeper appreciation of each other’sculture and perspective.
My seventh grade students started
examining the images in the picturebook, and using context clues, thestudents analyzed the illustrations,developed a hypothesis about themeaning of the image, and created a1-2 minute video that highlighted
the group hypothesis. The video wasshared with the students at Mejiro
Kenshin through Google Docs.
Each week, the students at Mejiro
Kenshin watched one of the videos
created by the South County stu-dents and started practicing theirown 1-2 minute video response.
The students explained the contentof the page in the picture book sothat the American students could
see if their hypothesis was correct.
Kohei Muramatsu, Senior Fellow of
Keizai Koho Center, visited SouthCounty to observe one portion ofthe lesson. The students watched
two practice videos sent by theJapanese students about the firsttwo pages in the book. Afterwatching the videos, the students
broke up into groups to begin thenext round of analysis. Each group
was provided with a different image
in the picture book and given thetask of writing the script for the
next round of videos.
As a culminating activity, the students will bring in a small item tocontribute to a group package to besent to Mejiro Kenshin. Recommended items include small items
that represent the United States,
and items that represent ourschool.
My students were very excitedabout working with the Japanesestudents. Watching their videos wasa highlight of the project. The pro-

ject generated a great deal of discussion about culture, similarities
and differences within the schools,
and about the topic of the atomic
bomb. Overall, I feel like thisproject has opened the eyes ofthe students in terms of thinking outside of their immediatesurroundings. Middle school students tend to be egocentric and thisexperience has allowed them tobalance their sense of being “theonly one in the world.” They are
now starting to think aboutother students around theworld and how we are all connected.

Sharing my Lesson Plan Unit:
Japan Before Modern Times
Melanie Werner, 2016 Fellow
After returning from my fellowship, I created four lessons basedon my experiences in Japan for mylesson plan unit entitled, Japan Before Modern Times. The four lessons I created are as follows: Lesson 1- A Very Brief Introduction toJapan’s Culture, Lesson 2- Introduction to Japan’s Religions: Shinto& Buddhism, Lesson 3- Japan’sConnection to Tennessee and Lesson 4- Presentation: Japan Before
Modern Times.
My Impressions of This Unit
Experiencing Japan with eachof my five senses completelychanged the way I taught Japan. I was able to bring Japan
to my students and they loved
it. They especially loved the first

lesson where they moved to different
stations and experienced using chopsticks, tasting matcha tea, and modified calligraphy writing. In addition tocreating four new lessons that engaged my students more, I was able
to bring my first hand experiences
to them through stories and pictures- many many pictures. This unit
lasted two days longer than expected
because of all my stories and picture
showing. The students had so manyquestions and I wanted to make sureI gave them the answers they wanted.
Sharing my stories and pictures was
my favorite part of the unit and I
would argue it was the students’ favorite part as well.
I shared my lessons with the social
studies teachers at my school andalso sent the four lessons to mycounty curriculum specialist and ap-

plied for the lessons to be on the7th grade social studies curriculum page. Next year, I would liketo apply to present at the Tennessee Council for the SocialStudies.

(Students using chopsticks to putdifferent sized beans into their cups)

2The 2017 Japan Study Tour: Visit to Mie Prefecture
Tatsuya Bessho, Senior Fellow, KKC
This year, the KKC fellows visited nomic growth in Japan, but now theMie Prefecture.
air pollution problem has been overMie Prefecture is located in thecome due to the improvement ofcenter of Honshu, about 195 miles
laws and contamination prevention
west of Tokyo.
technologies.
It takes about 3 hours to go to
One of the main factories of JaMie, using the high-speed train
pan’s automaker Honda Motor Co.,
(Shinkansen) from Tokyo. The total
Ltd., is located in Suzuka. This year’s
population is approximately 1.8
program included a factory visit tomillion, so it is a medium-sized pre- Honda’s Suzuka factory.
fecture in Japan. Mie has a wide variety of industries ranging from agriculture, dairy farming, fishing tomanufacturing and tourism. Matsusaka is famous for producing high-grade “wagyu” beef in the region
and nationwide.
The northern part of Mie Prefecture belongs to the Chukyo Industrial
Zone, where petrochemical complexes, IT industries such as semiconductors and liquid crystal displays
and the automobile industry are accumulated. The petrochemical complex in Yokkaichi in the northernarea, became a cause of Yokkaichi(Wikipedia)
asthma in the period of high eco(continued on page 4)

Travel is theBest Education
Jason Dumont, 2015 Fellow
Despite the fact that our middle school curriculum is completely devoid of world geography, current events, etc., myclosest colleague and I have unilaterally decided to infuse theseskills into our weekly lessons. To

be honest, my Japanese experience/knowledge has to be squeezed
into an hour, but I make anecdotalreferences on a near constant basis. I'm the kind of teacher thatlikes to tell stories, and of course
the KKC experience provided mewith more stories than I can count.
In addition to the current eventsfrom around the world, including
Japanese news items that I havestudents research and write about,I always related items in American
history to the modern world, pop
culture, and more recent history,
and my experience in Japan certainly factors in quite often.
Most importantly, I constantly
share with my students my belief that travel is the best education available to them. I insist
that empathy is one of the mostvaluable traits in our civilizationand that global awareness and

Tatsuya Bessho
Senior Fellow, KKC
Last July, I was seconded from Toray
Industries, a global chemical company
that researches, develops, produces
and sells new materials such as synthetic fibers, resin/film, carbon fiber,etc. , with the belief that “Material canchange the world.”
I am honored to be a coordinator ofthis historic program of over 35 years.
I would like everyone to interact withjunior and high school students andteachers in Japan, and get a touch ofJapanese companies and Japanese culture.
And by all means I would like all thefellows to bring back and tell what you
have seen and heard in Japan to yourhome society. I believe that by doing
this, the friendship between Japan, theUnited States and Canada will become
even deeper. I think that we can leave
great assets for our future children.

experience are key to becoming
truly empathetic. Japan is perhapsthe greatest example I know of thatsimultaneously shares so many commonalities with American culture andvalues while also being so profoundly
unique in so many ways.
I also think that when my students hear not only how excited I
am about this kind of travel, but
the mere fact that a teacher thatthey know and relate to in somany ways is able to get out andsee the world, makes it much
more achievable for them.

Japan Study Tour: www.kkc.or.jp/english/fellowshipContact us at: fellowship@kkc.or.jp
Japan Lesson Plans can be downloaded at:www.kkc.or.jp/english/fellowship/lessonplan/3

Highlights from the 2017 Japan Study Tour

Visit to Ise-Jingu Shrine

Site of the 42nd G7 Summit held in Kashikojima ofShima City, Mie Prefecture
in 2016
Other meetings/visits included:-Koishikawa Secondary School-Mejiro Kenshin Junior & SeniorHigh School-Yokkaichi High School-Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology-Ministry of Finance-Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Benesse Corporation-East Japan Railway Company-Honda Motor Co.
-Sony-Tezuka Productions-National Institute of Populationand Social Security Research-Toray Corporate BusinessResearch, Inc.

Tokyo Stock ExchangeWhat is it like in Japan during June-July?
Hiroto Arita, Senior Fellow, KKC“Tsuyu”- The Rainy Season
The days of the fellowship program
may mostly be rainy, since Japan is in
the middle of “Tsuyu” or the rainyseason. In Tokyo and the Greater
Tokyo area, “Tsuyu” usually takes
place from June to mid July.
However, Japan has nurtured a tradition to even enjoy these sulky days.
We can appreciate the beauty of“Ajisai” or the hydrangea in full bloom,“Hotaru” the fragile fireflies, or go
shopping for nicely designed umbrellas. We can also enjoy reading or
watching “Manga” or “Anime”, comics
and TV cartoons. The rainy season
also presents us with fresh seasonal
ingredients like “Edamame”, freshgreen soy beans, or fish caught in rivers upstream. The fellows may wellenjoy them during the tour.
Now, taking a look at the life ofjunior and senior high school students, they may miss the sunshine as
their P.E. classes are often held in
the gymnasium. When “Tsuyu” isover, temperatures will rise sharply as

schools head for summer vacation(usually from late July to end ofAugust). Japanese schools have 23 semesters. In 3 semester systemschools, students face semesterend exams before the summer
break, making them so gloomy.
Our program will surely fascinate those teenagers and we lookforward to the arrival of the 2017
Fellows, who will bring them priceless experiences.

The Summer High School
Baseball GamesOne of the major summer
events in Japan is the high school
baseball tournament games or“Koshien”. Baseball is popular inJapan, but “Koshien” in the summer
attracts Japanese citizens, sometimes even stronger than the professional leagues, making baseballloving grown-ups nostalgic.
“Koshien” is the name of thestadium near Osaka, where themain matches are held every summer. This tournament match
started in 1915, 5 years earlier
than the establishment of the firstJapanese professional team.
“Koshien” is held annually to makethis year the 99th. When the fellows arrive to Japan, the regional
qualifying matches will be held toprepare for the main match kicking off on August 7th. Some 4
thousand teams play to get into
the top 50. All prefectures areallocated with 1 or more slots.
When the main games start,
citizens cheer for their home prefecture or sometimes their school
team. The results are widely reported in the national news. It
can be said that the whole nation
gets into the spirit of high school
baseball. The Japanese praise thewinning team in joy, as well as
the crying boys who scrape thepitch sand to take back home for
their memories. This is the flavorof Japanese high school baseball.

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