Asia Literacy – imperatives for the Australian Classroom

1. Asia Literacy – imperatives for the Australian Classroom RMIT 2013

2. Why Asia??? • Imperatives: • Moral • Economic • Professional

3. Morally….. Be a good neighbour - we live in the region! What are the countries of Asia?

4. Economically – we are tied to Asia

5. Australia in the Asian Century – the White paper • A roadmap for the whole of Australia • Building on our strengths for a productive and resilient economy • Building capabilities to succeed • All students will have significant exposure to studies of Asia across the curriculum • All students will undertake a continuous course of study in an Asian language (esp. Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese. • Innovation, collaboration and connecting to Asian markets • Building sustainable security • Deeper and broader relationships

6. Professionally – it is in our curriculum “India, China and other Asian nations are growing and their influence is increasing. Australians need to become ‘Asia literate’, engaging and building strong relationships with Asia.” Goal 2: All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens “active and informed citizens…are able to relate and communicate across cultures, especially in relation to cultures and countries of the Asia-Pacific.”

7. Australian Curriculum • General Capabilities www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

8. Intercultural Understanding • Includes the skills to critically reflect on one’s own culture as well as positive, cooperative and respectful interactions between people of diverse cultural backgrounds at both an institutional and interpersonal level. • Can be measured by the acquisition of critical cultural awareness, culturally respectful attitudes and positive skills for interacting across cultural groups. • Focuses on the interaction between people by developing an understanding of self in relation to others.

9. Standpoints of intercultural understanding

10. Australian Curriculum – Cross Curriculum Priorities • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures • Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia • Sustainability www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

11. Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia • Organising Themes • Asia and its diversity • Achievements and contributions of the peoples of Asia • Asia-Australia engagement

12. Asia literacy foundational and deep knowledge, skills and understandings about the histories, geographies, societies, cultures, literatures and languages of the diverse countries that make up our part of the world

13. Organising Themes/Ideas

14. Inspirations Where do these images come from? What period of time do they come from?

15. Where did it come from? Write down the origin of each invention on your sheet.

16. Organising Ideas

18. Culture as layers

19. Culture is like an apple • The Skin – Observed: Language, Food, Architecture, Fashion, Art • The Flesh – Norms & Values: Beliefs, attitudes and conventions • The Core – Basic Assumptions: Unquestioned behaviour - tradition

20. Iceberg of culture

21. Layers, Iceberg and Apples Select the model you resonate with most. Discuss what resonates and why. HumanGraph

22. What’s the news across the nation…. http://www.netvibes.com/studies-of-asia #India_Newsfeeds #Japanese_newsfeeds #Indonesia_Newsfeeds #China_news Asian Newspapers online http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/asian-newspapers.htm

23. Organising Ideas

24. What is an Asia Literate school?

25. Studies of Asia wikispace studiesofasia.wikispaces.com