Silk Road Connects the World

As the world embraces China's geopolitically significant "One Belt, One Road" Initiative, named in tribute of the ancient Silk Road, Asia Society’s China Learning Initiatives organized the 2015 China Studies Seminar, entitled “Silk Road Connects the World,” in Shanghai in July of 2015.

The progressive seminar—one of two annual professional development workshops for Asia Society’s Confucius Classrooms network of schools, which develops and supports exemplary Chinese language programs across the US—brought together two teachers from each school: a Chinese Language teacher and a teacher of another subject in an effort to foster collaboration between subject areas, enrich content, and integrate relevant and timely Chinese elements into more classes. The week-long seminar consisted of expert speakers on the Silk Road old and new, as well as a practical workshop on incorporating China into existing curriculum in an engaging way, led by long-time Asia Society partner Dr. Wu Wei-Ling. At the conclusion of the workshop, teachers designed a roadmap to implement plans in their classrooms.

Here, we offer three examples of collaborative unit plans that were produced as a result of this year's seminar:

• Elementary School Collaborative Unit Plan, designed by a Social Studies teacher, a Chinese teacher and a Music teacher from Englewood Public Schools in New Jersey.
   
• Middle School Collaborative Unit Plan, designed by a Chinese teacher and a Social Studies teacher from JHS 185 Edward Bleeker in New York.
   
• High School Collaborative Unit Plan, designed by a Chinese teacher and two Business/Marketing teachers from Kettle Morain High School in Wisconsin.