TEACH JAPAN
Resources for students and educators
TEACH JAPAN
Resources for students and educators
This collection was designed by the Education Department of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as a basic introduction to Japanese painting for educators. It is a collection of artworks from the museum’s permanent collection that draw from a wide variety of formats, styles, media, and subjects that represent many of the major trends in Japanese painting. Each image includes key information about the artwork, as well as ideas for class discussion, lesson components, and/or links to resources such as videos and articles which provide additional information about the artwork.
About Japan: A Teacher’s Resource provides a variety of resources about Japan to educators for use in the K-12 classroom. Resources are organized around the themes of culture, environment, globalization, history, Japanese language, and social issues and consist of lesson plans, articles by leading scholars and primary source images and video. Through these classroom ready resources, educators are able to expand and deepen their teaching on Japan.
Explore the Denver Art Museum’s comprehensive collection of lesson plans and resources for educators. Lessons range from 30 to 50 minutes, and are based on objects from the Denver Museum’s Japanese collection. Resources available for all ages and learning levels.
This lesson focuses on the story of the Eleven-Headed Bodhisattva of Compassion and the definition of “compassion.” Students will work with visual images and tools to enhance oral and listening skills, while building upon kindness in peer relationships and with others around them
Objectives
Students will be able to:
use listening and oral skills;
make connections to the world around them; and
work with classmates to complete a visual diagram about the Bodhisattva.
Close observation helps students see tiny details in the Grip Enhancers (Menuki) with Rats. They will use these details to engage in different visual arts and movement activities. A video about mochi (one of the objects on the grip enhancers) and activities in Japan around making mochi rounds out the lesson.
Objectives
Students will be able to:
List at least three details they see on each Grip Enhancers (Menuki) with Rats;
Make shapes out of clay based on shapes they see in the grip enhancers;
Describe how the Japanese villagers come together to make mochi and why it’s special for their New Year.
Students will critically examine and discuss the image of the Eleven-Headed Bodhisattva of Compassion. They will then discuss and view examples of mind maps. In small groups students will create an original mind map to organize their thoughts and ideas around the concept of compassion.
Objectives
Students will be able to:
describe and analyze what they see in the Eleven-Headed Bodhisattva of Compassion;
discuss symbolic and actual demonstrations of compassion; and
collaborate in groups to design and create a mind map as a graphical representation of compassion.
The projects in this guide connect to a wide range of core curriculum subject areas and can be adapted for a
variety of grade levels to meet Washington State Standards and Common Core Standards of Learning. The projects and discussions outlined in this guide may be conducted independent of a trip to the exhibition Luminous: The Art of Asia. Each section of this guide includes works of art from SAM’s permanent collection featured in the Luminous: The Art of Asia. Additional information can be found on SAM’s website (seattleartmuseum.org/luminous) as well as in the resource section of this guide.
OBJECTIVES
1. Introduce students to the art and history of Asia across time and place.
2. Prompt discussions that allow students to share their own insights and perspectives.
3. Encourage creative exploration and discovery.
4. Deepen students’ understanding of how culture and art are shaped by context and that the meaning
and interpretation of these objects can shift over time.
5. Build thematic connections between works of art and classroom curricula.
Discover Tawaraya Sōtatsu, one of the most influential figures in the history of Japanese visual culture, with images collected by the Freer|Sackler Education Department from the museums’ permanent collection.
Search, download, and create resources for your classroom using the Freer Sackler digital collection. With more than forty thousand works available for high-resolution download—expanding regularly with new acquisitions—you can explore the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art from anywhere in the world, whenever you like.
Search the Pulverer Collection, one of the most outstanding and comprehensive collections of Japanese illustrated books outside Japan.
Find out more about TeachJapan.
Lead funding for the Asian Art Museum’s TeachJapan is generously provided by The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.
Additional support is provided by Susan and Kevin McCabe.
Teach Japan was created in collaboration with the following arts organizations:
