|
|
 |
Chicago JACL continually seeks to inform the public about the Japanese American experience.
It carries this out in teacher training workshops and through the dissemination of educational resources.
Over the past six years, the Chapter has conducted teacher training workshops at Northwestern University, Northeastern Illinois University and New Trier High School. These workshops provided instruction to over 100 teachers on implementing a unit on the Japanese American experience in their classrooms.
Each year, the Chapter sponsors an exhibit at the Illinois Council for Social Studies by using this opportunity to display a number of educational resource materials, including the much-acclaimed JACL Curriculum Guide – A Lesson in American History: The Japanese American Experience and the newly released JACL Asian American Curriculum Guide.
 Additionally, the Chapter engages the community through yearly series of community forums. In 2006, the Chapter invited the Executive Director of the JACL as well as the Executive Director for the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union for a discussion on the U.S. Patriot Act and the removal of basic civil liberties since the attacks on September 11, 2001. In 2007, the Education Committee hosted Carolyn Ho, Lieutenant Ehren Watada’s mother, to talk about her son as being the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Moreover, the JACL Education Committee has organized an educational evening with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation as well as a town hall meeting to discuss the 25th anniversary of the killing of Vincent Chin. An event organized in conjunction with Asian Pacific Americans for Progress and the Chicago Chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Future plans include instituting textbook reviews to ensure students are receiving a fair and accurate depiction of Japanese American history, and offering a book club that considers literature which deals with the Japanese American experience.
If you are interested in collaborating or sharing ideas with the Chicago JACL Education Committee, please contact us.
|
|
|
