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 Shelly Jones, a teacher at Lakewood
Middle School, is visiting Japan as a participant in the Japan Fulbright
Memorial Fund (JFMF) Teacher Program.
Jones was selected from a national
pool of over 1,700 applicants by a panel of educators to earn this honor. This
program allows distinguished primary and secondary school educators in the U.S.
to travel to Japan for three weeks in an effort to promote greater
intercultural understanding between the two nations.
Jones will be among 160
educators visiting Japan in June.
They will begin their visit in Tokyo
with a practical orientation on Japanese life and culture and meetings with
Japanese government officials and educators. They then will travel in groups of
16 to selected host cities where they will have direct contact with Japanese
teachers and students during visits to primary and secondary schools as well as
a teachers college.
They will also visit cultural
sites and local industries in addition to a brief homestay with a Japanese
family.
The Japan Fulbright Memorial
Fund, based in Tokyo, oversees all aspects of the Teacher Program. The program
is sponsored by the Government of Japan and was launched in 1997 to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government Fulbright Program, which has
enabled more than 6,000 Japanese citizens to study in the U.S. on Fulbright
fellowships for graduate education and research.
The Institute of International
Education acts as the agency for the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund to
coordinate the recruitment and pre-departure activities of the Teacher Program
in the United States.
Up to 320 educators from all 50
states and the District of Columbia will be invited to visit Japan in June and
October of 2008 (160 in each group). To date, more than 6000 primary and
secondary school educators have visited Japan through the JFMF Teacher
Program.
Upon their return, program
participants share what they have learned about Japan with their students and
communities through a variety of outreach projects.
(Editor’s note: Shelly Jones said she will be writing a
story for the Wire when she returns to share in words and photos how her trip
went.)
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