Zen Oriental Journeys | For Educators: Zen Oriental Journeys and Your School

For Educators: Zen Oriental Journeys and Your School

Zen Oriental Journeys are study tours specifically designed to support the Australian Curriculum through providing first-hand experience of Asia. In “Encountering Cultures; The impact of study tours to Asia on Australian teaching practice”, (Halse, Christine 1999) Dr Halse discovered that “prior to their tour, teachers significantly overestimated their knowledge about a study tour destination and undercalculated the learning necessary for cultural familiarity. The tour demonstrated that cultural learning was neither simple or easy, and it involved a complex process of unsettling engagement with and accommodation of socio-cultural difference” ”….the study found that more than a third of study tour participants became so passionate and enthusiastic about their host country that they incorporated aspects of the learning into all areas of their teaching, become more active in supporting studies of Asia in their schools and local networks, and intended to participate in future study tours”.

Zen Oriental Journeys provide ‘authentic’ experiences of Asia that will provide you with an opportunity to increase your skills, knowledge and understandings of Asia, acquire teaching resources and develop lesson plans for a welcome infusion of engaging and rich content for your curriculum.

Expected Outcomes of the tour

Evidence collated from previous participants in Asia In-Country Experience programs demonstrates that first hand field experience of Asia is a most powerful means of providing teachers with the knowledge, understandings, motivation and confidence to develop and teach quality studies of Asia programs in schools.

Through participation in this study tour, you will be able to gain:

• an understanding and appreciation of the diversity of environments, cultures and societies of Asia;
• informed attitudes and behaviours towards peoples, events, issues and lifestyles in Asia;
• an understanding of the economic, strategic and cultural importance of Asia and its links, past and current, with other countries in the region and Australia;
• an understanding of the diversity of values within the societies encountered and an awareness raised beyond cultural stereotypes;
• curriculum contexts for the inclusion of studies of Asia within the school teaching and learning program; and
• appropriate knowledge and skills to undertake related accredited studies

Please go to the Australian Curriculum to discover more about the priority Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia

https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/