2002 Award Recipients
Mr. Norman Masuda
Japanese Language Category
Norman Masuda has been teaching for 32 years and is the Instructional Supervisor of World Languages and a Japanese instructor at Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA. A Ford Foundation fellow, he studied Chinese language and literature in Taiwan and did research in Kyoto, Japan on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship.
A graduate of UCLA in Oriental Languages, he received an MA in Chinese literature with a Japanese minor at Stanford University. He is credentialed to teach Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and English. A founder and past president of the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers and the California Association of Japanese Language Teachers, Norman has served on the California Foreign Language Project’s Advisory Board, the Test Committee of the Japanese SAT II, the ACTFL Japanese Standards Committee, Foreign Language Advisory Committee to the College Board, and consultant to the California Department of Education for Less Commonly Taught Languages.
He has presented at local, state and national conferences and given workshops on methodology, assessment, and technology in world language teaching. In addition, he has been involved with Okinawan performing arts and culture for over 25 years. He has studied Uta-Sanshin under Harry Seisho Nakasone (Head of the Nakasone Seifukai, Honolulu, HI), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and classical Okinawan dance under Mitsuko Toguchi (Ryusei Honryu Yanagi no Kai, Hawaii Chapter, Toguchi Mitsuko Ryubu Kenkyusho). He is certified to teach Okinawan Sanshin and has studied Okinawan dance since 1978.
As Executive Director of the Kariyushi Kai, an association dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Okinawan classical dance and music, he has led workshops, classes, lecture/demonstrations and organized concerts since 1984.
Ms. Patience Berkman
Humanities Category
Ms. Patience Berkman has been teaching for 24 years and currently serves as Chair of the History Department at Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Newton, Massachusetts. She also teaches World History in Grade 9 and 20th Century History in Grade 12.
Her professional focus on Asia began in 1990 when she participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on East Asian Confucianism conducted by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies at Smith College. Since that time she has been engaged in a number of additional institutes on various aspects of Japanese history and culture sponsored by the Five College Center at Smith, the East Asia Resource Center at the University of Washington, and the Program for Teaching East Asia at the University of Colorado.
She has participated in major institutes covering other regions of Asia at Yale University, and has worked on Japan outreach in conjunction with the East Asian Institute at Columbia University as well. Ms. Berkman has developed many extensive curriculum units on Japan and Japanese History that are used by middle and high school teachers across the country.
Additionally, she has given presentations and workshops for teachers at the national and regional level focusing on how to teach about Japan. Ms. Berkman is a seminar leader for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia, a member of the Boston Children’s Museum Advisory Committees on China and Japan, a Board Member of the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies, and a consultant for the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance, as well as for the Five College Center for East Asian Studies.
View some of the lessons authored by Ms. Berkman by clicking on the links below.
Knight/Samurai and Lord/Daimyo: Should We Compare Europe and Japan?
http://www.smith.edu/fcceas/curriculum/berkwood.htm
The Tobacco Habit: Marketing and Morality
http://www.globaled.org/globalLiteracy/activities/glGlobalChallenges11.html