Ms. Patience Berkman
Chair, History Department
Teacher, World History
Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart
Newton, MA
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