Ms. Sharon Corologos

Fourth Grade Teacher
Richmond Elementary School
Richmond, Vermont

Ms. Sharon Corologos teaches fourth grade at Richmond Elementary School in Richmond, Vermont. In 1984, she first started teaching her fourth graders about Japanese culture. In 1987, Corologos was accepted in the Japan Study Tour offered by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies in Amherst, MA funded by the United States-Japan Foundation. As her follow-up project, she created a handbook on teaching Japanese culture to Vermont schoolchildren, which was widely distributed to Vermont schools.

Corologos continued each year to focus on teaching Japanese culture in her classroom by inviting college students from Japan and other Japanese people to her class, by involving the school’s art and music teachers in the culture study, and by organizing and supporting school wide studies about Japan in her school. In various years her students have danced, sung, or exhibited at the statewide Japan-America Society’s Matsuri event (Vermont chapter).

As one of the recipients of the University of Vermont’s Outstanding Vermont Teacher Award in 1987, Corologos has become an informal resource to other schools, and gladly shares the resources she has accumulated. In 1999, Corologos was accepted into the University of Vermont’s Asian Studies Outreach Project (ASOP), and has participated in many of its offerings. Through ASOP, Corologos has mentored a Japanese intern in her classroom, attended and presented at Japanese culture workshops, and assisted as a co-leader for ASOP’s Institute in Japan. In June 2004, Corologos will lead that Institute for Vermont teachers.

In this 2003-2004 school year, Corologos is serving on the Vermont Governor’s Council on International Education, chairing her school’s multicultural parent-teacher committee, and involving her students in a web page and e-mail project with a school in Tottori Japan. Additionally, she is co-leading a teacher-parent Asian theme book club at school, and supporting other classrooms in her school as they study Japanese culture.

Corologos will utilize grant funds to develop a school wide artist-in-residence program enabling students in her school to learn about various Japanese arts.