Bringing Living Heritage to the Classrooms in Japan

On 20 January 2023, within the framework of the UNESCO ASPnet National Conference in Japan, UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia organized the webinar Bringing living heritage to the classroom, with the participation of school teachers, university professors and students. The webinar aimed to raise awareness about the benefits of integrating living heritage and education, and to provide a step-by-step methodology on effective and innovative ways for teachers, community members, students and parents, and all other concerned educational and cultural stakeholders to join hands to promote this approach.

The integration of culture and education is by no means an unfamiliar topic in Japan. Participants from the webinars shared their experiences on how they have worked with living heritage in their teaching and learning. A professor from Okayama University has worked with her students to benefit the local community by organizing festivals and conducting research. For instance, students engaged in learning traditional mochi (rice cakes) making from the elderly, researched the art of rice cake production, and utilized the platform of the annual “street museum” event to feature different cultural heritage of the local communities and to raise awareness and interest about its safeguarding. An English teacher also shared the exercise of engaging students to tell stories about their living heritage, and how that leads to the exploration of many unique ways different families practice the same living heritage element (such as cooking the ozouni soup for the New Year using completely different ingredients). It is hoped that the methodology developed by UNESCO will contribute to make the existing efforts more inclusive, systematic and sustainable. This can include working closely with the communities, collaborating among teachers across the subjects, involving students in taking the leads in their own learning through research and presenting their findings, and using living heritage as a tool to explore various sustainable development topics such as gender and human rights.

The methodology Bringing living heritage to the classrooms has been developed based on the outcomes of the multi-year pilot projects taking place in Asia-Pacific and Europe, with the dual objectives to improve the quality of education and to safeguard living heritage. A wide range of resources has now been made available for interested teachers and stakeholders, including an animation series, a resource kit and a self-paced learning course.

The ASPnet National Conference took place within the scope of the UNESCO Week 2024 on the theme Creating our Common Future: A UNESCO-based Approach, organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and Asia-Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO, as part of the UNESCO Future Co-Creation Platform project established in 2020.