South Asia Center
Engagement with K-12 Classrooms
Classroom Engagement and Professional Development
Classroom Visits
Faculty and graduate students present on topics of interest that satisfy New York Learning Standards for Social Studies (grades 2-5).
Topics can include geography, food and dress, family life, language, technology and development, folk arts and oral narrative traditions, history, religious practice, the environment, historical and contemporary political systems, the growth of India as an economic power and migration within and from South Asia.
International Studies Summer Institute
Held each summer at Syracuse University or Cornell University, the International Studies Summer Institute (ISSI) is a professional development workshop for practicing and pre-service K–12 teachers. The workshop will give you practical strategies and resources for integrating international studies and world religions into your classroom. Each year, ISSI has a new international theme, such as global arts education.
ISSI is designed for elementary, middle and high school teachers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. New York State teachers can obtain continuing education credits upon completion of a lesson plan that incorporates content from the workshop.
Workshops and Lesson Planning
In collaboration with Cornell University, we hold teacher workshops to provide useful information and resources concerning South Asia that teachers can use to create or revise lesson plans.
We are particularly interested in working in rural school districts whose students may have limited experiences with South Asian cultures.
Classroom Materials and Lesson Plans
The following resources might be helpful for preparing South Asia-related curriculum.
Afghanistan
Learn about the history and culture of Afghanistan on "Homeland Afghanistan," a website presented by the Asia Society. The "Primary Resources" website may be used as a companion piece.
Hinduism
The Manas: The Religions of India website provides background on the sacred text and practices of a number of Indian religions, including Hinduism.
The Legend of Ponnivala is a medieval Hindu epic that has been reinterpreted for a modern audience.
Several versions of the Ramayana story, an important Hindu epic, are provided with the corresponding teaching materials.
South Asian Folk and Visual Arts
The following provide lesson plans and supporting materials about Beneath the Banyan Tree: Ritual, Remembrance and Storytelling in Performed North Indian Folk Arts, Mithila Paintings and Artwork (pdf) and the Bengali Scrolls (pdf).
Art, Research and Teaching Collections
The following resources might be helpful for preparing South Asia-related curriculum.
At his retirement, H. Daniel Smith, professor emeritus of religion at Syracuse University, donated his collection of Indian art comprised of numerous images and accruements for ritual (puja objects), scrolls of Indian epics and stories and sixty paintings from the Mithila region of northern India.
The Lending Library contains books, movies, music and culture kits full of ephemera from South Asian countries organized around a variety of topics including games, education, Buddhism and water access. Prepared by experts at Cornell University, these resources are geared for use by K-12 and community college educators.
Comparable only to collections housed in two museums—one in British Columbia and the other in Germany, the Smith Poster Archive, contains more than 3,500 design specimens of popular chromolithographs depicting Hindu gods, goddesses, saints and sacred sites. Such posters were widely disseminated in India in the 20th century.
Ruth Reeves was a leading American textile designer whose fabrics covered the walls of New York Radio City Music Hall and who, from 1956 to her death in 1966, lived in India studying and collecting its craft traditions. Shorty after her death, Syracuse University acquired Reeves' collection of Indian folk arts comprised of some 500 items.
Swāmī Agehānanda Bhāratī was the monastic name of Leopold Fischer, professor of anthropology at Syracuse University for over 30 years. He was an academic Sanskritist, a writer on religious subjects and a Hindu monk in the Dasanami Sannyasi order. After his death in 1991, his vast collection of writings was donated to the Syracuse University Special Collections in Bird Library.
A global non-profit organization, Asia Society is the leading force in forging closer ties between Asia and the West through arts, education, policy and business outreach.