Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (The JET Program)
http://www.jetprogramme.org/index.html

From July 1995 to July 1998 I had the honor of being a participant in the world's largest international education exchange program which brings in more than 5000 recent graduates from mainly native English-speaking nations to introduce Japanese public school students to the English language and international understanding. Over these three years, I taught in two towns, Nakamichi-cho and Toyotomi-mura, in Yamanashi prefrecture, where I rotated around each week between three elementary schools and one junior high school. Because it wasn't the first time I had taught in Japanese public schools, however. From 1990-1992 I taught a year each in Chiba-ken (Kimitsu-shi) and a year in Hokkaido (Kembuchi-cho) before attending grauduate school in History at the Univeristy of Hawaii. So when I finally entered the JET program in 1995, I soon began collaborating with Japanese teachers in the creation of storyboards that would introduce Japanese children to their global identity that laid not far beyond their national identity. There was nothing worse than seeing children's faces when I showed them a world map on which "my country" was so much bigger than "their country"! The story-boards were a success and follow-up research a year later was a part of an article in a national education journal. Besides the storyboards, School Bus Rocket, Everyone's Birthday Party, Turtle Island, and English Explorers, we also conducted exchanges with a number of countries in the world, exchanging letters, photos, videos, and artwork. Participation in the JET program establishes relationships for international exchange that for years beyond the one-to-three years of service in the program. Our exchange between Ijiri Elementary School in Yamanashi-prefrecture and Lumpkin County Elementary school in Georgia in 2007 is the latest example.