Part 3 of 3: Pedagogy in the Hawaiian Islands

Speaker 1 Aloha, and welcome to episode three in a three part series on pedagogy in the Hawaiian Islands. My name is Noah Ransland, and I'm a student from the University of Massachusetts Amherst working as a content strategist here at the Human Restoration Project. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this is brought you by our supporters, three of whom are Brian Oram, Julia Rosemary Valenti, and Matthew Thomas Fahey. Mahalo Nui for your ongoing support. You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website or find us on x slash Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube. Over the summer, Chris had put me in contact with doctor Amber Strong Makaiau, a specialist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Education Institute for Teacher Education secondary program, and the head of professional development at the Hana'aoli School in Honolulu. She invited me to come visit the school, and that experience guided my research and focus during the summer project. I visited the school multiple times over the course of the summer, spending time digging through their archives and exploring various different aspects of life at Hana'aoli. After having been given the opportunity to see what progressive education in Hawaii really looks like, I wanted to share with you all my experience and the plethora of other experiences of the students and faculty at the school. The series has been building up to this episode, where we will look into the work being done at and what progressive pedagogy in Hawaii looks like in practice. First, here's Amber to tell you a little bit about the history of the school.

Speaker 2 So there was a couple living in Hawaii, Sophie Judd Cook and George Cook. And this is around the turn of the century, around '9 the early nineteen hundreds. And they were living on the island of Molokai, and they had a number of children. And Sophie was not a formal educator but had learned a lot about regio amelia, approaches to teaching and learning, and was homeschooling her own children using those approaches. And her husband George became very interested in government, and he got elected to the Hawaii state legislature to be a representative from Maui County, and the family had to move to the island of Oahu. And when they got to Oahu, they decided, well, we should send our kids to a formal school. And we're looking around, and a lot of the schooling options at the time were very traditional. They were reflective of the industrialization that was happening at that area era. And, serendipitously, there was a woman who was traveling across the country. She was a fourth grade teacher at the Francis Parker School in Chicago, and she was giving public lectures about how children could learn how to read from being in storytelling rich environments rather than memorizing words and letters from basal readers. And Sophie went and attended her public lecture in Honolulu at Washington Place, and was enthralled with it. There was probably lots of parallels between what she was listening to this woman. Her name was Goodwin Thorne Thompson, what she was talking about and what Sophie believed him in terms of the regio amelia approach. And went up to the woman after the lecture and said, I just adore this. I'd love for my children to learn in this way. And she said, well, why don't you start a school of your own? And that launched the beginning of Hana'o'oli school. Hana'o'oli in Hawaiian means joyous work. It was named by Sophie's brother. And from the very beginning, the creation of Hana'ole in Honolulu in 1918 was a collaboration between the Cooks as well as many folks from the Francis Parker School and John Dewey and George Mead and the superintendent of the state of Hawaii of public schools, the fledgling University of Hawaii. And so from the very start, was really modeled after John Dewey's experimental school at the University of Chicago, but most primarily after the Francis Parker School in Chicago. And so it has lots of elements of the early East Coast progressive schools overlapping and integrating with Hawaii's unique cultural con context. And so that includes just the the physical layout of the school of having lots of outdoor learning spaces and open courtyards, the integration of multicultural education and multiple language learning, Hawaiian language, Japanese language, French from the very beginning. And so its birth was a really unique venture and in the progressive education movement because it stayed true to all of those the progressive philosophies of Dewey and Kilpatrick and Lucy Sprague Mitchell and all those folks, yet it was adapted to be more reflective of Hawaii's multicultural society.

Speaker 1 Over the course of this episode, I will include a variety of voices from various students and faculty. To provide some context for what's to come, I'd like to introduce you to the people you're about to hear speak. First is Jennifer Steerle, one of the directors of faculty and curriculum and a current educator. For a parent's perspective, you'll hear from Veronica Kimmy, who's also a faculty member. Finally, for the adults, you'll hear from Alison Backlig, director of admissions at Hana'Oli. And last but not least, you'll hear from Raleigh, Hannah, Ka'Oli, Taylor, and Etta, students across different age groups. In the conception of this project, Amber and I identified a few core values of Hana'aoli. While spending time talking, covered by the canopy, and taking in the warm island air, Amber pointed out to me that not every progressive school is as lush and green as Hana'aoli. In most of the schools she had seen, where they were situated was not a key component of how they operated. Hana Hauli, on the other hand, situated itself squarely within the Hawaiian cultural and physical context. This speaks to one of the values we discussed, that of place based pedagogy, something I discussed at length with Stacy in episode two.

Speaker 3 I guess the first thing that comes to mind is place based learning, which, of course, is kind of a buzzword lately, but what an amazing place to have place based learning. There's such a rich cultural historical background. And, unfortunately, because of the history of colonization, a lot of Hawaiian culture has to be rediscovered and reinvigorated. And, you know, as a person who is not native Hawaiian, there's so much that I need to learn and am learning. And it's an exciting opportunity for as a teacher to say along with the kids, hey. I don't know this, but I want to know it, and I know who I can ask. And modeling that for them, that curiosity and valuing where we we come from in in a certain way. Like, I was born here, but I'm not Hawaiian. But I feel like I come from this place to a certain level, so I need to honor that and respect that. And then also, yeah, I I guess, really, with the wonderings, like, what else can we learn about where we are? How else can we connect? How else can we honor

Speaker 1 this place where we are. The students are acutely aware of this as well, highlighting Hawaiian traditions as some of their favorite experiences at Hana Hauli.

Speaker 4 I really love Makahiki, which is basically Christmas, but Hawaiian. We give authoring. We do dance it. Hawaiian dances, chants. It's really fun.

Speaker 5 I think it's really cool that we get to do Hawaiian things, and it makes me feel connected to Hawaiians. And this year, they said it's fifth grade and fourth grade is gonna be, like, the spotlight of makahiki, so I'm excited to do that.

Speaker 1 In line with this understanding of place, Hanahau'oli takes a different approach to how it forms its curriculum. One of the key elements of Hawaiian pedagogy that showed up time and time again in my research was learning by doing. Just as doctor Tsai addressed in episode one, project based learning has been essential to the success of the Hawaiian education system, and Hana'aoli has carried this model into the era of worksheets and standardized testing. Rather than conforming to this new epoch, Hana'aoli has continued to pioneer a project based model with lots of room for reflection and creativity.

Speaker 3 When I joined Hana'aoli and was teaching in second and third grade, they had the curriculum was built so that there were already a lot of projects that were incorporated into the learning, into the curriculum in order to really give kids experiences and to understand to get at their understanding. So one of them that I think is pretty unique and fun and valuable is a kid city project where as part of their unit learning on families, schools, and communities, the children design and create a a city in the classroom. So since they have the unique setup of three different classrooms or home groups in one large space. The kids take over that entire space for maybe the course of a week. But before that even happens, the kids are planning what does a community need. What is a community? How can we show that? How can we make a functional community? What do we want in this community to make it the best it possibly can be? So after they've done the research by going on learning trips, having guest speakers, doing interviews, reading, watching videos, they decide upon the elements of their city and gather materials that they need, map out where different parts are gonna be. Oh, we need a bank here because it's a safe place to have a bank, or we definitely need grocery store because our community members need to eat. So that's one of the amazing projects that has been done in second and third. In fourth and fifth, it looks a little different. I'm coming more recently from the fourth and fifth grade classroom. A project that we've done a few times now is a nonviolent direct action project. And with that, the children are learning I mean, with all the projects that we do at Hanahole, they're really learning about a larger concept. So in this one, they're learning about social justice. They're learning about being an a changemaker in their communities. So kids have some freedom to decide what the focus of their nonviolent direct action is going to be. And they've also, before this, learned some basics about the civil rights movement. They're fourth and fifth graders, so they don't understand or get into all the complexities and the history of it. But they have a a grounding in that and where the this idea comes from, and they learn about Martin Luther King Junior's letter from a Birmingham jail. And they decide what action they would like to take. They collaborate with each other on how they might take this action, whom it will affect, and how their intended outcomes, what they might do if their action is not successful. So through through the different age levels and, developmental stages, kids are doing different types of projects to really show what they understand and develop their understanding.

Speaker 4 And I also like all the work and, like, how it feels so accomplished and good when you get everything done. So yeah.

Speaker 5 I'm same with Hannah. I like all the traditions and how we do them. And then I also like how we do, like, learning by doing. So that just seems nice to me. Same.

Speaker 2 Is can you guys explain that a little bit more? What that what that means? And So, like,

Speaker 5 for me, it's more of, like like, I do this, and then sometimes we'll do, like, a reflection about it. So it's like we reflect,

Speaker 4 I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I like the reflecting, except sometimes I think it's hard for me to remember. Like, sometimes. So I like to take notes sometimes of, like, what's happened and stuff, like yeah. Just so I know and I have something to reflect on.

Speaker 5 My favorite unit is the food unit because we we would get to, like, go to Matson or, like, a food food product place, like, center or, like, factory. And they would give us, like, a pack. And my favorite, like, project is when we had our ocean creatures, and we got to research our creatures and then write about them and drop pictures. My favorite unit was personally Mandarin because I'm half Chinese, and I get to explore more of who I am. And my favorite project in it was we kinda had this idea of this artist named Ai Weiwei, and we made a project project based off of something like him. I created, like, a zodiac animal in his style or yeah. And I did it with my classmates.

Speaker 4 I don't remember any of, like, the big projects, but there is this one, like I I wouldn't call it a project, but I would call it an activity. So one day, we had this thing called black and white school, which was school from, like, when you were in school, like, the rose kind. And that was in actually the pavilion where we have our assemblies and stuff. And then we did orange and white school in the back of our classroom where we did, like, a lot of stuff and we made stuff of the bell, and it was really cool.

Speaker 5 One of the break big projects that we did in the ocean unit that I really enjoyed was, like, we would put all of our, like, all of our facts and stuff that we learned into, like, a book that we would write. And for me, that was really fun because I like to author and write.

Speaker 4 So yeah. That was I'm gonna add on to that. I really like to author and write too, but then that we got to choose, like, our top animals that we liked, like, our top five animals that we liked. And then the teachers gave us one of our those options, and then we had to study that animal, and like Raleigh said, make it into a book.

Speaker 2 Can I can I interject? Because I've had can you do you mind telling him about what it means to be an author and the authoring process? I think it's a good example of

Speaker 5 Well, what we do here, which is similar out in, like like, what authors would do. Well, we would, like, write our draft, and then, we would self edit with a friend or a partner. And then we would, like after that, we would take it to our teacher, and she would be, like, our editor. And then she would edit for us. And then after we got add everything edited, we would put it into a big not a big book, but we would bind it and stuff after we did our Well, we have to then we have to write it on pages

Speaker 4 after we edit. Let's write on these certain pages. You can choose if you want a big book or a small book, but you can't keep switching back and forth. And so we had to, like, write our story again with all the edits onto the paper. So we basically wrote our story, like, two times. And then the teacher would laminate our covers, bind it. We would do the about the author and dedication. We would choose the order and stuff. It was really fun and cool. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hana'aoli, at more than a century old, is a school steeped in tradition. Another value we identified, the traditions provide a sense of continuity, progress, and vision to the students as they spend each year building on the last. To start, one of the most well known traditions is the stepping stone, where each student carves a stone with their passions, memories, or anything in between to be immortalized on a stone path in the courtyard of the school. There's a ceremony where each student steps over the stones signifying the end of their journeys at Hana'oli.

Speaker 4 I'm I wanna put some, like, waves on my stepping stone because one of my main passions is swimming. So I wanna, like, do some ocean themed stuff. So yeah.

Speaker 5 I thought maybe since I like volleyball, maybe I could do, like, a big volleyball. And then, like, in the lines, I could do, like, other things that I like. Something I wanna put on my stepping stone is my, like, my passions and what I love to do and what I love, like, to eat. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, what would you wanna put on it if you were gonna show your passions? Like, I'm used to be skateboarding and football.

Speaker 5 It made me, like, my favorite show. I wouldn't go with the original of what most kids do. I think I don't want to put one big thing that represents me in the middle. For example, like, one of my passions, I'm not sure about that yet. And on the sides, maybe I'll put, like, hopeful words for me. So one day if I come back, I'll look at my stomach stone and remember what I did.

Speaker 4 I think I do a tennis ball. Yeah. Or, like, symbols that show what I like to do.

Speaker 1 Here are some other traditions that made the students and teachers particularly excited.

Speaker 5 One of my favorite traditions that I haven't done yet, but it's like always so exciting is so we do this thing where we would grow like a mini Christmas tree and then the sixth graders would cut it down. And I always feel, like, joy watching them cut it because I know one day that will be me. And, like, everyone's working together, and I love teamwork. And then it's just also really joyful because while the sixth graders are cutting it, everyone else is watching and, like, singing Christmas songs. So yeah.

Speaker 4 And then I also love holiday program. It's really fun for me to dance, perform, and they get all, like, clapping, and it just it feels so good once you've accomplished it. So every year after the performances, I always get kinda sad that it's over. And then I also love holiday program. It's really fun for me to dance, perform, and then get all, like, clapping, and it just it feels so good once you've accomplished it. So every year after the performances, I always get kinda sad that it's over. Also, on the last day of school, I love the slipper toss. We get we wear slippers to school, and then we get to we take off our slippers, and then we count down the last ten seconds of the school year. And we go ten nine eight seven six five four three two one. And then when we say go, we throw our slippers up in the air towards the flagpole. And then at the end, we all run and go find our slippers.

Speaker 2 That's And it's how we end the year. Can you think of some other traditions to tell them about?

Speaker 5 Yeah. So one we do is another, like, big program. It we do May Day. So we'll do like, the sixth graders will do the maple dance. Everyone will do songs, and sometimes we'll do dance dances. Like, last time last year, we did a Filipino dance, tentacling. So, like, the bamboo poles would go in and out, and we would have to dance in between them. So that's really fun. So it would go out, out, out. Wait. Out, out, in.

Speaker 4 Out, out. And you your foot has to be up in the air in when it goes in, and then you tap your foot in the middle for the duh duh or out, out. And we would have to, like, pay attention to the sticks and try not to get our feet smashed. And then we would have to dance with our partner according to the pattern.

Speaker 5 Tell them them when you have it again. In Tagalog.

Speaker 2 In Tagalog.

Speaker 5 So and then it's just really fun holiday program. And then another, like, tradition tradition, yeah, we do is

Speaker 4 sorry. I forget about some of my art traditions.

Speaker 2 There's, like, birthday books Oh, yeah. Olympics, and flag, and assembly. Do you wanna oh, yeah. Any of those? That would that's what I was saying. Okay. Tell them about the Olympics. Olympics is like

Speaker 5 well, first, we the sixth graders do like Greek oratories and they have groups and stuff. And then after that, there's they do the Olympics, like, the Greek Olympics, but we do it, like, on Holy Olympics. So it's like running, hurdles, javelins. Sometimes, they will do what's it called? They

Speaker 4 would do 40 yard dash. There's a long jump.

Speaker 5 It's really fun. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then there's also birthday books. Birthday books is when when it's your birthday, you have the option to choose a book and you make a play that says, this birthday book is the gift of blanks. So and so's. So and so's. Birthday. Birthday. Like, blank birthday on the on the date of their birthday and then the year.

Speaker 5 And then now You gotta, like, decorate the black. Right? You gotta glue it into the book and then that lives in the library. So then, like, if you come back or something, like, and you open up a book and You can find your birthday. Yeah. So it's like a good memory to map. And it's like

Speaker 4 There's there's also flag in assembly. Assembly is like, you know, you sit, there's like plays, productions. It's really fun. And then flag, like, we do the pledge of allegiance and we have announcements and thought of the day. And then yeah. Can you say what the thought of the day is really quick? Well,

Speaker 5 sometimes there's like, the canoes and the island and the island is a canoe. But other days, maybe it'll be like The old short prayer. The old short prayer and the new short prayer. Like, today, may beautiful things happen to you. And Or let us honor this day. Yeah. Then sometimes, we'll do, like, or fourth and fifth this year. Like, what we're in? We're going to be doing Mandarin thought of the day or Yes. Ookala.

Speaker 1 These traditions, as you might have noticed, are often sourced from across the spectrum of different identities and cultures that make up the Hawaiian melting pot spanning The Pacific and beyond. At Hana'aoli, students learn Olelo Hawaii as well as Mandarin somewhat recently taking the place of Japanese. Students are exposed to a variety of cultures and develop a rich understanding of the peoples present in the Hawaiian Islands. This reflects a cultural responsiveness that Hana'o'oli strives for. The school seeks to give students the opportunity to reflect their own culture in their education.

Speaker 6 Yeah. So my husband and I are both of mixed ethnicities, and I would say that we both feel like we don't know enough about, you know, the cultures of our ancestors. And I do feel like my daughter learns more about our families, you know, our the cultures that make up our family more than we know than we know how to share, you know, with our kids. For example, my husband's a quarter native Hawaiian, but doesn't know very much about Hawaiian history or even Hawaiian culture. And I feel like she learns that here in school, and she brings that home to us. You know? I'm a quarter Japanese, and I don't know anything about being Japanese. And she's involved in so many, like, Japanese traditions at school. And this place, I think, does a really great job of, like, embracing many different cultures. And, really, they just ask families to, like, share what is special to them, you know, and what share about yourselves. And so, you know, like, we get to learn about so many different cultures just through other families sharing. And I love that. And I love that, like, kids really feel a lot of pride for who they are and for how they're different from one another, and kids are genuinely interested in learning about, you know, each other's differences.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I think it's in our mission statement, in our beliefs and values, we do state explicitly that we value diversity, that it is not just something that exists, but that we value and celebrate it. I think within the classroom, within all our little daily routines, we have built in ways to honor and celebrate our differences. We honor children's voice and perspective. We welcome families into the classroom and onto campus. We have a lot of celebration of different cultural traditions. When a family brings a cultural tradition or celebration to the classroom, we make a big deal. It's awesome. We love to learn about each other. As far as differences, I think, is something that's addressed in all ages, like from j k to, oh, that's same same and that's different, to sixth grade when they're really exploring their personal identity and figuring out who they are in a larger society, that's a question that always comes up, and that's always something that we explore with the kids and we celebrate and we honor who they are as people, not just as students.

Speaker 1 This exposure to a variety of cultures serves a multitude of purposes, one of which is reflecting the, quote, unquote, real world back at the students. Contrary to the belief that progressive education creates a bubble, Hanaoli strives to expose students to the complexities of real life and the often complicated ways in which people interact. I asked how the educators and parent I spoke to prepare their kids for the, quote, unquote, real world, as is often considered the goal of education. To them, the distinction between school and the real world was not quite so rigid.

Speaker 3 I think as a teacher, something I always strive to remember is that when I was a child, what I was feeling and what I was thinking was real to me at that time. You know? As a child, you don't understand all the complexities of life. You don't understand so much. But what you do know, that's authentic to you. So I guess it's my way of saying, I I wanna respect the experiences of kids. Like, whatever they are feeling and whatever they are thinking, that is true to them at that moment. So that is their real world. That is their real life. And so school, again, it's not a mirror of their life. It is their life. This is the place where they spend so much of their time. This is where their friends are. This is their experience. So helping them understand that this is a safe place where they are valued, but also they are expanding their understanding of the world in and we don't wanna have, like, a barrier between this is school and this is life or this is school and this is the real So as much as we can help them find connections to the bigger world. I don't wanna say the outside world, but, like, just the bigger world that their worlds their lives are expanding, I guess, is is our job and and to keep them curious and to keep them safe while they do that is my goal as a teacher.

Speaker 6 So, you know, the kind of schools that I went to were, you know, pretty traditional, and I would say that I was a a good student. I was good at school, but I don't feel like it prepared me for, you know, being, like, a flexible problem solver. And I think that this school environment really does support that in my daughter. I love that, you know, she's already, like, really good at collaborating with others and that, you know, when she's given a open ended assignment that it's not, like, overwhelming or that she's not unmotivated, you know, but rather she's, like, excited to, you know, to jump in and explore what she's genuinely interested in. And I think that those are, like, perspectives or outlooks that you need, you know, to be successful in this world today. So I really feel like it you know, the way that the school approaches learning is very reflective of, like, how we will you know, how we live our lives as adults. And so it, you know, really supports her in that way. It also like, a lot of the structures here in the school, you know, involve, like, a lot of student choice and, you know, a lot of, like, freedom for kids to do to to, you know, pursue what they're interested in. And I love that. I think that that's gonna help her a lot in her future.

Speaker 1 Instead of having stratified age groups, Hana Hauli promotes relationships between students across age groups, allowing for students to mentor and care for each other no matter their age. When I spoke to the students, this was one of the aspects of their experience at Hana Hau'oli that excited them the most.

Speaker 6 Well, you know, just by nature of the age, there's a ton of growth that's happened since she was four until now she's eight. But it's been really fun to see her evolve from you know, because of the multi age structure of the classes here, it's been fun to watch her enter a class as a newcomer. We call them enterings in their first year and then continuings in their second year. It's been fun to watch her, you know, personality and perspective change from the way she approaches school as an entering to how she approaches it in her continuing year. So the first multi age grouping here is in kindergarten and first grade, and she loved being and entering in that grouping. The class is called Kokuna Ocala. And she's used to being the baby in the family. She's got two older sisters I mentioned who are actually significantly older than her, And it comes naturally for her to, you know, ask for help, and she enjoys the attention that comes with being the baby. But it doesn't come as naturally for her to be, you know, to be empathetic to others, to, you know, choose her to choose things based on the examples that it sets. You know? And so it was really fun to see her take on the role of the continuing and, you know, to be a supporter to younger students. And this coming year, she'll be a continuing in her in the second multi age grouping. It's called Kula EV, second and third grade. And I'm excited to see how she approaches, you know, approaches it this year too. I think it'll be totally different.

Speaker 5 So it's for me, I think it's fun, like, interesting and fun. And then because, like, this year, our teachers are, like, really pushing us to be diverse. So and that also helps us not just be, like, boys and girls or, you know, like, stuff like that, but, like, different grades or we call them enterings for like the young grade and continuance for the older grade. So I feel like that just goes one more step into being diverse,

Speaker 4 which is really important. Yeah. I I really like it because I feel like I can go to one of the continuings if I'm entering and if I need any help or a question or if the teacher's not available, and I can ask them my question, and I feel comfortable doing that. And then if I am a continuing, I like getting the questions from the enterings because I know that they're following my footsteps in learning like I did, and I think that that's really cool. Like and then the only two grades that are not mixed grade is sixth grade and

Speaker 5 junior kindergarten, which you call j k, but they're I would say that they kinda mix together because Mhmm. We have, like, sixth grade buddies and j k buddies. So, like, the sixth grade sixth grade would have a j k buddy. And so they're, like,

Speaker 4 together, kinda. Yes. And then there's also reading buddies, which Poei Ka'ehle or fourth and fifth grade do with Kakuna or kindergarten or first So that's really cool. We get to every Wednesday afternoon after lunch, we We read to our reading buddies, and that's really nice. For thirty minutes. So yeah.

Speaker 5 Something that probably I'm excited to do is get a JK buddy because I really want, like, a little JK buddy so I can, like, make stuff for them. What JK is like a like, the the littlest littlest class of unholy. And you at when you're in the the highest class of unholy, you get to have a buddy from the lowest class. I like how when I was younger, the or when I was in the younger age, the older kids treated me really respectfully. So I have kind of I love that you're or I'm a older kid now, but I used to look forward to helping the little kids and having a big responsibility. So oh, and in during second grade, you get, like, a buddy. It's usually second and third grades. And they're basically, like, the people you work with the most. So, yeah, that that's pretty fun.

Speaker 4 I think the the experience with first and fifth graders is you can ask anybody and they're always

Speaker 1 gonna be able to help you. You can check just the people that are older than you. Not only do multi age classrooms prepare students for a world not stratified by age, but it also promotes a sense of community. Across various Hawaiian pedagogies, one of the most important shared elements is that of ohana or family. These are the communities we fall back on, the people we build our lives with, both blood and chosen. Hana'aoli, rather than individualizing the education of the students, allows parents to be active participants. However, unlike the often dog whistled notion of parental rights, parents are not expected to restrict their child's knowledge intake, but rather learn as an ohana what it means to explore the world as a learner. This is so important, in fact, that it is one of the key elements of the admissions process at Hana'aoli.

Speaker 7 You know, when a child is 3.5 or 4.5 years old, they're little. They're gonna they're all gonna be little kids, but they all do have an interest a unique personality that we can kinda see at that age. So we look for just a variety of personalities of children. We look for if they show us different interests, you know, in terms of the children. If they're able to follow directions and kind of stay with the group. If it looks like they might need more needs, you know, then we're able to provide in terms of maybe needing a smaller group size or attention in a specific way, then that might be an indicator that maybe it wouldn't be a good fit. We also look to the parents and their response and their understanding of this school and their, you know, interest and willingness to participate.

Speaker 1 Parents enjoy a variety of ways to involve themselves in their children's education.

Speaker 6 So this school is extraordinary in the number of opportunities that they create for families to be really actively involved in their kids' school experiences. You know, there are a gazillion learning trips a year that parents can chaperone. There are tons of fun activities in the classroom that they ask for extra hands with. They invite families to come and, you know, present about things that they're familiar with or things that are related to the topics that the students are exploring in their units. Parents come to campus. I mean, any given day, you'll see many parents on campus just for our morning flag gatherings and our Friday assemblies. It's a really welcoming community. And so and I work part time for the school, and so I actually have the luxury of having a lot of time that I can commit to to volunteering in the classroom, you know, and and doing that stuff as a parent. And then I also as a employee of the school, I have a, you know, really close relationship with all of her teachers and all of her classmates. I supervise recess, you know, a couple times a week, and I I get to see I get to be a fly on the wall quite often. You know? So I feel really lucky that I get to be such a big part of her school experience.

Speaker 3 Yeah. There's so many different ways that family I mean, family is an essential part of our school culture. If we took that out, it would not be the same school. From the moment well, most of our families come in as JK families, not all, but the majority. There are elements set up to welcome them and to educate them about our values as a school and also asking them to be involved in their child's education. I'll paraphrase, but there is a statement in our beliefs saying that we believe the parent or the family is the first and foremost educator of the child. And so I think we try to live that with especially in the lower elementary, parents are often asked to come in as experts. And being an expert can be, you know, I am an expert at growing banana plants, and I'm gonna teach the kids about how to grow banana plants. And it can be really simple as that, but we're we're showing the kids that we value their families. We value their family's knowledge and traditions and cultural knowledge and experiences. We have our hui, which is kind of like a big version of a PTA, but it's everyone. It's teachers, staff, families. We are all together. We're all trying to be informed. We're all trying to be involved. So big and small ways, we're always trying to build our school community on that relationship of families are part of our school, and school depends on our families.

Speaker 6 Well, a specific, example of a really, you know, really engaging family project that she, just had in this last year was the class's theme is, you know, the in Kula'iwi, they're exploring their island home. And, the learning trips throughout the year involved going to, you know, many different places around the island and exploring the geography and thinking about, you know, just all about this place. But they asked families to identify identify a place that they had never been to, preferably on this island, but maybe on another island, you know, while you're on vacation, and to approach it like a learning trip, a family learning trip, and then to do a little reflection on it together. And they compiled all of the reflections together and made a book of all of these places on the island that you could visit that other, you know, classmates had gone to with their families. And so we, you know, found a part of the a beach on the island that we had never been to that's got tide pools and, you know, is pretty well known for having a lot of wildlife. And we had the most amazing day and loved writing about it and sharing photos, and we've got this book now of all these cool places and hikes that we wanna check out, you know, that even my older kids look at all the time and are like, hey. We gotta go to this beach. Remember? Remember so and so was talking about that place? Let's go to it. So, yeah, that's, like, one of, you know, many opportunities that they present families with, you know, to get really involved. But I also find that the school has kind of taught me to also, like, respect and honor her space and her initiative to pursue things that she's interested in and to, you know, drive her own learning. And I would say that in a lot of ways, I was more actively, like, engaged with my older children's learning than I am with hers in the sense that I wanna give her that room, you know, to, like, to pursue the things that she's interested in, what she's learning about in school without, you know, me, you know, being involved in it. And I think she likes that too. And I I think that's another cool thing about this school, you know, that they really instill in kids, you know, desire to to to learn and to explore the things that they're interested in.

Speaker 7 Well and I think another piece that I've learned, you know, I experienced last year was my first year as director of admissions, and I saw that the process set up prior to my becoming director of admissions was was just fabulous. What what we do is we not only have small group play sessions with teachers, but we ask families to the parents to join in small groups and to to learn about how we teach here, to learn about how we center on children, to learn more about progressivism, and learn learn about John Dewey or learn about how our school was founded. So we have, like, four sessions running at a time while the students or the children are with teachers in classrooms, parents are going to their own classrooms. They're maybe doing a movement dance activity and expressing themselves through responding to music and then reflecting and or they might be in a so so social emotional group in the art room with our school counselor sharing about feelings or sharing about parenting and then relating that to how we how we teach here and how we acknowledge the the whole child. Or they might be with our librarian in the library learning about the beliefs and the practices here and what it looks like from, you know, the early ages, the junior kindergarten and all the way to sixth grade. So that the the cool thing about that is the parents are as excited or more excited than the children in in their experience. They they're like, wow. I really I'm understanding this a little bit more. I'm I'm loving this, or I want this for my child. Or they might come away you know, those who's who don't want it, they're not necessarily telling me. But it's think it's been a really great way of sharing about our school so that families coming in, they know from the start, we're not a traditional school. They're not gonna be sitting at at desks all the time, although we absolutely do use desks, we absolutely do teach skills, and we absolutely do look at, you know, growth over time with the children. So those pieces of interviewing and have the parents involved and then also having the parent docents, I think that really shows how our community is totally woven into the fabric of what we do here and how we relate to the world. Okay. I've said it a lot.

Speaker 1 It is important to recognize, however, that the school doesn't exist within a vacuum. Hawaii has one of the lowest rated education systems in The United States. Public schools are often underfunded, understaffed, and don't provide the potential for upward mobility to their students. Hana'aoli, like many of the notable Hawaiian private schools, tends to serve a privileged group. However, they continue to make efforts to expand their student body and push back against the cutthroat competition that defines Hawaiian education today. Here's Allison with more on the admissions process.

Speaker 7 You know, one of the things we wanna do is as is to reach out to different preschools, really, and to that have not typically had children come to us. So one of the things I want to do this year is sort of expand our network or our reach to schools in other areas of the island that have not traditionally we haven't had applicants from those schools. So that's that's one idea right now that we have. We have a couple of you know, half our applicants come from a handful of schools and the other half come from a variety of schools. So I wanna plug into those variety of schools to find our applicants. We also are going to have a committee from our board and be looking at financial aid and looking more completely at how do you know, how our financial aid might support diversity in our school and whether that's adequate or whether we need to make any changes in that. So I think those two ways, reaching out to different schools and then having our board on the other side look at, you know, that that aspect. The University of Hawaii has the progressive pedagogy program, and that might be that's a way we've we've gotten several teachers. Really excellent teachers have joined us. And I'm not sure if that's also a way to expand our I mean, they know more about Hana in that way. You know, they might apply their children, but perhaps there's another way that that could support spreading our knowledge about our school in another direction. Part of the what works about Hana Holi and what makes it unique is that we are a small school, and you really can know everybody when you're a small school. And that's one of the things that makes it special in our in our progressive mission. But also a part of our mission is that we reach out to the broader community, and we've had a summer school program called the skills we we need for the last couple of years, and that may possibly expand or at least be continuous that, you know, we have children from the public schools come here. We have funding that's provided that summer experience for them. But really to have a greater impact, you know, in the state school system, the our professional development center, which Amber Strong Makayao has been involved with along with Veronica Kimi, that has been a way that we've been able to expand our reach and expand our knowledge and our, you know, care for the schools in Hawaii. And we've had many participants from the Department of Education in that way.

Speaker 1 Hana'aoli, as well as being an example of progressive pedagogy, also has a field pioneering professional development network. Run by Amber, Hana'Aouli's PD both teaches and practices the ideas and philosophies that sets Hana'Aouli apart. What kind of professional development do you do at Hana'aoli? And in particular, how does it differ from sort of the typical model of education professional development both in terms of the content and the structure? Yeah. So Hana'aoli

Speaker 2 School has professional development center, which has a director, which is myself. And, uniquely, it's a bridge bridge program between the University of Hawaii and Hana'aoli School. And I'd say that it's really modeled after what John Dewey was doing with the experimental school at the University of Chicago and which John Goodlad wrote about many years later, but really looking at school university partnerships and looking at how this helps to schools become better because you have the influx of new ideas and new teachers and research and scholarship and pushing innovation. And then it supports the work of universities because it's real life living schools that students can learn how to teach in, scholars can come and study, and researchers can come and do work in. And so our professional development center at Hana Holy has multiple types of programs. We run workshops and public talks. We have a two week summer institute and integrated interdisciplinary thematic curriculum design. And the main goal of all of these is to offer educative experiences that are led by progressive education teachers that align to our progressive education mission. We have programs such as that, but we also really use the school as a living laboratory. So we have school tours designed for educators, long term scholars and residents, shorter term scholars and residents, where people can come and see things that they're exploring and thinking about in education in action. So for example, if they're interested in team teaching or what a multi age classroom looks like, that instead of just reading about it in a book or taking a workshop on it, you can come and experience it for yourself alongside the teachers and students at Hana Hau'oli. In addition, we have teacher candidates, so folks who are learning how to teach are on campus. And by having that experience to experience progressive education firsthand as a first year novice teacher, it really fundamentally shapes the type of teachers folks become. And then we're also producing resources and materials and curriculum by working with all of the teachers that collaborate with us in either long term scholars or through workshops and things like that. So I just wanna emphasize the way in which we leverage being able to have learning happen alongside children and families and teachers as a part of the regular school day and the ways in which that grows the profession of teaching and helps to grow folks that have real hands on experience with progressive education. And it also helps Hana'uoli grow and become a better school itself.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so how, I mean, how important, but also what role do you view professional development as part of the sort of larger identity and project of the Hana Haole School?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I think it's really aligned nicely with our progressive mission of supporting school communities to create a better future society for today's children. I think that by we are able to service the 210 plus families whose children attend the school, but by extension, the school is able to do work in the broader community and to be have a a bigger reach and a bigger impact. And I just think that that's so closely aligned to what it means to be a progressive educator and that when you're a progressive teacher, you're thinking about the kids in your classroom, but you're also thinking about how can we apply the work that we're doing in our classroom to actually make real change in the world and society at large. And I think by having a professional development arm of the school, this really enables Hanawhole to fulfill its progressive mission in exponential ways.

Speaker 1 So we identified a couple of core values. Just as a reminder, we had learning by doing traditions and responding to a changing world, learning at school mirrors the real world learning, Ohana connection to community building, and cultural responsiveness. How do you see those values reflected in

Speaker 2 the, you know, the the way you engage in professional development? Well, I would definitely say learning by doing was at the top of your list. And I I mean, I think I've I've said this, but I really think that that's it's great to be able to have scholarship and research that you can read. It's great to work with an expert teacher in a professional development setting where you're thinking along with other professionals, but it just takes it another step further when you're able to go and see it in a real classroom or as a scholar in residence to have the opportunity to experiment with an idea that you're testing out in a real classroom or school setting. And I'll give an example. Last year, we had a student in our master's program in progressive philosophy and pedagogy. His name is Brendan McCarthy, and he was really interested in exploring how we could use film and students producing films to learn more about what children love and how can we use knowing about what they love to then create future programming at our school. So as a part of his master's program, Brendan facilitated a school wide, I wanna know what love is film festival at Hana'o'ole School. So each all 210 students made films about what they love to do. They started out with a nine nineteen second film, and they got to show it to their peers. And they gave a critique, and then they produced another film. And at the end of the year, we had a film festival with the whole school. And then we were able to analyze and look at what the students had made their films about and to help to use that to help us with future programming at the school. And that's just a great example of, you know, Brendan could have been at the university taking a class about progressive education, written a paper about how great would it be to have this film festival with children to explore what they love to do, but he also got to actually go and make it happen. And to be able to to spend an extended period of time working on that, I think that's something, you know, teachers don't always have the opportunity. Our professional development experiences are typically short and in chunks. And to be able to have projects that you can work on over time within real school settings is just, I mean, that's learning by doing to its core.

Speaker 1 What sort of audience do you find, you know, engages in your professional development? Is it, you know, usually educators who want to try something new or educators who are already sort of, you know, immersed in the world of progressive pedagogy or have a background in it? Yeah. I'd say both. I I think

Speaker 2 we have folks that have an understanding of what it means to be a progressive educator, and they're looking for professional development opportunities that are gonna help them further that aspect of who they are as an educator. So for example, had a DOE, Hoistia Department of Education elementary teacher last year who really wanted to see for herself and to think more with teachers and students at Hana'o'ole about how play can be integrated into learning in the early years. And so this was something that she had already identified for herself that she valued, and she sought us out to help her work on that. I also think that because so many of our workshops are responding to our changing world and they focus on topics that teachers who may not identify as progressive, recognize, man, I I really wanna go and learn something more about how to teach about climate justice or how to integrate more social emotional learning opportunities in my classroom or what does it mean to be a social justice educator? I've heard a lot about this. So they come to us not really with any background in progressive education and, and really fall in love with the community and, the community of learners and the support and the the thinking and looking at teaching as an art. And and so I think in that way, we invite and bring in new folks who maybe had little understanding of of what progressive education is and open the doors to what possibility that might be. And, really, the whole aim, right, is that they can come and experience things at Hanawhole and see the possibilities and then go make this happen in their own classrooms. And, you know, some schools are progressive from the top down. They have progressive leadership or they have structures and systems that allow them to be progressive. But a lot of times, they progressive movements can happen from the bottom up, you know, one teacher at a time that says, you know, I wanna start doing integrated interdisciplinary thematic units of study, and I learned about it. Now I'm gonna bring in my colleagues, and we're gonna grow this, from the bottom up.

Speaker 1 And so in your professional development, how do you prepare educators for work in the progressive sphere, but I think more importantly, outside of the progressive sphere and sort of combining two questions that I have? What sort of skills and and, recommendations do you provide for educators who want to introduce progressive ideas in context that are maybe more resistant to those ideas? Yeah. So

Speaker 2 to to answer the second part of your question about how do you support folks that find themselves in more traditional school settings, I think the first part is that when they attend a workshop or come to Honolulu School and they see something that they believe philosophically about how school should be organized or how teaching should be, but they don't see it at their own school or they're not surrounded by people that have similar philosophies or beliefs. That in itself is validating to know that this is now proven by science, an effective way of teaching, and and people are doing it, and it's successful. So I think that's validating. And then we do the best that we can to really all of our professional learning experiences are grounded in community, and they're collaborative. And, you know, we're socially constructing knowledge, so that involves talking and thinking with other people. And so they begin to build a network of peers and like minded peers that even though they're not at the same school, they can connect with one another beyond the workshop, and do the work together. And then we also try to set up structurally as a part of many of our learning experiences that folks have support over time. So, for example, with the thematic institute that we do in the summer, they design curriculum, for a two week period in the summer, and then they start implementing in their classroom and schools in the fall. And we meet with them periodically in our community of learners and check-in and say, how are things going? What sort of support that do you need? So I think being able to give ongoing ongoing support and then knowing just that we are a resource in the community that they can always come back to, I think, is one way in which we ensure the longevity of the practice and that people can regularly have contact to help them keep growing and and the support they need to make the movement grow in their own schools.

Speaker 1 In the end, what makes all of this worthwhile is the students being able to explore their interests in a safe and supportive environment. What struck me was just how joyous and lively the students were when discussing their time at Hana'aoli. They were often talking over each other in our interviews, each trying to get a word in about their favorite projects, traditions, you name it. They clearly love what they do. The faculty I spoke to as well had nothing but love for their jobs and responsibilities.

Speaker 2 My favorite parts are like I said, I think the the validation that people get that they have this little voice inside of them about what they know is good for children and good for kids and good for themselves as a teacher and good for society. Yet they're not seeing that or they're not able to express that in the schools that they're at or in the professional communities that they're working in. And to have them come to our workshops or spend time on campus, it's almost like you can see a relief wash over them that this is truly a possibility and that this is a reality. It's not just something that philosophers are writing about in books, but it can really happen. It's it's just it's almost like Christmas morning that just to see that in somebody's face when they realize that this is a this is this reality is possible, and then it fuels them to wanna go and make that reality where they are. I think that's so rewarding, and it's it's part of why I do what I do, what I'm driven by, that more and more children and communities have access to a more humane education like this. And so in any way possible that that I can to fan the flame and and and make that happen in other schools, I think it's really rewarding. What is the hardest part? What was the most challenging, I think, the second part of your question? Well, honestly, now, what I'm I'm really working on is setting up institutional structures to ensure that this partnership between the University of Hawaii and school endures over time and that just like can be serve as an inspiration for teachers to see how progressive teaching and learning looks like, that the university partnership can be an inspiration for other schools and universities to see what a successful school university partnership can look like. I mean, this was John Dewey's dream from day one. I mean, this is what he was aiming to do at the experimental school at the University of Chicago, and it's just extremely difficult to have large institutions partner with each other and work in tandem with one another over time. And and John Vedlab has wrote about this extensively as well. I mean, I was a part of a a partnership school in the Department of Education where I got my master's, and, unfortunately, that no longer exists. So I'm I'm I'm just determined to crack the nut of why is this so challenging to have school university partnerships when it makes so much sense for not only the profession of teaching, but for a better future society. And so I think that's one of my biggest challenges right now that I'm working on setting up institutional structures so that this becomes a model for other universities and schools.

Speaker 7 There's a few things that I like the most about my job, so I might not have a singular answer. One is that I get to see the whole school. I'm not siloed, so to speak, in one classroom and needing to make sure that my our group of children is cared for all day long. I I can sort of have a a a wider view of the day and visit classrooms, see what's going on so that I'll know what to share with families, but also so that I can, you know, help with enrollment and any questions families may have along the way. So I love having the wider range and the freedom to see every aspect of the school. And I also love talking with parents about our school. I love relating to different families. I just really enjoy that a lot. And what do I like least? Maybe that I'm impatient and want to have make a lot of changes all at once that I need to be more patient to wait for those changes to come. That's the hardest part for me. Like, I wanna make changes, and I know it's gonna be several years. So I need to, like, hold off and and go more slowly, slow down and be okay with that. But it's it's a really exciting place to work. When you start a new job, you have that impostor syndrome, and that lasted for a little while. And then I realized, no. No. I love this school. I know about the school. I can share with families and learn along the way just like our students are.

Speaker 6 You know, so I actually moved around quite a bit too when I was young, and I did have I did attend very traditional schools. And I would say I mean, the way that I know that she will build she's a part of a community that she will be a part of for a very long time, if not forever, you know, for the rest of her life, really. I can feel already that this community is gonna be a part of her life forever. I think that that's really different from what I grew up with. You know? Because I moved around a bunch and because I transitioned from, you know, my elementary school to my middle school to my high school, here at Honolulu, it feels like it's a the even though it's only eight years that they spend here, it feels like a really significant part of a kid's life. You know? So, yeah, I think so I I would say the major difference is that, you know, she's gonna be a part of this community for a really long time, and she really feels a sense of belonging to this community. You know, when I talk to her about like, she's attending summer school at another school, just a bigger school to you know, so that hopefully she'll have a easy time adapting to new situations because this place is so nurturing and it's so consistent in her life. When I talked to her about, you know, eventually, when you're in middle school, you'll go to another school like this one. Maybe you'll go to the school that your sisters go to. And she says, no. I never wanna go to another school. I love Hanahioli so much, you know, and I can see how safe she feels here and how much she feels like herself, you know, and she can't imagine being anywhere else.

Speaker 5 Like, a lot of kids say, like, oh, school's so boring. I don't like homework. Yeah. I don't Hana only makes me feel I don't know how exactly to say it, but, like, it makes me feel like, oh, yes. I get to go to school. I wanna go to school. And for me, I actually love homework. So yeah. And then love opposite. And then, like, has taught me to learn.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I like homework, but not if I have a lot after school. Yeah. Like, today, I have a lot after school. So luckily, it's a Friday, and there's no homework. But I just

Speaker 2 I like homework otherwise because What's your one word that you would use to describe?

Speaker 4 And then we gotta go. Joyous and fun. I'll say, yeah. Joyous and fun.

Speaker 5 My favorite part is probably recess because we let we get to, like, let all our energy out before we start again and learn. My favorite is the specialists. We have music, Mandarin, PE because unlike the other classes, they're a little different, and you get it's like like going into an like, another world where you could each do something fun. It's like escaping from all the hard work. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I think they're like recess because sometimes there are friends that you wanna play with, but you can't because they're in, like, different cohorts. So, like, during recess, you're able to, like, talk to them or, I guess, spend time. Learning by doing. What our school means is Joyous work. Joyous work. Means joyous and

Speaker 5 Hana. Hana means work. No other way.

Speaker 4 No. And because in in Hawaiian, it's backwards. So our school means joyous work. Hanhaoli. And a couple, like, five, six years ago, I think it was, we celebrated the hundredth year of school, and that was Houmao Hanaoli or the hundredth year of one century of Hana'oli.

Speaker 5 And then yeah. Like, I also don't like to be pushed. So I think it's like like the teachers, I guess, would need to, like, challenge the kids a bit, but not like, come on, do this, this, this, this, this, but, like, letting them go at their pace, but still pushing them but a bit to challenge them, get their minds growing.

Speaker 4 I also like the creativity of the school or, like, all of our traditions and the creativity. And one of my favorite classes, I wanna say, is art because I love art. I like to draw, like, faces or self portraits. And right now, we're making our kappa for Makihiki, and I think that's really cool.

Speaker 5 I think progressive education is, like, moving on. Like, you're keep going forward and never stop and, like, keep be, like, outstanding. To me, it means to go forward, but also my parents tell me this, but it's okay to look back on mistakes that you made so you can keep going forward in the future. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think progressive education, to me, is kind of like yeah. Like, a handheld learning by doing instead of and knowing what you're supposed to do and why.

Speaker 2 You guys remember that in your school unit when you learned about, like, traditional schools and then progressive education is the type of school at Hanaholi? So knowing that that that's what that word means, you two wanna elaborate on what you believe this type of education is about?

Speaker 5 Yeah. Having a choice and, like, being independent. I can be who I want in the future. It's like building and molding yourself with all the education you did so you can be who you are.

Speaker 8 Thank you again for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change. If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player. Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free on our website, humanrestorationproject.org. Thank you.