By Thomas “Toby” Yos
As a practitioner of p4c (philosophy for children) Hawai‘i, I love to explore the flow of (metaphorical) brackish waters. The intermingling of ideas from one world (my metaphorical wai) and the thoughts from another world (my metaphorical kai) often result in a creative intermingling that leads me to unexpected insights and new understandings. So it is that, on this quiet Sunday morning, the intersection of reading Hanahau‘oli Head of School Lia Woo’s posting in this blog (“Teachers as Scientists: Watching Life and Children Alertly”), a recent p4c inquiry that I shared with a remarkable group of children and youth, the many learnings that I have gained from Pono Shim, Miki Tomita, Hye Jung Kim Tano, & the rest of the Foundations of Aloha ‘ohana, and my colleague and friend Dr. Amber Makaiau’s patient encouragement, have inspired me to compose this posting.
(Always give credit where credit is due. Mahalo Uncle Pono for the brackish waters metaphor and, of course, to my mentor and beloved p4c Hawai‘i founder Thomas Jackson (aka “Dr. J”) for his ever-growing insight into “primal wonder” and for blessing me with three decades of guidance and support.)
In this posting I’ll be sharing a story about a p4c conversation that I recently had the good fortune to join. After briefly setting the stage, I’ll try, as best I can, to express the intellectual and social-emotional color of this p4c inquiry. Then, at the very end, I’ll return my thoughts to Lia Woo’s blog posting and share my new-found way of understanding Progressive Education and appreciating the joyous work of Hanahou‘oli School.
Setting: In June of 2020, during the early stages of the COVID pandemic and at a time when many people in Hawai‘i were residing in a world of physically-distanced lock-down, a group of students began a remarkable journey. Ranging from ages 6 to 16, ethnically diverse, and enrolled in an array of Public, Private, and Home schools, these children and youth participated in the University of Hawai‘i Uehiro Academy’s “Virtual Road Trip 2020 & p4c Hawai‘i Summer Program” (VRT). Each day during the summer the students Zoomed in together, learned from educators from all across the continental United States, and engaged in their practice of p4c (philosophy for children).
Those initial two months have, at the time of this writing, stretched into nearly two years. VRT 2020 was followed by weekly Zoom p4c sessions during the 2020-2021 school year, last summer’s even more ambitious daily VRT 2021 & p4c Hawai‘i Summer Program sessions, and now continuing weekly Zoom p4c sessions throughout this 2021-2022 school year. More than 160 Zoom meetings and nearly 500 hours later, this group of students has grown into, as they put it, a “VRT family” who strive to “be the change” in the world. They continue to practice p4c together; engaging in a practice of purposeful, open-minded, and meaningful conversation within an aloha-laden community with the aim of cultivating the vital habits and skills of thought, intrapersonal reflection, and interpersonal relation that will empower them to become compassionate, engaged, and skilled decision-makers.
That’s the setting. Here’s the story. On January 14, 2022 the students in the VRT family met for their usual Friday afternoon Zoom session. After hearing a parable about a “bowl of light” read from the book Tales from the Night Rainbow and watching a segment of Pono Shim’s “Two Storms” video, the students generated potential inquiry questions and democratically selected one of these questions for p4c discussion. Their question: “Does being physically attractive/beautiful matter?”
The 7th grader who posed the question started our conversation by saying that his initial thought was that external beauty really wasn’t important. It is “internal beauty,” he said, that matters.
Some students agreed with this sentiment. And then, as the inquiry progressed, some students disagreed. A 9th grader said that she thought how you look does matter because those who meet a culture’s standard of beauty are more likely to be valued and befriended. Being thusly appreciated, she said, leads to better job prospects and economic opportunities and, importantly, improved self-image.
This led to a wide-ranging discussion of societal standards of beauty. Do these standards vary from culture to culture? (Yes, the students thought, they do.) What are the origins of these standards? Are they at all objective or are they entirely subjective? Perhaps our physical needs to survive and reproduce define “beauty.” Or maybe there is a connection between wealth and beauty. “Beauty” is an expression of our desire to emulate the affluent people who have the time and resources to cultivate a particular look.
In p4c we follow the inquiry wherever it leads. At this point an 8th grader shared a thought that dramatically altered and deepened the trajectory of the discussion. We’re assuming, she said, that “beauty” is a quality that is contained within an individual or object. For example, we’re assuming that this particular person or that particular object possesses (or fails to possess) the quality of beauty. But maybe “beauty” is simply a word that describes an attitude that an individual holds towards a person or an object. It is a label that we choose to apply in order to express our great appreciation of a person or object. To say of a person that he/she/they is beautiful is simply a short-hand way of saying that you truly see, hear, appreciate, value, and love that person.
This more fully articulated version of the 8th grader’s initial statement was a collaborative product of the interplay between her idea and the experiences and thoughts of her fellow community members. Sparked by her big idea, her friends excitedly worked to refine and extend this thought. Another 8th grader, who is a skilled artist, prompted the comparison that this shift of perspective is like going from seeing someone or something in two-dimensional flatness to truly grasping their three-dimensional depth. Building off of this thought, another community member, a University graduate student who joins in each week, made the connection between this understanding of beauty and wonder. To see someone or something as beautiful is, as the Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu puts it, to become again like a newborn child and to see the world with a fully engaged combination of curiosity and awe.
The group’s inquiry was, as is usually the case, brought to an end by the clock. It was late, some of the children and youth had to go eat dinner, and others wanted to go into the Zoom breakout rooms for unstructured play and light-hearted banter. The group reflected briefly on the session. Most members concluded that they had engaged in their p4c practice quite well and that their inquiry had excellent depth. As the members of the VRT family departed they laughingly told each other that they were beautiful; understanding now that this was a way of telling each other that they saw, in a sincere and profound way, one another and that they accepted and deeply valued each other.
(Here I add a note simply to record it for posterity’s sake. While her friends played in a Zoom breakout room, the 8th grade artist stayed in the main room for another hour with me and Chih-Wei Peng, the aforementioned Philosophy graduate student. She wanted to continue our inquiry, consider the nature of reality, and, finally, explore the meaning of “philosophy” itself. She concluded, in a burst of eloquence, that to do “philosophy is to see the world in a new view and by seeing this new view we can find our place in [the world].” Thinking back to the time when I first got to know her as a shy, silent 2nd grader in our Art & p4c group, I proudly smiled as I jotted down her quote.)
Ending my story and returning to my reflection on Lia Woo’s blog posting, I’m left with a new thought about Hanahau‘oli School and its long-standing tradition of Progressive Education. Maybe another way to explain Progressive Education is to say that it is an approach to education that is, at its very core, grounded in a deep-seated commitment to seeing people as beautiful. Through the patient and attentive acts of seeing the extraordinary uniqueness in all and of hearing all as they deserve to be heard, Progressive Education strives to create an ecosystem where each and every individual is valued, given space to be who they are, and, indeed, cherished. Maybe Hanahau‘oli School’s genius lies not just in its educational practices but, even more fundamentally, in the joyous and creative work of replacing the two-dimensional objectification that is too often imposed upon people and earth with an ethically fuller, richer, more reverent, and more vibrant three-dimensional rendering. Genuine and heart-felt wonder is rewarded with feelings of awe, thanksgiving, and beauty.
Annotated List of Works Cited:
Tales from the Night Rainbow by Pali Jae Lee and Koko Willis, Night Rainbow Publishing Co., 1990. An oral history of Moloka‘i, Hawai‘i’s Kame‘ekua ‘ohana. The parable of the bowl of light explains how each of us is born with a perfect bowl of light but then, with time, rocks can come to take the place of light. (pp. 18-19)
“The Two Storms.” An interview with Oahu Economic Development Board CEO, Pono Shim, posted on Vimeo by Roy Kimura. Pono Shim uses story-telling to illustrate his idea of how the “second storm” crises of this world are the product of individual’s personal “first storm” issues. The VRT family watched Pono Shim’s story about seeing the beauty in the people and culture of Chuuk.
“VRT 2021 Journey’s End Trailer.” A one-minute recap of the Virtual Road Trip 2021 & p4c Hawai‘i Summer Program. Created and posted on YouTube by Toby Yos.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Thomas “Toby” Yos is the father of 4 and an Assistant Specialist at the University of Hawai‘i Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education. Having 3 decades of experience practicing p4c Hawai‘i both inside and outside of Hawai‘i’s K-12 classrooms, 2 decades of experience working in the Hawai‘i Department of Education doing Resiliency Theory based counseling, and 25 years of experience teaching Philosophy courses at the University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa and Chaminade University, Toby always strives to listen carefully and to follow the inquiry wherever it leads. Toby can be contacted via Email at yos@hawaii.edu.
