By Yosuke “Yosh” Horikoshi & Dr. Amber Makaiau

Hanahau‘oli School is a one hundred year old progressive school located in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1918, Hanahau‘oli is regarded as a preeminent independent elementary school because of its adherence to a progressive mission that validates childhood as the time of learning, the years when the foundation is laid for life-long commitment to the values that sustain our families, our neighborhoods and the global community. In 2019, just months before the world closed down access to international travel and exchange because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hanahau’oli School hosted Yosuke Horikoshi as a visiting scholar from Japan. He stayed at the school for six months conducting research on Philosophy for Children and progressive education. Now that travel and borders are beginning to open, we return to Yosuke’s reflections on his stay with the hopes that Hanahau’oli School will soon be able to welcome visiting scholars once again:

I observed classes in Hanahau’oli school for six months (9/21/2019~3/20/2020) as a visiting scholar from Japan. I visited the school because I wanted to see a school which is based on John Dewey’s philosophy. I also wanted to learn more about philosophy for children Hawai‘i by becoming part of a classroom community of inquiry. I did this by joining children and teachers in Hanahau’oli School’s Po‘e Ka‘ahele (multi-age 4th/5th grade classroom) and by attending a weekly philosophy for children Hawai‘i class after school.

I still remember the very first day I came to the school. I saw children hanging out in the school courtyard, and compared to my own education in Japan I was a bit shocked and speechless. I wondered, what are they doing? Why are they not in the classroom sitting at their desks? In fact they were not just “hanging out,” but carefully observing the natural world and making drawings in their sketchbooks as a part of their integrated thematic unit about Adaptation & Survival: Migration, Native Cultures, & Foreign Contact. This was the first of many experiences that transformed my thinking about progressive philosophy and pedagogy--I was seeing a true Deweyan school firsthand and it was so exciting!

Day after day, many teachers at Hanahau’oli talked with students about “learning by doing.” This seems to be one of the most popular phrases that attempts to translate one of Dewey’s progressive ideals into an actual practice. Not only did I see many students and teachers learning by doing during the regular school day, but I also observed this during the after school philosophy for children Hawai‘i class. philosophy for children Hawai‘i is all about “doing philosophy” rather than learning about “Philosophy.” It is another example of the Deweyan concepts successfully being translated from theory to practice. I don’t think that Dewey had any specific ideas about how children could “do philosophy” as a part of their school experience. However, I do think that if he saw philosophy for children at Hanahau’oli School he would be overwhelmed with surprise and joy. His observations would affirm all of the writing he did about why children need to have genuine experiences at school that celebrate and engage their natural wonder and curiosity about themselves and their world. 

From everything that I’ve read about Dewey (translated from English to Japanese), I have come to understand that he believed deeply in the importance of  “continuity of experience.” This is the connection between a student's learning experiences, their home life, and the student's future decisions and behavior. I saw the “continuity of experience” come to life with the students at Hanahau’oli who took part in the philosophy for children Hawai‘i sessions. The students generated wonderful philosophical questions related to their curiosity about the beginning of the world, the relevance of colors, wonderings about nature, and so on. Once they selected their question for inquiry, their discussion was limitless. They had so many good ideas and began to learn how to support their thinking with reasons, evidence, and counter-evidence. 

Unfortunately, I barely see this type of thinking being done by students in Japan. When I invite students in Japan to ask questions, they usually like to talk about things that have nothing to do with what they are learning in school. My students in Japan see school and their life beyond the classroom as two separate things--in fact, during all of my years of doing philosophy for children in Japan I have never had a student want to further discuss what they were learning about in school to our philosophical community of inquiry. This remarkable difference--between what I’ve experienced in Japan and at Hanahau’oli--shows me that progressive education at Hanahau’oli really helps to cultivate a bona fide interest in what students are learning about, which extends beyond the regular school day. To use Dewey’s term, “interaction,” I believe that students at Hanahau’oli are experiencing equilibrium.The students' internal interests and external stimuli are in a wonderful state of balance. 

This is just one short reflection about my experiences as a visiting scholar at Hanahau’oli, a true Deweyan school. For decades, Dewey studies in Philosophy and Education have been a very popular research area in Japan. However, in Japan,  it is rare to see Dewey’s philosophy of education translated into actual classroom pedagogy or the overall structure of an entire school. It seems that the study of Dewey in Japan is mostly an academic endeavor, and rarely does theory meet practice. With that said, visiting Hanahau’oli School opened my eyes to the possibilities of progressive education in Japan and changed me totally. It gave me the courage to continue being a Deweyan scholar and a p4c practitioner in my home country.

To learn more about Yosuke Horikoshi’s experiences as a visiting scholar at Hanahau’oli School, please see this public talk announcement and recording. Also, if you are interested in being a visiting scholar, please reach out to Hanahau’oli School Professional Development Center Director, Amber Makaiau. Her email is amakaiau@hanahauoli.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Yosuke Horikoshi (堀越耀介) was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in 2019, during which time he spent six months conducting research on Philosophy for Children at Hanahau'oli School. He is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo, and serves as a Research Fellow at Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau is a Specialist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Director of Curriculum and Research at the Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education, Director of the Hanahau’oli School Professional Development Center, and Co-Director of the Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy MEd Interdisciplinary Education, Curriculum Studies program. A former Hawai‘i State Department of Education high school social studies teacher, her work in education is focused around promoting a more just and equitable democracy for today’s children. Dr. Makaiau lives in Honolulu where she enjoys spending time in the ocean with her husband and two children.