When I was little, I loved kaleidoscopes. I would look through the lens in amazement at the myriad of color fragments that all seemed to be moving at once; sometimes toward one another, sometimes away from one another, yet all in concert to make a beautiful whole. As I left Hanahau’oli School this week, I felt like I had just discovered life in a kaleidoscope. I came for a two day visit to look specifically through the lens of thematic learning and yet I experienced so much more. This colorful kaleidoscope of students, teachers, administrators, staff, and support teams were constantly on the move with pieces shifting moment by moment through the day with students at the center. Each move was never random or haphazard, but carefully crafted to bring out the best in one another to allow each individual to shine as part of a cohesive whole.
Spirituality and Progressive Education
Ever since I was a young child, I have wondered about the inherent source of a thriving person. Described by Yos (2012), the person who lives a flourishing life is: whole, integrated, compassionate, grateful, joyful, and living purposely in the present moment. A thriving human responds freely and is flexible to new experiences without fear, but instead with a deep sense of inner wisdom. That said, the current state with which we find our society, inundated by fear, over-competition, materialism, racism, and bias, has made it incredibly difficult for humans to thrive or engage meaningfully and purposefully in their lives. The reality of our current world is that it is an upstream swim to a place where thriving can occur. In this blog, I explore the relationship between “spirituality” and progressive education, and wonder whether the intersection of the two might be a resource for finding meaning, flourishing, and becoming a thriving person in our modern world.
The Inextricable Link Between Progressive Education and Scientific Research
An often underemphasized and misunderstood essential element of the progressive education movement is its relationship with scientific research. The idea that teaching, learning, and schooling must be systematically studied through observation and experiment has been a defining feature of progressive education philosophy and pedagogy from the very beginning. “As much as they wore their hearts on their sleeves,” early progressive educators like Francis W. Parker, John Dewey, and Ella Flagg Young “prided themselves on their allegiance to science, culling ideas from research from all over the world and exhaustively testing their hypothesis and methods” (Little & Ellison, 2015, p.41).
“Your image of the child: Where teaching begins”
“Amooooore,” (“Looooove,”) an Italian mother crooned over her child, looking at her with adoring eyes (note: this is a scene you might witness in any city, piazza, cafe, park in Italy). Every time I hear someone call their child “amore,” I can’t help but smile at the adoration Italians have for children. My husband and I have witnessed this first hand since our daughter was a baby and when we traveled through Italy with her. We felt like the red carpet was rolled out for us because we had a child. “This is NOT the experience we have had in the U.S.!” we thought, especially in airports, grocery stores, or anywhere with a line, whereas in Italy, families with young children have priority and precedence. For years I’ve wondered about the reasoning behind this wonderful cultural perspective, which I have learned can be attributed to many factors: a low birth rate (making children in Italy more rare and precious), a culture strongly tied to family and community, and one that celebrates the beauty in everything (and that takes the time to savor such things). Among them are family, food, art, architecture, and other cultural phenomena born out of the beautiful interaction between humans and the natural world.
Continuing to Grow the Modern Progressive Education Movement in Hawai‘i
In this final musing on the many thought-provoking questions posed at the Modern Progressive Education Panel Discussion for Human Restoration Project’s first ever Conference to Restore Humanity! (view a complete recording of our discussion online here), let us examine the ways the progressive education movement has grown between the early 1900s and today. Human Restoration Project’s Chris McNutt posed the following questions to Josh Reppun, ambassador for WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, Brendan McCarthy, a scholar-in-residence in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy graduate program, and myself. What are the driving factors behind the growth of the modern progressive education movement? What is different in a modern progressive education versus that of the past? How is it expanding today?
Progressive with a Capital P?
In my October 2, 2022 post on the Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy Blog, I shared one of many engaging questions posed to me at the recent Modern Progressive Education Panel Discussion for Human Restoration Project’s first ever Conference to Restore Humanity! (View a complete recording of our discussion online here.) Organized by Human Restoration Project’s Chris McNutt and including the perspectives of Josh Reppun, ambassador for WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, and Brendan McCarthy, a scholar-in-residence in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy graduate program, this conversation continues to stimulate wonderings for me today.
In Defense Of Impurity: A Reflection On Wonder
As a part of their program of study in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy MEd Interdisciplinary Education, Curriculum Studies Program–students participate in a summer seminar with UHM philosophy professor, Thomas Jackson. The course is titled, PHIL 725: Philosophical Topics- Philosophy, Childhood, and Education. It examines issues, theories, perspectives and problems that philosophers, from a variety of cultural backgrounds and historical contexts, have tackled over the past 2500 years. The goal of the course is to provide educators with a philosophical “grounding” that promotes awareness, encourages knowledgeable reflection, and develops skills necessary for becoming a teacher-philosopher. Following is a reflection shared by UHM Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy graduate student, Michael Mendoza.
Progressive Education － Do You Know It When You See It?
On July 25, 2022 I had the opportunity to participate in a Modern Progressive Education Panel Discussion, a component of Human Restoration Project’s first ever Conference to Restore Humanity! The conference was an international invitation for K-12 and college educators to center the needs of students and educators toward a praxis of social justice. It featured Dr. Henry Giroux, Dr. Denisha Jones, and tracks on disrupting discriminatory linguistics, ending carceral pedagogy, building for neurodiversity, and promoting childism. The purpose of the conference was to help change systems and reimagine education.
Using ʻĀina-Based Learning & School Gardens to Promote Social Justice Education in Elementary Grades
Aloha Mai Kākou,
O Jessica Ruth Sobocinski koʻu inoa. O Portage, Indiana mai au. Noho au ma Paʻauilo Mauka, Moku o Keawe. ʻO Robert Sobocinski ke kāne. ʻO Shawn Cunningham ka wahine. Noho pū lāua a hānau maila ʻo Jessica Sobocinski he wahine.
My name is Jessica Ruth Sobocinski and I am from Portage, IN, currently living in Paʻauilo on Hawaiʻi Island. I was born in 1991 to Robert Jerome Sobocinski and Shawn Lynn Cunningham, two young college students from White, working class families.
Niente Senza Gioia
Niente Senza Gioia (Nothing Without Joy!) - Loris Malaguzzi
This is one of my favorite quotes from Loris Malaguzzi, principal founder of the Reggio Emilia schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The quote resonates with me at the progressive school where I am lucky enough to have been teaching and learning for the past 14 years. The school is Hanahauʻoli School, which translates to “joyous work.” “Aha!” I cried when I found this quote - it’s meant to be!
The Teacher Scholar Role at Hanahau‘oli School: Using Inquiry to Grow a Progressive Teaching Practice (Part 2 of 2)
In the previous blog I shared how I honed in on the following problem of practice while teaching handwriting (or letter formation) within my early elementary classroom: The handwriting program I was providing was not very effective for teaching letter formation to the children who needed it most. I noticed this problem most when children were engaged in independent practice, using worksheets and workbooks that were intended to reinforce skills and habits that I had taught through a variety of other letter formation activities in my classroom (see Part 1 of this blog series). This was a problem I had seen before, within my first grade classroom at a different independent progressive school. However, during my semester teaching in a K-1 classroom at Hanahau‘oli School, I honed in on these specific observations:
The Teacher Scholar Role at Hanahau‘oli School: Using Inquiry to Grow a Progressive Teaching Practice (Part 1 of 2)
Teaching is an incredibly complex and dynamic endeavor. Teachers must navigate a complicated web of critical relationships on a daily basis and work together to guide learners through a changing landscape that includes aspects of multiple fields of knowledge. A teacher’s work is influenced by small and large–personal and societal–shifts in the outside world that inevitably make their way into the classroom, sometimes explicitly, other times on the soles of their students’ shoes. Teaching is both an art and a messy science, one that cannot be realistically limited to a single variable.
The Hanahau'oli Teacher Collaborative: Learning About Interdisciplinary Curriculum Design and Thematic Units of Study
The Hanahau‘oli Teacher Collaborative is a two-week institute for educators that focuses on interdisciplinary curriculum design for the purpose of engaging youth in meaningful learning. It is led by progressive educator and former Hanahau‘oli Head of School, Dr. Robert Peters. Held on campus, participants have the opportunity to engage in foundational seminars, learn from practicing teachers, observe interdisciplinary lessons and units in action, experience interdisciplinary strategies and resources, collaborate with other educators, design interdisciplinary units of their own, and receive individual coaching as they implement curriculum and reflect on their practice.
Studying Middle School Teaching, Experimenting with a Pedagogy of Aloha
Ma ka hana ka ‘ike.
By doing one learns.
My middle school experience was a lousy one. I attended a combination of four different schools in three years. My attendance was sporadic, and when I was at school, I was primarily focused on being accepted by my peers, not anything academic. I constantly wondered what people thought of me and I craved their validation and approval. I also worried about life at home. I worried whether my family would be intact when I got there because homelife was a daily race for the bare essentials. At both home and school, I had very little support academically, socially, or emotionally. Life was a struggle. I was definitely in need of more aloha.
The Fragile Compatibility of Test Scores and Progressive Pedagogy
What role should tests play in progressive pedagogy? It depends on what one means by “test.” Let’s say a “test” is a qualitative assessment, a judgment that teachers, students, and sometimes parents construct together. Then, assessments should be commonplace and central in progressive education. For example, a blog post here this April described the Hanahau‘oli “three-way conference,” where each student shares and discusses their portfolio with their teacher and caregiver (Makaiau & Galdeira, 2022). Such an assessment is entirely consistent with progressive aims, by helping to develop student initiative, positioning the three parties in a cooperative triangle, and orienting all parties toward development from existing assets (Peters, 2019).
Our Writing Lives
I was born and raised on the island of Kauaʻi, in the Puna district, in Kapaʻa. I grew up working on a farm in the narrow green valley at the foot of Makaleha, with Kapaʻa stream running through it. This is where I spent hours working, and avoiding working, catching opu and trapping prawns, digging fence post holes and dehorning goats, tending chickens before, during, and after the slaughter. I learned to surf at Kealia, and I fished each weekend at a place we called Bluffs. My entire childhood was surrounded by cane fields and the ever present sounds and smells of the sugar industry, ash falling on my arms regularly.
A Progressive Education Librarian’s Guide: Building Library Collections that Prepare Children for Life in a Diverse Democracy
Progressive education is guided by the idea that we must actively prepare children for participation in a diverse democracy. In this blog I want to lend my expertise as a school librarian to share how I translate this progressive philosophy into practice. I want to speak to the powerful role that culturally responsive and sustaining children’s literature can play in helping educators achieve this goal. Responsible for building and maintaining school and classroom libraries, I’ll share how I carefully consider book selections that provide children with tools for developing empathy and potential frameworks for thinking about, assessing, and accepting (or challenging) the world around them. I’ll explain how I consider books that will both allow children to step into another’s experience and provide them with a mirror that reflects their own experiences back at them.
Progressive Education in Action: Ending Period Poverty for the Next Generation of Learners
I was in 7th grade when I first bled through my pants at school; I was mortified. My Science teacher (bless Mrs. Marchani) kept a bunch of sweaters on the back of her classroom door, and as I discovered, they weren’t just for the unpredictable weather. As it turned out, she kept this pile of outerwear stocked for middle school menstruators like me. She helped me tie one of her sweaters around my waist, so that I could go about my day of learning. I will never forget that kindness. Suddenly, whenever I saw those sweaters on the hips of other girls, I tried to give knowing eye-contact solidarity. Twenty-some years later, I’m the one in charge of the 7th grade classroom.
The Three-Way Conference: A Progressive Education Assessment Practice that Teaches Asset Framing & Self-Direction
There are a number of characteristics that help to define a progressive educator’s approach to assessment. This includes an overall philosophy of education that values intellectual curiosity, initiative, independence, collaboration, and evidence of growth over time, and a pedagogy for measuring student learning in accordance with these values. Assessment is differentiated, allowing children many ways to demonstrate what has been learned. Individual learners are responsible for learning and are taught how to set goals, define evidence of goal achievement and reflect about progress. Students’ skill development (e.g. in math, language arts, inquiry, etc.) is reported on a continuum with descriptors to show what children are able to do at various points in time.
Birthday Books: Building Community and a Culture of Literacy Through an All-school Tradition
A junior kindergartener celebrates her 5th birthday with a gift to her school library. She presents her gift–the picture book Little Green Donkey (Allepuz, 2020)--and her first public booktalk to her learning community at Hanahau‘oli School.
My name is Emma.
I’m in JK [Junior Kindergarten].
And this is my birthday book, [reading/looking at the cover] Little Green Donkey.
The story is about–the donkey likes to eat grass, but he ate too much, and he becomes green.
And his mommy told him to eat other things.
My favorite part of the book is