Hanahauoli School
Introducing Progressive Philosophy & ...

It is with great pleasure that we write this inaugural post for our newly established blog, “Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy: A Blog for Progressive Educators”. Designed to support the development of school communities that promote a better future society for today’s children, this online publication aims to further the worldwide progressive education movement by creating a collective thinkspace for progressive educators. Characterized by community, collaboration, diverse perspectives, social justice, the thoughtful exchange of ideas, inquiry, reflection, and informed action--this electronic publication will function as a cyber-commons of sorts. It is a place where progressive philosophers and practitioners, from across the globe, can connect through community and inquiry as they work together to carry out the movement’s important commitment to the intersection of democracy and education.

2023

Becoming Our Best Selves: Reconnecting to Ecosocial Literacy

If education systems were designed from the ground up to develop self-awareness and reflection; wisdom and discernment; kindness, empathy and compassion; ecological and ecosystems awareness, mastery and responsibility; gratitude, social integration and harmony; co-creative agency, joyful participation and commitment; and our very best selves, what might those systems look like?

We might imagine our very best self to be “the full flowering of our human potential” or, perhaps we might imagine offering our unique gifts to the world and accomplishing “all that we’re capable of as human beings.” Empirically, we’re fully capable of living peacefully among one another. We’re capable of living intimately and reverently with our non-human kin and integrating harmoniously with the vast tapestry of the cosmos. We’re capable of co-creative adaptation, imagination and transformation. Throughout our 300,000 year (or so) lineage as homo sapiens, we’ve already accomplished these things, evidenced by our existence here today. We could say that a dynamic, evidence-based and practical ecosocial literacy has been handed down to us through the myriad languages and human cultures around the planet, developed and tested through thousands of human generations. This is self-evident since we are the sole remaining species in the hominin lineage. None of the others who shared our hominin line survived the crucible of extinction.[1] Despite the shortcomings of our more recent history, the much longer fossil record indicates we have everything we need to make the profound transformation now required of us in the 21st century.

Fostering Emotional Regulation through Specialist Classes

It had been a rough day at school emotionally for my son and I was hearing all about it in the car ride home after school. After an argument with a friend at recess, he was explaining to me that he trudged up to the courtyard to meet Mrs Okano, Hanahau‘oli School’s beloved art teacher. She noticed he was upset, gave him a hug, and checked in with him while the class was getting ready to go. Then with one more hug she reassured him, "It's going to be okay....remember how you feel when you do art? You're going to feel much better in a little bit."

A Window into a Day in the Life of a Progressive Education Professional Development School

This September, the Hanahau‘oli community was introduced to the school’s 2023-2024 Artist-in-Residence, Howard Wolff. The Artist-in-Residence initiative benefits the school community from the daily interactions between the artist, students, teachers, and staff, as well as from the body of work produced by the artist at the residency’s conclusion. Howard Wolff is a longtime friend of the school and parent of Ari (’03). He brings his background in architecture and his talents as a photographer to Hanahau‘oli to accomplish two of his goals: Capture joyous work in action and help all members of the school community learn how to see … with or without a camera.

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Using Philosophy to Solve Social Issues in Japanese Society and Education (日本の社会教育問題解決に向けた哲学の活用)

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Japan is an aging society with a low birthrate. In March 2022, Shiroishi City, located in the south of Miyagi prefecture Japan, established a committee to consider the future of public schools in light of the declining school aged population. I was elected to chair the working group. Our committee began our work by looking at the city's student demographics. The total number of students in elementary school from 1st grade to 6th grade was 1,332 in 2022, but it is predicted that this will decrease to 600 in about 10 years (about 100 students per grade). Also, today, the standard number of children per class in Japan is 40. In the future, if there are 100 students in each grade, even if we collect students from the entire city, there will only be three classes per graded. In 10 years, one school in a city will be enough, compared to the 10 elementary schools and 5 junior high schools in Shiroshi City in 2022. All of this shows why school consolidation is inevitable in Japan's future.

The Future Teachers of Hawai'i Club

What does it mean to be a teacher? More elemental, What does it mean to even contemplate being a teacher? And what does it mean to come back to one’s home community to teach, and learn?  When does that moment happen when being a teacher first crosses one’s mind? I suspect that for some young people that moment happens and the questions arise when they first experience student-driven learning with a great teacher, guide or coach. A single class that engages a young learner could very well be the spark that ignites the fire and the passion to teach. I also suspect that for many young folk it is their “less than engaging” experiences “in class” that quickly turn them away from what many call the most noble profession. So what happens then? What forces come into play that, later, might tempt young folks into teaching? Surely it is not the pay, or the working conditions, or the way teachers are often in the crosshairs of our current cultural conflicts. 

Reflections from Maui: Creating a Classroom Community of Safety in Uncertain Times

My name is Martin Hamilton. I was born and raised on the island of Maui. This is my third year of teaching at Makawao Elementary School. The devastating Lahaina and Kula wildfires have had an emotional impact on me and all members of my island’s community, and with a new school year beginning for my 4th graders just days after the fires, I found myself uncertain about how to start the school year. News was slowly coming in about the catastrophic impacts, and I hadn’t yet met my students. I was unsure about who, how, or to what extent my students and their families had been affected by the fires and to what degree. In this moment of uncertainty, I was strengthened by the support of my former professors at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, including Dr. Toby Yos, whose feedback helped me orient myself during a difficult time. As teachers, I feel like most of us want so badly to help our students as much as we can. But sometimes it is difficult to know what will help them the most. I wanted to be able to become a counselor for every student in my class after the sad events on Maui. However, Toby’s message helped me remember that the best way I, as a classroom teacher, could help would be by laying the foundation for an intellectually and emotionally safe community. I remembered that healing will take time so I set out to re-plan the beginning weeks of school with this safe community as the goal.

Lessons from Theatre: What Happens when Communal Inquiry, Democratized Collaboration, and Student-Centered Pedagogies Intersect?

In Spring 2023,  Nate Drackett graduated with a MFA in Theatre from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.  His MFA thesis production was titled, unspecified: a theatrical exploration of identity. He explored what happens at the point where communal inquiry, democratized collaboration, and student-centered pedagogies intersect. He reached across the disciplines of philosophy, social work, and theatre to explore aspects of identity (race, gender, sexuality, mental health, and others) that many have a hard time specifying for themselves. This multi-disciplinary exploration served as a very practical example of how creating space for diverse and multitudinous ideas not only affords deeper inquiry, but also provides opportunity for shared power and facilitates the creation of a community of co-creators. Through the process, he found that creativity and curiosity are very closely linked, and that many different fields including education, theatre, and philosophy, are using a variety of tools, sometimes overlapping, to tap into their innate power. In this blog he shares the story of his own educational journey and the tools he’s discovered for fostering community, inquiry, creativity and a love of learning along the way. 

Experimenting with a Decolonizing Math Education: Pwo Pedagogy

Micronesian ocean navigator and ancestor Mau Pialug’s (1932-2010) legacy taught the next and future generations the ancient wisdom of “traditional wayfinding, [which] is guided by the sun, moon, stars, winds, currents, and mathematical modeling” (Furuto & Phillips, 2021, p.263).  As a Polynesian master navigator, or Pwo, he teaches apprentices the concepts and procedures for precision engineering when preparing, mending, upgrading, and voyaging canoes. He uses an indigenous perspective, a genealogy of knowledge, which dates back in the Pacific waters to around 3,000 years ago (New Zealand History, 2023). Embedded in his language and the Pwo’s teachings of today are the answers to the three questions that continue to manifest in the process of precision engineering and mathematical modeling: What is changing? How is it changing? and Why is it changing? 

Investigating the Many Ways Our Children Are Citizen

Last year, The River School, an independent, progressive school in Washington, DC, dedicated to children from 18 months through Grade 6, piloted Children Are Citizens (CAC). Created by Project Zero researchers and the Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School, CAC is grounded in progressive education principles and inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach. As The River School is committed to and successful in delivering student-centered, inquiry-based learning in a democratic environment, CAC felt like a natural extension of our philosophy right out of the gate.

Embracing the “Young Teacher” Image: Reflections from My First Year of Teaching

On May 13, 2023 Baylee Lorenne graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, College of Education, Bachelor of Education in Secondary Education (BEd-Secondary) Kahalewaihoʻonaʻauao Program. This was one of the final steps in her journey to become a certified secondary social studies teacher in the State of Hawai‘i. As a part of her culminating experiences in the program, Baylee was asked to share lessons learned from her first year of teaching with both her peers and the new group of teacher candidates who had just entered the program. The following is an excerpt from her public presentation. As a new report from the state Department of Education (2023) highlights the ongoing difficulties of addressing Hawaii's teacher shortage, this blog provides insight into the experiences of young people as they step into one of the most challenging and rewarding professions.

E Kilo Kākou – “Letʻs Collectively Observe”

Administrators are always seeking the perfect faculty meeting – one in which the time needed for professional development balances with the knowledge gained by faculty members. Founded over 100 years ago, Hanahauʻoli School is continually working on new ways to strengthen our professional community of learning and stimulate faculty’s thinking about progressive teaching and learning. This past school year was no different, and it resulted in a new initiative, E Kilo Kākou. Designed to provide faculty with the opportunity to visit and thoughtfully observe every classroom and specialist space in the school, it helped us achieve our goal of having increased time to observe and learn more about each other and our programs.

Progressive Education School Curriculum is Not “Fixed and Ready-Made:” The Process of Developing and Putting into Practice Thematic Units of Study at Hanahau‘oli School

Progressive education is a living work in progress, a continually changing “mode of associated living” (Dewey, 1916, p. 87) that must be reflected on, evaluated, and sometimes modified to keep up with–and more importantly stay ahead of–the times to achieve its mission of creating “a better future society” (p. 20). Curriculum, within the context of a progressive education, is no different. The subjects, concepts, tasks, planned activities, desired learning outcomes and experiences, and the general agenda to reform society–all of which Schubert (1987) describes as defining characteristics of a progressive education curriculum–must be studied and improved upon over time. Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards (1965) said it best when explaining how the pioneering progressive education curriculum was created at John Dewey’s Laboratory School at the University of Chicago: “ideas [in education, schooling, and curriculum], even as ideas, are incomplete and tentative until they are employed in application to objects in action and are thus developed, corrected, and tested” (p. 3). Created using a design and implementation process hinted at in my opening quote from John Dewey–curriculum is somewhat meaningless, until it is experienced by students, reflected on, and made better by members of a school community.

Beauty As a Way of Knowing: The Aesthetic Dimension

While on sabbatical, I have been thinking a lot about creativity and how it is valued within the Reggio Emilia schools. This concentrated focus has increased my awareness of the power of creativity as it intersects with learning, and now I see it everywhere. For example, my five-year-old son, Enzo, has a range of sticks that are personal artifacts of his day spent in the forest. Each stick has a name and purpose, along with rocks he has been bringing home to hammer and chisel, no doubt inspired by all the sculptures he regularly sees around in public. He reminds me that as Malaguzzi suggests, children have incredibly creative ways of thinking about and using materials. This creativity extends to how they wonder about the world, and there is a special freedom in the ideas of children. We must stop and pause to notice how this creative thinking lends itself to childrens’ hypotheses about how things work and connections throughout our world. 

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Beauty As a Way of Knowing: The 100 Languages of Children and the Atelier

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The concept of “the 100 languages of children” is one of the most integral aspects of the Reggio Emilia approach. It is based on Loris Malaguzzi’s poem “No Way. The Hundred Is There,” which is a powerful and emotional poem about how children have the right to express themselves in 100 ways. For the full effect, I urge you to pause and read this aloud to your colleagues, partner, friend, or children.

Beauty As a Way of Knowing: The Environment as the Third Educator

As sunlight filters through tall glass doors, it illuminates multiple shades of blue paint in glass jars, translucent  sheets of color that dance and invite curiosity. Greenery, such as plants, trees, and flowers spread throughout the space inviting the outside in. Different shades of clay are placed in mounds on tables with natural materials beside them, ready for interpretation. The aroma of homemade bread and fresh cut fruit wafts in from the kitchen, and the art, words, photos, and other documentation of the daily lives of children who inhabit this space smile proudly on the walls. These are some of the beautiful and inviting materials, senses, and spaces I’ve observed in Reggio Emilia classrooms, artfully designed for young children. 

The Eddie

This winter, the north swells kicked up to historic levels, bringing waves beyond anything in living memory. They ran The Eddie on an epic day after calling it off a week earlier. The Eddie is a big wave surf competition that only goes in the rarest of conditions, massive swells with good winds. But really, The Eddie is more than a surf competition. It is a celebration of Waimea Bayʻs first lifeguard, Eddie Aikau, more than anything else. 

‘Imi ‘Ike Enrichment Week

‘Imi ‘Ike in Hawaiian means “to explore, discover,” or “to seek knowledge.” In February 2023, Hanahau‘oli School piloted a week-long initiative that wove enrichment or “‘imi ‘ike” time throughout the students’ schedules. Teachers and staff offered a variety of activities, based on student choices, allowing children of all different ages to learn or explore something together. When asked to reflect on ‘Imi ‘Ike, students shared: “Can we do ‘Imi ‘Ike every week?” “This was the best day ever this school year!” “We got to choose what we wanted most.” “We got to work with other grades and it didn’t have to be our same classmates.” 

Highlighting Social Justice Educators Doing the Work

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer (2017) writes, “If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract” (p. 48). For many years, social justice educators have taken this to heart in the work that we do in classrooms, schools, and in the wide array of professional development we lead. We have come to know deeply how the personal and professional collide when it comes to social justice in education, and to grow the courage for this work in our students, we have come to depend on the creation of intellectually safe (Jackson, 2001) classrooms and professional communities of inquiry. But what happens when we ask teacher leaders to disclose their inner lives, take personal and professional risks, and become vulnerable in what is often a hostile, volatile, and mostly unsafe public space? As we reflect on our praxis, this is the work that is required of leaders of social justice in education, and it is why ongoing support and initiatives, such as The Social Justice Education in Hawai‘i Project, is needed to confront obstacles that have oftentimes kept us separate and silent.

Hele Aʻo – “To Go and Learn”

Traveling more than 150,000 miles and visiting more than 20 different progressive schools, the faculty and staff at Hanahauʻoli used the 2019-2020 school year to bring back new ideas.  Inspired by the school’s 100th year anniversary in 2018, Lia Woo (‘88), the new Head of School, was hoping the visits would inspire change and growth for the future. “After studying our school’s history, mission and beliefs, I wanted the faculty to look outward and learn from other progressive schools. By engaging in collaborative, experiential learning, faculty not only practiced their teacher-researcher skills but also helped inform future strategic priorities.”

The Progressive Education Spectrum

In the opening sentence of William Haye’s (2007) book, The Progressive Education Movement, he states, “For some time now, I have accepted the idea that a major theme in the history of education in the United States during the past century has been the ongoing debate between those who consider themselves traditionalists and those who espouse the principles of progressive education (p. xi). “ This debate and need to distinguish between what constitutes a progressive philosophy and pedagogy, compared to more “traditional” approaches to education is well-documented and has no doubt played an important role in the evolution of the American progressive education movement. It has helped progressive educators clarify and define what they mean by a “progressive education” for both the movement’s critics and followers. It has also helped to create charts like Haye’s (2007, p. ?) below, which didactically delineates the difference between traditional and progressive approaches to education.