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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

At the end of their journey in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), College of Education (COE), Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy, MEd Curriculum Studies program, master's candidates applied the process of philosophical reflection to explore the meaning of their experiences in the program. In collaboration with peers and professors they engaged in a creative process to “untangle” and illuminate lessons learned about progressive education during the five semesters of the program. They were asked to communicate their reflections to a wider audience via a thought provoking and artful film that could be shared with a wider audience. The overarching question guiding the reflective process and ultimately the film was: Why progressive philosophy and pedagogy?

At the end of their journey in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), College of Education (COE), Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy, MEd Curriculum Studies program, master's candidates applied the process of philosophical reflection to explore the meaning of their experiences in the program. In collaboration with peers and professors they engaged in a creative process to “untangle” and illuminate lessons learned about progressive education during the five semesters of the program. They were asked to communicate their reflections to a wider audience via a thought provoking and artful film that could be shared with a wider audience. The overarching question guiding the reflective process and ultimately the film was: Why progressive philosophy and pedagogy?

Slow down everyone you’re moving too fast - Jack Johnson’s soothing voice brings me back to Oahu and a relaxing day at the beach. I love this song because it puts me in a calming space and reminds me to slow down. Life seems to move quicker and quicker. I know so many of us can relate to getting caught up in the grind and are seeking a balance where time slows down a bit and we can appreciate the small moments. Growing up and now raising my family in Honolulu has been an interesting mix of “slowed down” and relaxed experiences at times. For example, when your friends say the BBQ starts at 6:00, and you know it’s totally acceptable to come at 7:00 or 8:00. Yet, in recent years I find myself getting caught up in a faster pace, rushing from school to pick up my kids with anxiety creeping in while moving from one appointment to another, meeting deadlines, or feeling like things just keep getting added to the plate.

The simple act of having hope for a better future breaks the doom-loop and builds a platform for action.

The future is not bright. At least, not if you’re reading the most popular interpretations of the future: AI uprisings, ecological crises, mass surveillance states, and wartime apocalypses dominate speculative fiction across novels and Netflix. It seems inevitable that in the upcoming decades, our world will become an increasingly worse and uninhabitable place. Fueled by the real dangers of climate inaction, militaristic tension, and a crumbling public sphere, there’s genuine reason to worry. People find themselves glued to the apocalypse: escaping to social media to endlessly scroll and consume news of the impending collapse. Some embrace doomerism, an extremely pessimistic and nihilistic worldview that has entirely given up hope for a better future.

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.