Community By Design: How School Structures, Traditions, and Daily Routines Can Create Collaborative Civic Space and Promote Life in a Diverse Democracy
Date: Friday, November 18, 2022
Time: 7:45am-1:30pm
Location: Hanahau'oli School Professional Development Center, 1922 Makiki Street, Honolulu HI 96822
Cost: $100 Scholarships available! Inquire here.
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”
-- John Dewey, 1980
“A school should be a model home, a complete community, an embryonic democracy.”
– Colonel Francis Wayland Parker
The purpose of this learning walk is to provide educators with the opportunity to observe and reflect on the ways thoughtful school structures, traditions, and daily routines can transform schools into collaborative civic spaces that promote active participation in a diverse democracy. Hosted by the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center, this experience will highlight how Hanahau‘oli School has used the last 103 years to translate progressive education philosophy into practice. It will provide participants with concrete examples of school structures, traditions, and daily routines that cultivate and nurture an overall positive school culture, build community, and address the social-emotional needs of individual learners.
The learning walk will begin at Hanahau‘oli’s weekly whole-school Friday Assembly. We’ll then spend time in the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center reflecting on the Assembly experience and learning about Hanahau‘oli’s rich history and commitment to progressive education. The structures, traditions, and daily routines shared will include: Courtesy Squad, Flag, Assemblies, Community Circles, Reading Buddies, shaking hands with the Head of School, Stepping Stones, sixth grade/junior kindergarten buddies, team teaching and multi-age classrooms, recess, and our unique lunchtime structure. This will be followed by a school tour, where participants will get to see these progressive practices in action. At the end of the learning walk, participants will reflect on the experience with fellow participants and Hanahau‘oli’s Head of School, Lia Woo, over lunch, provide feedback about observations, and make connections to their home schools.
Lunch will be provided.
About the Facilitators:
Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau is a Specialist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Education Institute for Teacher Education Secondary Program. She is also the Director of the Hanahau’oli School Professional Development Center and the Director of Curriculum and Research at the University of Hawai‘i Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education. She is a dedicated practitioner of philosophy for children Hawai‘i who achieved National Board Certification while teaching secondary social studies in the Hawaii State Department of Education for over ten years. Her current projects include carrying out progressive, multicultural, social justice, and democratic approaches to pre-service social studies teacher education, using self-study research methodologies to promote international collaboration, and developing the emergent field of deliberative pedagogy.
Lia Woo draws upon her 15+ years of experience in education, specializing in curriculum and educational technology, to lead Hanahau‘oli School. A lifelong learner, Ms. Woo views learning as a source of inspiration and a means to intentional positive change. Ms. Woo’s association with Hanahau‘oli school dates back to 1980 as an entering student in Junior Kindergarten. After graduating from Hanahau‘oli and Punahou School, Ms. Woo received a B.A. in Communications from Boston College in 1998, a M.A. in Learning, Design & Technology from Stanford University in 2002, and a M.Ed. in Private School Leadership from the University of Hawaii in 2016. After curriculum leadership roles at Kamehameha Schools, It’s All About Kids LLC, and Hawaii Pacific University, she returned to Hanahau‘oli in 2012 to teach for four years in Kulāiwi (2nd and 3rd Grades). Thereafter, Ms. Woo served for two years as the School’s first Director of Curriculum & Innovative Technology. Since June 2018, she has served as Head of School.