Ever scroll through LinkedIn and feel like it’s the movie, Groundhog Day? Same creator, same viral posts. 1,000 comments every time.

What’s his secret? AI-generated content, including his video avatar explaining the daily showcased app.

Picture an AI-assistant chef in your content kitchen, perfectly chopping thoughts, accurately seasoning sentences, and plating paragraphs in just the way your diners like it.

But how much creativity is there in the work if you’re only adjusting settings and hitting “generate” until credits run out? Did the creator infuse any of his personality to craft something unique?

At a Friday assembly in December, Hanahau‘oli School children were enthusiastically introduced to a brand new Joy of Art experience that would take place in January 2025. The children’s excitement was felt throughout the day as they talked with one another at recess and at lunch, sharing their reactions to the new learning opportunities presented and articulating their preferences of which Joy of Art experience they were most interested in with their friends. That night, children went home and continued to talk with their parents and caregivers about the two days of choice-driven learning they would get to participate in at the start of the new year.

Resilience is a topic we hear a lot about these days, and we all have a general understanding of what it is - but how do we teach it to young people? We intuitively know how significant resilience is when it comes to overall well-being and success in life – but the skills that make up resilience aren’t always obvious. The good news is that resilience can be learned and can be influenced by both internal and external factors that, as teachers, we do have some control over.

In this post we share a glimpse into the impact studying philosophy can have on mental health and well-being. Dr. Sophia Stone provides candid and emotional insights into the hardships she faced as a young woman and how philosophy, and incorporating philosophy in people's lives, came to be her calling. In reading about the work she conducts through Wisdom's Edge, it is our hope you will find empathy, curiosity, inspiration, and your own healing. Content warning: this blog discusses mental health issues, eating disorders, and drugs, which may be difficult for some readers.

Recently, I spent some time in the Po‘e Ka‘ahele (fourth and fifth-grade) classroom at Hanahau‘oli School. The teacher shared with her students: “Today, we are learning more about a volunteer project we are working on to clean up the Ala Wai Canal.”  She further described how the project involved making mud balls called, “Genki Balls,” out of dirt and “good” bacteria. When the Genki Balls are dried and thrown into the canal, they sink into the sludge at the bottom and release the bacteria, which will “eat” the sludge and make the Ala Wai cleaner for fish and humans. (It is fascinating to see how groups of people can work together to make the world a better place. If you want to learn more, click here.)

Hawai‘i has the most endangered species in the United States, where many plants are unique to our islands. Many take for granted the beautiful natural environment our ancestors cultivated and lived harmoniously with. This diminished plant relationship is not unique to Hawaiʻi, it is actually an aspect of modern life that is prevalent in the industrial world. The phenomenon is called “plant blindness” (an inability to see or notice the plants in one’s own environment), and it affects approximately 91.9% of the population in Hawa‘i, especially those of us who reside in urban areas and who rely on urban services rather than foraging in the environment.

My journey at Hanahauʻoli School started over 30 years ago. I was hired as the school’s Science and Computer Teacher. Five years into my time at Hanahauʻoli, I took a year’s sabbatical and completed my Master’s of Education with a focus in Educational Technology. I returned to teach in the multiage second and third grade class for two years. Then I became the Technology Coordinator. Several years later I moved to being the school’s Technology Integration Specialist where I worked more with teachers, guiding them with integrating technology (projects) into their curriculum. Eventually, I decided to step back into the classroom and taught in the fourth and fifth grade multiage class until our Head of School asked me to facilitate a new endeavor for our 106 year old progressive school – The Collaborative Studio. In this blog I share a brief history and introduction to this new makerspace and the ways it helps Hanahau‘oli students explore, experiment, create, collaborate, and learn by doing. 

The River School in Washington, DC and, subsequently, the Potomac River Clinic and National Center for Hearing Innovation, were born out of the shared vision to ensure all children with hearing loss have the best start imaginable. The first and only progressive, independent school of its kind, The River School provides children with hearing loss and their hearing peers an inclusive learning environment with a heightened focus on language, literacy and social development delivered by highly educated teachers and speech therapists. Working in conjunction with clinical services that lead the field of pediatric auditory, speech and language development, The River School serves a higher purpose and attracts families and professionals who embrace the mission.

On October 12, 2023 I had the opportunity to join a guided visit for educators at Hanahau‘oli School. As a part of this program, I got to observe a daily school-wide community-sharing experience, listen to a brief introduction to Hanahau‘oli School’s history of progressive teaching and learning, participate in a tour of the school’s 146,000 sq ft campus, spend time observing multi-age classrooms and the team teaching approach, and engage in dialogue with administrators over a hosted lunch. While I learned and observed many things that day, one thing that stood out was how the classroom spaces documented the students’ learning journey.

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."

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? 

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.

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?

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.