In June 2021, the same year that the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa College of Education’s Progressive Philosophy & Pedagogy masters degree program was started, the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center launched this blog to create a collective thinkspace for progressive educators, in hopes of furthering the worldwide progressive education movement. In just a few short years, our readership has grown to over 3,600 educators, philosophers, scholars and community members. In celebration of our 99th post, we share a few of our favorite reflections by Hanahau‘oli School’s faculty and staff below. 

In 2018, Hanahau‘oli School launched The Entering Teacher Cooperative (ETC). Documented in a previous blog, this program was designed to on-board and orient new faculty and staff to the Hanahau‘oli School community. Deeply grounded in the school’s progressive philosophy and pedagogy, the year-long ETC experience aims to provide newcomers with a physical, intellectual, and emotionally safe space to make sense of and reflect on their first year at the school. To accomplish this goal, ETC participants are not only introduced to foundational knowledge that is needed for teaching and working at a progressive school, they also create a professional community of inquiry where regular opportunities for collaborative and purposeful dialogue support the development of relationships and deep understanding.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.  

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!

On October 21, 2021 I had the opportunity to participate in the Game Changer Series: Navigating The Pandemic - A Courageous Conversation about COVID hosted by What School Could Be. In the midst of our global challenge, finding support, seeking solutions, and sharing our truths can be quite powerful. At this event we shared our thoughts, wonderings and strategies for making sense of the current moment in education. For me, it was a homecoming of sorts as both the Executive Director of What School Could Be, Dr. Kapono Ciotti and one of the panelists, Dr. Andrew Ho of the Harvard Graduate School of Education are both Hanahau’oli School classmates of mine! We were joined by Mari Jones from the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.

Hanahau‘oli School is a one hundred year old progressive school located in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1918, Hanahau‘oli is regarded as a preeminent independent elementary school because of its adherence to a progressive mission that validates childhood as the time of learning, the years when the foundation is laid for life-long commitment to the values that sustain our families, our neighborhoods and the global community.

Last week was a time of firsts. It was the first week of classes for the first cohort of the new Masters program, Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy. Unique to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Education, students will work to create a better society through their work with children, schools, and communities. Although we intended for the summer session to occur face-to-face, we will be meeting and getting to know each other through Zoom because of Covid restrictions.