By Katherine Taylor, with an introduction by Amber Strong Makaiau
The Hanahau‘oli Teacher Collaborative is a seven-day institute for educators that focuses on interdisciplinary curriculum design for the purpose of engaging youth in meaningful learning. It is led by progressive educator and former Hanahau‘oli Head of School, Dr. Robert Peters. Held on campus, participants have the opportunity to engage in foundational seminars, learn from practicing teachers, observe interdisciplinary lessons and units in action, experience interdisciplinary strategies and resources, collaborate with other educators, design interdisciplinary units of their own, and receive individual coaching as they implement curriculum and reflect on their practice.
Topics explored at the collaborative include:
Progressive Education - Progressive philosophy and pedagogy, with connections to school design, student voice, and teacher collaboration
Interdisciplinary Curriculum Design - Thematic interdisciplinary instruction capitalizes upon student interests and promotes critical thinking and collaboration, integrating skill-development, the arts, and literature
Collaboration & Communication - Create an environment that supports working together as problem-solvers, while developing the skills to become effective communicators
Critical & Creative Thinking - Foster inquiry by building upon natural curiosity and asking questions that promote thinking
Assessment & Standards - Know what is important for students to learn and how to assess it—to inform instruction and evaluate student progress
Technology as a Tool - Integrate technology effectively as both an instructional and evaluation tool
At the end of the collaborative, participants walk away with a draft interdisciplinary unit that includes student outcomes, instructional strategies and resources, assessment tools, and a network of lifelong colleagues to collaborate with in the future.
This year, educator and writer Katherine Taylor attended the institute. Her reflections, including a poem inspired by a hands-on activity, are shared in this blog. Enjoy!
Katherine Taylor’s Reflections
The best way I can describe what I carried home from the Hanahauʻoli Teacher Collaborative is this:
I left noticing more.
When I first learned about the opportunity, I didn't know it was about interdisciplinary curriculum design. I only knew I wanted to spend more time near whatever it is that makes Hanahauʻoli feel the way it does. I wanted to understand it from the inside.
I thought I was coming to study a school.
Instead, I found myself studying attention.
Attention to children.
Attention to place.
Attention to materials.
Attention to language.
Attention to the space between a question and an answer.
Looking back, I think that's what I had been trying to understand all along.
Over the two weeks, I began to understand what makes Hanahauʻoli so special. I don't think it's any one philosophy or program. I think it's that curiosity is trusted here. Not managed. Not hurried toward an outcome. Trusted enough to become the curriculum.
At some point I realized that interdisciplinary learning isn't really about connecting subjects. It's about refusing to separate a world that was never divided to begin with.
That realization has already begun shaping my own work. During the institute, I developed a poetry unit called The Art of Noticing. More than the poetry unit itself, I hope to carry forward the way of seeing that made it possible. This fall, as I step into my own sixth-grade classroom at Kainalu Elementary, I’ll have the opportunity to put much of what I learned at Hanahauʻoli into practice.
To the generous funders who supported my participation, thank you. Your generosity has already begun finding its way into classrooms, into children's questions, and into the teacher I am becoming.
Looking back, I think that's what Hanahauʻoli gave me, too.
Not answers.
An invitation to keep noticing.
With gratitude,
Katherine Taylor
Katherine’s Poem, was inspired by the “Ice Balloon Experience,” which engages Summer Institute participants in a hands-on exploration into facilitating student-centered inquiry
Ice: A Reflection on Curiosity
Katherine Taylor
Someone handed us a frozen sphere wrapped inside a balloon.
No instructions.
Only an invitation.
We turned it over in our hands.
Would it sink?
Would it float?
We carried it to water and watched.
Then we peeled away the balloon.
Salt.
Water.
Waiting.
A crack appeared.
"I wonder..."
A plastic knife became enough.
Nine and a half minutes later, what had seemed impossible quietly separated in two. Somewhere along the way, the ice stopped being just ice.
For a moment it was mochi ice cream.
Then a manapua.
Then a melon.
Then a kabocha squash.
Then clouds.
How strange that something so solid could remind me of something that never holds still.
The salt changed the surface.
The water found the opening.
The crack widened.
One question became another.
Not because someone told me what to notice, but because noticing kept inviting more noticing. Only afterward did I realize the experiment was never really about ice.
It was about what happens when we are given time to look closely enough that the ordinary begins to reveal something unexpected.
Curiosity, like the crack in the ice, has a way of widening once we make room for it. Perhaps learning doesn't begin with answers.
Perhaps it begins with holding something familiar long enough to ask,
"What else could this be?"
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:
Katherine Taylor is a Hawaiʻi-raised educator and writer. She has spent more than fifteen years working with children, alongside a life as a writer, filmmaker, traveler, and mother of four. She is drawn to what happens in the space between a question and an answer, and she is always looking for the crack that lets curiosity in. This fall, she begins teaching sixth grade at Kainalu Elementary.
Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau is a Specialist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Director of Curriculum and Research at the Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education, Director of the Hanahau‘oli School Professional Development Center, and Co-Director of the Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy MEd Interdisciplinary Education, Curriculum Studies program. A former Hawai‘i State Department of Education high school social studies teacher, her work in education is focused around promoting a more just and equitable democracy for today’s children. Dr. Makaiau lives in Honolulu where she enjoys spending time in the ocean with her husband and two children.
