Reflections

My philosophy of education rests on the mindset of learning as a process not a product. Specific to my subject, art, I have a desire to see students realize that the process of making art requires and produces certain qualities and characteristics that play an integral role in personal development. Art can produce perseverance, critical thinking, open-mindedness, self-management, and self-esteem. These Habits of Mind equip students to not give up when faced with a challenge, instead, they apply strategies they’ve learned to solve a problem, rather than depend upon their teacher or others for solutions. Student’s can approach their work without a narrow definition of success, but rather embrace difficulties or unexpected situations as part of the process. Through all this, they can develop as individuals, and hopefully apply these lessons and skills to their pursuits beyond middle school art.

Based on my experiences this year, I am left with more ideas looking ahead to the future. At the end of last year, I completed my Master's of Arts in Teaching with a focus on incorporating Habits of Mind to increase students' sense of self-efficacy. Through this degree, I completed an Action Research Project that documented the impact Habits of Mind might have on student motivation and self-efficacy. The results of that project left me aware of the issue that intrinsic motivation is a challenging thing to capture. The results of my first Action Research project left me keenly aware that prescribing things to students may help its prevalence to increase in a classroom, but that that prevalence may be compliance based.

This revelation left me further questioning the ideas of student engagement. What causes students to latch on? To jump in, engage in challenging thinking, explore, take risks, and ultimately learn?

I chose my topic for Kealaʻula based on this question of how do we engage students at Kamehameha schools? This is ultimately the aim of any teacher. Taking this aim, and then thinking about the initiative of World Class Hawaiian Culture Based Education, I wanted to explore the intersection. In other words, there is a plethora of data that can attest to the power of world class education increasing student engagement. Also, is can be argued that culture based education can be linked to project based learning. But do these actually increase student engagement? Can they coexist? Not just harmoniously, but symbiotically?

Through my 8th grade mixed media class, I implemented a series of projects that were based on the Gold Standard of Project Based Learning, but left room for cultural application and interpretation. I was interested in seeing how students applied their personal senses of cultural identity to the projects at hand. Some chose to apply culture full steam, where as others chose to highlight other components of their personal identities (religion, family, sexuality, hobbies, sports, etc.)

I became aware of the fact that not every Kamehameha Students identifies as Hawaiian first, in fact, this sense of identity is a compilation of numerous components that create the whole.

I see myself as a product of Kamehameha School in line with what I described above. I am a Hawaiian, but that does not solely define me. In that respect, I do not fully feel equipped in leading students in culture based education, in that I do not feel as though I am knowledgeable enough. I think that the concepts behind World Class education can be understood. And the concepts behind Culture Based education can be understood. But can they both be applied? The question I am left burdened with at the conclusion of this program is, must we, as educational "experts" must also become cultural experts in order to completely fulfill our charge to perpetuate the will of our Founder Bernice Pauahi Bishop to the best of our ability?