Tag Archives: ALOHA

ALOHA FOCUS FOR THE WEEK: AHONUI

5 PURSUITS of AHONUI:

Inspired by Gholdy Muhammad

Please watch Salt in his Shoes – Michael Jordan: In Pursuit of a Dream written by Roslyn Jordan and Deloris Jordan. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson.  Then with you child, answer the following:

• IDENTITY: Discuss with your kūpuna or makua about a time where you needed to be patient. What happened? What would’ve happened if you weren’t patient?
• SKILLS: Using evidence from the text, how did Michael practice ahonui?
• INTELLECT: Michael’s father advised that it’s not enough to be tall but to also have determination. What does determination mean? What are synonyms for determination? What is an antonym?
• CRITICALITY: Michael’s nemesis kept putting him down for being short and tried to discourage him from playing. How did Michael overcome this boy’s bullying? Provide examples from the text.
• JOY: With your ʻohana play one of these fun basketball games

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Celebrate Black History Month with a poignant poem by Langston Hughes. Playing off of Walt Whitman’s most famous poem “I Hear America Singing,” Hughes wrote “I, Too.” It served both as  a response to Whitman, whom Hughes was a fan, and protested the plight of Black Americans.

MAHINA ʻŌLELO HAWAIʻI

Along with Black History Month, February is Hawaiian Language Month. Celebrate ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi by learning the language and checking out the numerous activities planned for the month. See this website for a listing of activities.

SCHOOL QUALITY SURVEY

Every year, we ask our parents and guardians to assist in providing us feedback that reinforces the good work we’ve been doing and lets us know how we might improve. Please help us once again gather this feedback by taking this year’s School Quality Survey found at this link. The survey will remain open until March 12. We look forward to hearing from you.

CONTINUED PRACTICES:

NOʻAHUNA OF ALOHA

See Uncle Pono Shim explain the Noʻahuna, the esoteric meaning, of Aloha as taught to him by Aunty Pilahi, the Keeper of Secrets.

WEAR KĀNEʻOHE SHIRT WEDNESDAYS

Help us build unity and show our lōkahi by wearing a shirt that celebrates Kāneʻohe on Wednesdays. Wear any previous Fun Run or grade level shirt.

WEEKLY VIRTUAL PIKO

Our Weekly Piko, has changed to twice-a-week. In-person on the first day of the week and virtual on the last day. At piko we share thoughts on the Aloha value for the week which helps us become centered and ready to learn. We begin at 8 AM everyday except Wednesdays when we meet in-person. If you would like to share your reflections on the week’s Aloha value, please contact me.

If you’d like to celebrate the accomplishments of our students outside of the school day. Please use this link to share a brief shout-out for your child that we can share at piko.

UPCOMING EVENTS

E hoʻāhonui aʻe ā pau kēia pilikia
Be patient until this trouble is over.

     Pukui, Mary Kawena, Elbert, Samuel H. (1965). Hawaiian Dictionary

ALOHA FOCUS FOR THE WEEK: AHONUI

As it is becoming my New Year’s tradition, I reread Amanda Gorman’s ʻNew Day’s Lyricʻ and reflect upon her sagacity during the days of the pandemic:

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

Amada Gorman, ʻNew Day’sʻ Lyric

As a vocal school leader, I would have been justified to be very fearful for my future and that of our school given the events of 2025: eduction funds slashed; celebrating diversity demonized; elevating ʻike Hawaiʻi thwarted; striving for equity denigrated. Much of what we value as an inclusive, innovative school seemed to targeted.

Yet, we did our best to reach forward and not be hindered by fear. We planned ahead so that we may venture beyond these times and ensure these threats do not become normal. We practiced and will continue to exercise ahonui.

On one of the first mornings of winter break, I stepped out onto the cold, wet tile of our apartment balcony and into the velvety dawn to admire the sunrise. A fiery hue quietly peaked over Leahi and mottled the otherwise dark horizon. Once orange rays reflected off of the mirrored surfaces shielding downtown Honolulu, I walked back into the apartment and suddenly felt a sharp pain in my big toe. Expletives about getting old immediately littered my brain. What could it be now? But then I thought to look at the underside of my foot. To my surprise, there was a bee struggling to free itself from my sock. I carefully removed it, attempting to completely extract its long, mucous-y stinger.

As the day wore on, the sharp pain below my big toe dulled. The next day, I still felt sore, but could ignore it with the busy-ness of end-of-year tasks. That evening, while showering, I lifted my foot to scrub its underside. A throbbing, quarter-sized purple sore seemed to be consuming my toe. I asked my girlfriend to inspect it and confirm if a portion of the stinger remained in my foot. After digging around with a pinpointed tweezer, she pulled out a minuscule filament. My foot immediately felt better as the purple dissipated.

It’s difficult to conceive how something so microscopic could cause such a great pain. Yet, it is part of the bee’s defense and has made me be more observant stepping out onto the balcony. As agonizing the experience and cautious it has made me, I would not say it has made me fearful. Instead, I use it as a metaphor for how I may look at the present with the following lens:

Bees are avoidable;
Budgets buttressed;
Inclusivity empowers student achievement; and
Aloha can never be extinguished.

5 PURSUITS of AHONUI:

Inspired by Gholdy Muhammad

Please watch Just Kidding written by Tracy Ludwig and illustrated by Adam Gustavson.  Then with you child, answer the following:

• IDENTITY: Share with your kūpuna or mākua if they joke around with their friends or ʻohana. If they do, what does it look and sound like.
• SKILLS: Use evidence from the text, how does the author differentiate between kidding and hurtful teasing?
• INTELLECT: In the book, how does Mrs. Winter describe the difference between tattling (or snitching) and reporting? How might reporting be a way of showing aloha to someone else?
• CRITICALITY: In the book, DJ’s father teaches him how to respond when Vince uses words and actions that are hurtful. Like DJ, practice with your kūpuna or mākua responding to hurtful comments by not saying/doing anything mean back to the teaser.
• JOY: With your ʻohana or a group of friends, check out this game that asks participants to tell the difference between“Friendly Teasing vs Hurtful Teasing”

30 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR KIDS

Speaking from experience, the start of a new year often brings lofty resolutions and great intentions that are too often short-lived. Yet, setting goals and sticking with them are vital skills for our students to learn. By setting realistic, age-appropriate, manageable goals, kids learn the importance of perseverance and experience the joys of making tangible progress. Read more here for helpful suggestions on setting resolutions with your children. 

CONTINUED PRACTICES:

NOʻAHUNA OF ALOHA

See Uncle Pono Shim explain the Noʻahuna, the esoteric meaning, of Aloha as taught to him by Aunty Pilahi, the Keeper of Secrets.

WEAR KĀNEʻOHE SHIRT WEDNESDAYS

Help us build unity and show our lōkahi by wearing a shirt that celebrates Kāneʻohe on Wednesdays. Wear any previous Fun Run or grade level shirt.

WEEKLY VIRTUAL PIKO

Our Weekly Piko, has changed to twice-a-week. In-person on the first day of the week and virtual on the last day. At piko we share thoughts on the Aloha value for the week which helps us become centered and ready to learn. We begin at 8 AM everyday except Wednesdays when we meet in-person. If you would like to share your reflections on the week’s Aloha value, please contact me.

If you’d like to celebrate the accomplishments of our students outside of the school day. Please use this link to share a brief shout-out for your child that we can share at piko.

UPCOMING EVENTS

To show Ahonui

1. Be aware of yourself and how you are feeling
2. Be observant of what is going on around you
3. Ask yourself, if I say/do something now, will it be received well? Will it help?
4. If not, how might I say it? When might be the right time?
5. Watch for the right time to act/say something.

ALOHA FOCUS FOR THE WEEK: AHONUI

Last week, as a power outage immobilized our access to the internet, Mr. Shane (our counselor) and I attended an in-person workshop on Tackling the Motivation Crisis by educator and author Mike Anderson. During his seminar, Anderson cautioned against the use of awards, prizes, and incentives. He recounted how his use of reward tokens with his 4th grade class at first kept them compliant, but eventually led to students cheating, lying, and sabotaging others. In the end, his students learned less about behaving appropriately and more about gaming the system. Alternatively, Anderson makes a case to teach students about being intrinsically motivated. To do this, he advises educators and parents do the following:

1. Make the work worth doing by helping students feel competent. When students feel confident of their abilities they are more likely to stick with the work. Further, help them feel that the work has a sense of purpose. Will learning lead to being able to help someone? Can they see a future application. You can also tap into their  curiosity. Is there a question they want to answer? A hidden history? Lastly, make the learning joyful. Activate their imagination and creativity. Expose them to stories connected to the learning.
2. Give students more choice by providing two or three ways to access what they are learning while still accomplishing learning goals.  For example, when trying to analyze a reading passage, Novak Education suggests offering “options like reading the printed text, accessing a digital version to listen to, sitting with a friend to share reading, and/or using a graphic organizer to break down the passage and prepare to share an analysis.”
3. Talk About Learning Like Students Own It by eliminating language that demonstrates your personal control over their learning and instead emphasizing what students are doing. For example, instead of saying, “I’m giving you 10 minutes to complete this” say, “You have 10 minutes to complete this.” Or instead of “This is what I expect from your work and what I am looking for that makes it high quality” say, “Here are the expectations we co-created and how you can make sure it is high quality.”
4. Teach Students Skills of Self-Management by explicitly teaching them these skills. When I volunteered to start the AVID program at Kailua High School, I learned that one of the cornerstones of the program was teaching students how to study. It hit me that I always expected students to study before a test. However, the reality was very few knew how to do that. This made sense because no one in the past bothered to teach them. We all expected them to magically possess this skill. Same with time management and being organized. Students cannot be expected to be self-directed unless we at first give them steps to follow on making appropriate choices. At Kāneʻohe, we have included lessons on managing stress by employing breathing techniques, organizing our thoughts by using Thinking Maps, and controlling our impulses by practicing ahonui.
5. Breathe. Anderson reminds us that learning is hard work. We all make mistakes and  it is an unavoidable part of the learning process. Whether it’s learning to ride a bike, swing a bat, solve a word problem or behave appropriately in public, we will make mistakes and need akahai. Anderson says, “Remember to have empathy and patience, especially for kids who really struggle. It might be hard to be their teacher somedays, but I can promise you–it’s way harder to be them.”

5 PURSUITS of AHONUI:

Inspired by Gholdy Muhammad

Please watch Saturday is Swimming Day written and illustrated by Hyewon Yum. Then with you child, answer the following:

• IDENTITY: Talk with your kūpuna about a time you tried learning a new thing. Did they/you feel afraid? What did they/you do? How did they/you overcome that fear?
• SKILLS: Using evidence from the text, what happened in the story that helped the girl to not have stomachaches on Saturdays?
• INTELLECT: Learn about the difference between a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset.
• CRITICALITY: In Hawaiʻi, access to swimming pools and the beach have largely been open to people of all races and socio-economic backgrounds. However across the continental US up until the 1970s, access to swimming pools and beaches had been limited to wealthier and predominantly white people. As a result, to this day, children of color are more likely to drown as compared to white children. How might we help to improve the swimming proficiency of children of color?
• JOY: With your ʻohana, spend time at the public pool or at the beach and enjoy a swim day.

KIDS DON’T NEED TO STAY ON TRACK TO SUCCEED

According to author Madeline Levine, “When parents portray success as a linear progression of SAT scores, acceptance to selective colleges, and high-powered internships, they set kids up for disappointment.” These parents plot a straight ascent to high paying careers for their children through exclusive private schools and elite colleges.  However for most, the road to success is not linear. “90 percent are folks who have taken risks, failed, changed course, recovered, often failed again.” Read more including moʻolelo of those who attained success through a more roundabout way here.

ʻOHANA-KUMU CONFERENCES EVALUATION & POLL

Last call for participation in our  ʻOhana-Kumu Conferences evaluation and poll. The last day for for responses is Friday November 21.

Included in this evaluation is a poll to see if for next year, families would like to condense the conferences to two non-student waiver days. Currently, we shorten school by one hour and fifteen minutes each day for 10 days. 

You can participate in the evaluation/poll here.

CONTINUED PRACTICES:

NOʻAHUNA OF ALOHA

See Uncle Pono Shim explain the Noʻahuna, the esoteric meaning, of Aloha as taught to him by Aunty Pilahi, the Keeper of Secrets.

WEAR KĀNEʻOHE SHIRT WEDNESDAYS

Help us build unity and show our lōkahi by wearing a shirt that celebrates Kāneʻohe on Wednesdays. Wear any previous Fun Run or grade level shirt.

WEEKLY VIRTUAL PIKO

At the Weekly Piko, we share thoughts on the Aloha value for the week which helps us become centered and ready to learn. We begin at 8 AM everyday except Wednesdays when we meet in-person. If you would like to share your reflections on the week’s Aloha value, please contact me.

If you’d like to celebrate the accomplishments of our students outside of the school day. Please use this link to share a brief shout-out for your child that we can share at piko.

UPCOMING EVENTS