The What School Could Be Podcast

Metamorphosis, dragon flies, Hoʻokipa writers, coffee talks, Poetic Couture, Carol Dwek and finding the Filipina within, oh my! My guest today is Jannica Breslin in an episode I am calling my Teach for America Special. This is a partnership with Jill Baldemor, the Executive Director of Teach for America Hawai`i. When I offered Jill the opportunity to name a TFA Hawaiʻi alum to be on this podcast, after some consideration, she named Jannica Breslin. There have been many TFA alums as guests on this podcast, but none specifically named by TFA Hawaii’s top brass, which is way cool. Jannica is a middle school language arts teacher at Konawaena Middle School on Hawai‘i Island. She was a 2009 Teach for America corps member, which would make this her 12th year in education. Jannica was in the same cohort year as Justin Brown, who I interviewed on this podcast for Season 1. TFA Hawaiʻi Executive Director, Jill Baldemor said the following about her pick for this episode: “Jannica is a humble local girl, a public school graduate of Farrington High School, and not as well known, but definitely a bright light in her approach and leadership, which has been especially apparent during COVID. She was one of the first teachers to proactively stand up informal teacher collaboration groups to share best practices in distance learning and she’s helped her school a bunch in the transition.” In this episode Jannica and I ranged across a variety of subjects including her passion for writing, her love of vulnerabilities and growth mindsets, her Aloha for TFA and what it takes to get middle school kids excited about words. She is funny, thoughtful (there are long pauses between my question and the start of her responses) and she cares deeply about children. Jannica teaches with another, former podcast guest, Shawna Gunnarson. What an extraordinary opportunity for kids in Kona to learn from Shawna and Jannica! As always, our theme music and editing is done by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. You can learn more about Daniel at his Facebook page. I am super pleased to note that 41 out of 41 listeners have given our podcast a 5 star rating. We appreciate this very much and thank you for the wonderful written reviews. If you love these episodes with remarkable and innovative educators and education leaders, please give us your own rating and write us a review at your favorite podcast store. The post 53. Writer, Poet, Teacher, Mother, TFA Alum: Jannica Breslin appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

What exactly is student voice? This question has become the hot topic in public, private and charter schools here in Hawaiʻi, for which I am glad. Sometimes the conversation revolves around giving students agency over their learning. At other times we talk about public exhibitions of learning and the ways students might articulate what they know and what they can do. Conversations around student activism, especially around ways to encourage kids to be politically active, seem fewer and farther between. I wonder sometimes if we are afraid to encourage this kind of deep community involvement for fear that parents might object or schools might feel liable. My guest today is Kawika Ke Koa Pegram, a recent graduate of Waipahu High School now matriculating at American University in Washington, DC. Editing provided by DG Sound Creations. The post 52. Marching for Justice and Planet Earth, with Kawika Ke Koa Pegram appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

I have learned, as a podcast host, that some episode interviews are question and response, and some conversations are more…intimate. My episode here with Ululani Shiraishi is decidedly the latter. Ululani gave me a gift during this interview, a phrase I will use in my life going forward: Working at the edge of your seat. She comes from a place of part frenzy crazy, and part deliberate intentional. And she is always, always working at the edge of her seat. This conversation touched on what it means to be 100% wife, 100% mother, 100% teacher all at the same time; the purpose of getting a graduate degree; the energy generated when one is forced to “pivot” (to use an overused Covid-19 term); the current revolution in education and the crazy cool things going on at Kamehameha Schools, Maui Campus; the special things that happen when we leave just a little room for margins in our lives, and much more. This will easily go down as one of my favorite interviews in either the 1st or 2nd season of this podcast series. There were times when I forgot I was recording the thing. Ululani is a treasure, a luminous and effervescent being on an epic personal and professional journey. More on Ululani Shiraishi: she is a Kamehameha Schools Maui, middle school language arts teacher who is deep into SEL, Hawaiian culture and trans-disciplinary teaching and learning. She is on the KSBE Maui Middle School Leadership Team and is a close partner with Kui Gapero, one of my early guests on this podcast in Season One. Ululani is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools’ Keala‘ula Innovations Institute, which is a creative learning program where Kamehameha Schools teachers focus on professional development. The program spotlights learning in terms of creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking, skills that are essential for students to succeed today and tomorrow. Ululani also taught in Hawaii’s public schools as a National Board Certified Teacher. At Kamehameha Schools Maui, she is an ardent believer in simultaneously teaching the heart and intellect of kids through engaging inquiry-based learning experiences. She is currently working on a graduate degree in student learning and well-being. Hope, self-efficacy, curiosity, and good old fashioned hard work drive her teaching and life. My huge thanks to Evan Reppun Beachy, who directs the Kealaʻula Institute for recommending Ululani. As always, our theme music and post-production editing is provided by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. To learn more about Daniel check out his Facebook page. If you love this episode please give us a rating and review in your favorite podcast store. Take care, be safe and bring kindness and compassion into the world.  The post 51. She Lives On The Edge Of Her Seat: Ululani Shiraishi appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

Chris Balme, my guest for this episode, writes: “Middle school is one of life’s great forks in the road. As the time when puberty begins and thus incredible neurological changes are taking place, middle school has an outsized impact on child development. For some students, it’s the time they begin to find their voice, their social identity, their sense of self in a bigger world.” Chris is the founder of the Millennium School and the Argonaut School in the Bay Area. He is also a warm, funny and caring educator who wants make “school” all that it could be. Editing done by your host, Josh Reppun using Alitu. The post 50. Questing to Find the Golden Fleece with Argonaut Chris Balme appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

The Kupu Hou Special: When I asked my dear friends, Mark Hines and John Cheever at Kupu Hou Academy to recommend a Kupu Hou friend and supporter to interview for this podcast, they both immediately and enthusiastically recommended Po’o Kumu Kaulana Smith. Kumu Kaulana is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School located near the ocean in a small township on the northeast shore of Hawaiʻi Island. Laupahoehoe serves approximately 300 students from pre-school through 12th grade. Kumu Kaulana has worked with Hawaii’s students in public education and the community for many years. She came to Laupahoehoe Charter School with experience in the fields of Special Education and Administration. She has experience with a variety of student-centered learning programs, interventions, and support services in partnership with an array of organizations including the Foundation for Excellent Schools, the Pacific American Foundation, the Hawai’i Network of Learning Communities, the High Tech Youth Network, and Kupu Hou Academy. She also participates with parent and community groups in enhancing student and school development, including Laupahoehoe Governing Board, WASC Accreditation and the Hawaiʻi Association of Independent Schools. Previously, Kumu Kaulana served at Kawaikini New Century Public Charter School in Special Education and as Student Services Coordinator. From the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, Kumu Kaulana has a Bachelor of Arts in English. From Chaminade University in Honolulu she has a Master of Education in Special Education and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership. In this conversation we ranged across education in ancient Hawaiʻi to the broad expanse of project-based learning. My editor, show consultant and sound engineer is Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. Daniel, an amazing musician, created the original theme music heard in these episodes. To learn more about Daniel or to hire him for YOUR next music gig, check out his Facebook URL.The post 49. A Reverence for Student-Centered Learning, with Kumu Kaulana Smith appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

My guest today is Mathieu Williams, our 2019 State Teacher of the Year who constantly strives to be…better. It’s why I love the man, why I admire him so much, why everyone in Hawaiʻi, public, private, charter and community admires him so much and why his students love working with him. He is the ultimate guide, coach, sponsor and mentor of our Hawaiʻi youth, and for that, we are all grateful. Mathieu is the Director of the Hawk Media Program at Kealakehe Intermediate near Kona. His students edited this and all my early episodes. The post 48. Our 2019 Hawaii State Teacher of the Year, Mathieu Williams appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

To be a learning coach, a teacher-leader, an educator coach and an expert on kids with special needs, some on the autistic spectrum, you have to be a deeply empathetic person…right down to your core. Danielle Mizuta has empathy in spades. Empathy is in her DNA. I have known this for a long, long time. She and I got our graduate degrees about the same time, in the late 90s. Over the years she has been a tremendous supporter of my @MLTSinHawaii “movement,” at film screenings, event design sessions and professional development workshops. So it is with great pleasure that I present Danielle here, today as my second season’s 6th podcast guest. Over these 90 minutes we ranged through teacher capacity building, the best of service-learning, a chapter she wrote for a recently published book from the Ahimsa Center (see her photo) and the promises we should be making to our public, private and charter school kids. And much more. If you enjoy this episode, please give us a rating and review at your favorite podcast platform. Here is more info on Danielle. Danielle Mizuta, MEd, taught special education in the Hawaii State Department of Education for 13 years. She has taught and co-taught in fully self-contained, resource, and inclusion classrooms in elementary and high school settings. Danielle earned two Masters in Education degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Educational Foundations in 2004, and in Special Education and Teaching in 2007. She served as a State Level, Lead Mentor for the Hawaii DOE mentoring beginning teachers new to the profession in their first to third years. She also supported complex area Induction Coordinators with their mentors, mentor forums, and beginning teacher PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). Danielle also trained master teachers in mentoring skills to support new teachers at their schools in instructional mentoring, coaching and observation and analyzing student work. Additionally, Danielle completed a term as a Hawaii Hope Street Fellow and Regional Teacher Fellow Coach with Hope Street Hawaii. Currently she serves as an Instructor for Leeward Community College and a Learning Support Specialist at Punahou School, supporting faculty, staff, and families of students with learning differences. As always, our original theme music and episode post-production is by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. To learn more about Daniel’s work, explore his Facebook page. Take care, wear your masks, maintain social distancing and be kind to one another! The post 47. She’s Been Published!, with Danielle Mizuta appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

In schools, as in life, the commodity in shortest supply is time. How we spend our time is how we enact our values (SEEQS.org). Buffy Cushman-Patz and I have known each other for a long time. Mere words cannot capture the enormous respect I have for her and the work she has done in our community. And, it was my high privilege to be on the team she assembled to write SEEQS charter. So what is SEEQS? It’s the School for Examining the Essential Questions of Sustainability, a secondary public charter school in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi founded in 2013. It currently serves approximately 180 students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades (though its charter calls for the eventual creation of a high school). SEEQS offers a community-focused, interdisciplinary project-based, tuition-free secondary school experience for Oahu families. This episode is different than any that come before. I decided to use Buffy’s resume and record of accomplishments to build questions that would help the two of us examine the genome, the DNA of her school. The result is not a deep dive into the weeds, but a marvelous hot air balloon trip to 30,000 feet above our object, with strands of SEEQS DNA floating around us like lovely clouds. More on Buffy: In 2010-2011 Buffy was honored with an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship. She served her fellowship year at the National Science Foundation’s Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. Buffy completed her Masters in School Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in May 2012. She has been a strong and clear voice for education redesign in Hawaii. She is a member of the Hawai’i Innovative Leadership Network and a mentor to other public, private and charter school leaders in this state. Ted Dintersmith once said, on live TV, that he could have filmed his acclaimed documentary, Most Likely to Succeed at SEEQS, which is the ultimate compliment. – As always in this 2nd season, our theme music and post production editing was provided by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. To learn more about Daniel, or to hire him for your next music gig, check out his Facebook page. I hope you enjoy this conversation! If you do, please give us a rating and review in your podcast store.The post 46. The Genome of SEEQS, with Buffy Cushman-Patz appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

Dan Gaudiano is the Academy Science Department Head at Punahou School. He has a BA in geology from Colgate University. At the University of South Carolina Columbia he earned an MS in geology, and then a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT). Dan has written in scientific journals, authored scientific papers, been a coastal geologist and a scientific researcher. He was the lead coordinator for a water conservation project in Hawai’i and has been a curriculum resource teacher with an emphasis on technology integration. (Catch this article in the Punahou Bulletin to know more about ways Dan thinks “beyond the classroom.”) A number of my colleagues have mentioned Dan’s seminal presentation on student stress at the 2019 Schools of the Future Conference. Most of all, what you get from reviewing Dan’s body of work so far is that he cares deeply about kids and learning. There is no doubt that he has a growth mindset and is continually developing his teaching practice. In this interview Dan and I talked about inch deep and a mile wide, vs. posthole learning. We talked about student travel and his own trip to Samoa as part of the Malama Honua voyages. We went deep into capstone projects, design thinking, competency-based learning and what it takes to build communities of practice. It was a marvelous conversation. If you like it, please give us a rating and review at your podcast store! As always, this episode was edited by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. Find out more about Daniel at his Facebook page. This series is funded by Ted Dintersmith, the author of the bestselling book, What School Could Be.  The post 45. Coastal Erosion and Other Subjects, With Dan Gaudiano appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

“All Good Things Are Wild and Free” (Henry David Thoreau). As it turns out this episode is four years in the making. At the very start of my work with Ted Dintersmith and his film, Most Likely to Succeed, Christina Hoe, a humanities teacher at Le Jardin Academy, reached out to me via an intermediary and asked to bring all 77 of her students to my 2nd MLTS screening in January, 2016. What followed was a wild and crazy ride that resulted in her students doing a deep dive into education. Four years later, Christina is my interview guest! How cool is that? Editing provided by DG Sound Creations. The post 44. All Good Things are Wild and Free, with Christina Hoe appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.