The What School Could Be Podcast

Hey everyone, this is the What School Could Be in Hawaii podcast. I am your host, Josh Reppun. From time to time it is my intention to highlight educator voices as they pop up across media platforms in Hawaiʻi. Whether these voices come to my attention in a blog, guest posts on Civil Beat online, op-ed … Continue reading "S2: Teacher Voice Special #1: Matthew Tom"

At the end of this episode Waikiki Elementary School educator, Lory Peroff read the following excerpt from a poem: The people I love the best, Jump into work head first, I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, Who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, Who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, Who do what has to be done, again and again. (Marge Percy “To Be of Use”) In so many ways, Percy’s stanza captures what Lory thinks, what she feels and how she approaches each day with her family, her faculty colleagues and her student learners. On several occasions Lory has described herself as “doing things I didn’t know I couldn’t do.” Amen, Lory! Lory’s journey, in this episode, starts with the Pease Corps in Uzbekistan, moves to Tonga, then to Boston and ultimately to Hawaiʻi. Along the way her focus is relentlessly on kids. She has taught 4th and 5th grade in Honolulu and in Taiwan. Her undergraduate degree, from the University of Colorado, is in the arts and psychology. She has a masters in elementary education from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she earned a 4.0 GPA. While at the University of Colorado she did an exchange program in Ghana, West Africa. Lory has lived and worked on multiple continents. Her worldview is expansive and she has great range. Lory is an advocate for teachers as writers, and has written extensively on life and learning for Honolulu Civil Beat, Medium, Education Week and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She is a distance swimmer and runner, and loves to travel. Most of all, Lory is hugely respected in public, private and charter school circles in Hawaii. Her voice is clear and strong. She is #publicschoolproud and a leading light for whole child instruction. (Post production and original theme music provided by Daniel Gilad at DG Creations. To learn more about Daniel’s work, or if you are interested in hiring him for your next music gig, email him at dgcreations808@gmail.com or navigate to his Facebook page.)The post 43. The Epic Journey of Lory Peroff, So Far appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

Matthew Lynch and I recorded this interview back on March 24th, just as the Covid-19 “shelter-in-place” lockdown began in Hawaiʻi. What we planned to do in person suddenly had to be done via Zoom. The resulting audio is pretty sketch, but wow, Matthew and I covered some serious ground over a 90-minute conversation. Matthew is the Director of Sustainability Initiatives for all 10 campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system. Four years ago we met at a special Ted Dintersmith-hosted gathering at PBS Hawaiʻi. At the time I recall Matthew telling me, to my utter astonishment, that the UH systems had no sustainability degree. In Hawaiʻi? What? Matthew’s job at the time partially included helping students cobble together classes that might result in the perception of sustainability expertise. Since then, wow!, Matthew has come along way and accomplished so much. To know the details of his journey you will need to listen to the episode! Over 90 minutes Matthew and I covered a range of topics, including ways Covid-19 will profoundly change living, and learning at every level. Matthew also serves as the President of the Board of Directors at Kahumana Organic Farm, and as Sustainability Measures Co-Chair on the Board of Directors for Hawaii Green Growth, which is a public-private partnership. The Office of Sustainability at the University of Hawaiʻi functions as a backbone organization, working across UH campuses to complement, support and enhance the incredible sustainability work that has been emerging over the past decade. Matthew’s office provides coordination capacity for campuses to share information and resources with each other and accelerate action to strengthen the environmental, social, cultural and economic health of our islands’ communities. To learn more about Matthew’s work, click on the University’s website. Post production for the What School Could Be in Hawaiʻi podcast is provided by Daniel Gilad at DG Sound Creations. Daniel is also the musical director for our episodes. His original music creations are sprinkled throughout the episode timeline. To learn more about Daniel’s work, or to hire him for your next music gig, email him at DGcreations808@Gmail.com, or visit his Facebook page.  The post 42. Matthew Lynch, Building Sustainability Initiatives appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

Daniella Lopez White is a graduating senior, Class of 2020, at James Campbell High School on the West Side of Oahu. She is also a member of the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders. On December 1st, 2019, well before our Covid-19 pandemic began and before Hawaiʻi moved to distance learning, Ms. White wrote a column in … Continue reading "Student Voice Special #1: Daniella Lopez White"

Imagine a place where your lead elementary school teacher is a trained ballerina with a propensity for breaking out the dance moves during a lesson. Look no further than Maui and Heather Baylosis, a creative, imaginative and innovative teacher at Hawaiʻi Technology Academy’s Maui Campus. HTA is a seven-campus public charter school (on four islands) that uses a blended learning model. Over more than an hour’s interview Heather and I ranged across topics related to blended learning, differentiated instruction, distance learning in the time of Covid-19, teaching the “whole child” and team building at the elementary level. Editing by DG Sound Creations. The post 41. When Your Teacher is a Trained Ballerina, with Heather Baylosis appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

In Part 2 of this episode, Brian Dote, the Chief Innovation Officer at Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawaiʻi, dives deep into ideas and concepts around educator professional development, the so-called “21st century transcript,” the wild and wonderful things happening at Waipahu High School, how he deliberately and intentionally worked to develop his skills, habits and dispositions, and his proximity to the Black Swan event that was the first iPhone. Editing provided by DG Sound Creations. The post 40. Here’s to the Crazy Ones, with Brian Dote (Part 2) appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

Brian Dote has been orbiting near “Black Swan” (type) events all of his professional life. To qualify as a “Black Swan,” an event has to be: Completely unpredictable and rare: Hugely impactful: People love to say after the event, we saw it coming (which they didn’t). Brian worked on Steve Jobs’ team that designed, built and launched the first iPhone, which changed the arc of and accelerated the course of history. He also worked near the center of the Human Genome Project, which equally changed mankind’s understanding of…mankind. Later in his career, he was selected as Mid-Pacific Institute’s (a cutting edge independent school in Honolulu) first Chief Innovation Officer, where, over five years, he shifted its faculty and students into exploration of virtual and augmented reality, maker mindsets, artificial intelligence and enhanced robotics. Along the way he was named as one of Hawaiʻi Business Magazine’s “20 for the Next 20,” meaning an influential figure who will help shape the future of the 50th State for decades to come. At Brian’s LinkedIn page we read: “Shall we play a game? How about a nice game of chess? Ahhh WOPR. =) I was a child of the 80s and from the popular movies of my youth spawned a love for computers and programming. I had a voracious appetite for all things programming. In elementary school I learned AppleSoft BASIC and programmed my own Choose Your Own Adventure/Zork games. In high school I went on to learn FORTRAN and satisfied my senior year math requirement by taking a class in “computer math.” Neither I nor my teacher knew what that heck that was, LOL, but it was a lot of fun and since then I’ve always been a life-long learner. I strongly believe, if you are not learning, you’re dying. And I’ve got too much left to do to die now! After getting my Master of Science in Information Systems, I made my way to Silicon Valley and worked at a DSL provider, bioinformatics/genomics/proteomics company, Cisco Systems, and finally, at Apple. I have a passion for innovation and problem-solving and I’m always the person in the room that tries to use a different lens to solve the hard problems. I aim to leverage my diverse toolbox of skills and experiences to bring a unique perspective. That’s how I ended up with five USA patents for my work on the amazingly talented team building some of the first mobile web software for the world’s first iPhone. I am the lead mobile developer (iOS/Swift) at Ecobot, an early stage startup that has received $1.1 million in funding to-date. Ecobot allows environmental consultants to swiftly enter field data via their mobile device, access the data for report building, and automatically generate regulatory PDFs. I have a strong passion for the intersection of technology and education and I love to provide time and expertise in these areas. I am a board member of the Education Incubator, a member of the Innovation Committee at PBS Hawaii, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Academy of Industrial & Engineering Technology at Waipahu High. I was a 2017 honoree in Hawaii Business Magazine’s 20 for the next 20 and a Webby Honoree for my web development work on Springfield Town Center in 2009. My specialties include: UI and UX design, customer journey mapping and workflows, Swift development for iOS, visual design, responsive design principles, website optimization, CMS, JavaScript, AJAX, HTML, CSS, Git/Github, DevOps principles, JIRA, Confluence, and an enthusiastic Slacker, err, user of Slack. While I don’t know everything, there is nothing I can’t learn, and master quickly. Except maybe baking. To learn more about why Brian was named “20 for the Next 20,” click here. The post 39. Here’s to the Crazy Ones, with Brian Dote (Part 1) appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

In one of my longer episodes Robyn Vierra, the Director of Global Education at Punahou School, and I range across a wide variety of subjects, including a day in the life of her 4th grade classroom, what it really means to have a global perspective, the dangers of “keeping it simple” during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, models of distributed work in this 21st century, Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities,” competency-based learning and what it means to let kids be the change they want to see. Robyn is also the Associate Director of the Wo International Center at Punahou School. Editing provided by DG Sound Creations. The post 38. Being the Change They Want to See, with Robyn Vierra appeared first on @WSCBPodcast.

Meet Rob, Colin, Abbie and Miki, collectively known as the Cacace family. Colin and Abbie are a couple of wonderful rowdy kids, Rob works at the Myron B. Thompson Public Charter School and Miki is OUR Hawaiʻi 2019/2020 Milken Family Fund Award winner from Ewa Makai Middle School. It is hard to put into words what Miki has already accomplished in her career as a teacher, guide, mentor, coach. All the boxes – student agency, experiential learning, teacher collaboration, intentional design, problem-based learning, challenge-based learning, social and emotional inclusion, product-based learning, individualized inquiry, teacher as marketing agent – have already been checked. But Miki, in so many ways, is just getting started, which is what the folks at the Milken Family Fund recognized this year. More than anything, Miki desires a strong connection with her students, which is not an easy thing in a middle school with 1400 students. But under the guidance of one of Hawaii’s truly brilliant public school leaders, Ewa Makai Principal, Kim Sanders, she is making manifest a phrase that can all too often come off as cliché: Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. My middle school experience was dismal at best. One of the outcomes of preparing for this episode, and interviewing Miki, was that I longed to be back at school and in her coding classes. This is the highest compliment I can pay her! From the online announcement of Miki’s award by Milken, we get these awesome words: “In Miki Cacace’s yearlong coding class at Ewa Makai Middle School in Oahu’s Ewa Beach district of Honolulu, students learn by doing rather than watching. They create games and apps, wire their own micro: bits and troubleshoot device issues, building foundational skills they will need for 21st century careers. Cacace, a math teacher, volunteered to expand her curriculum with the coding class. Students had already chosen their electives, but Cacace promoted the new class during lunchtime, selling it as a fun and exciting alternative. Students signed up in droves, knowing that whatever Cacace was teaching, they were in good hands. She developed the curriculum with a combination of three days of summer training, resources from Project Lead the Way and Code.org and her trusted cache of instructional strategies. Cacace’s students invite friends to try out their apps, offer constructive suggestions and vote for their favorites. Cacace showcases the group’s work at Coding Night, where parents and siblings check out students’ creations. In Cacace’s class, students build confidence and practice problem-solving, decision-making and collaboration skills. During field trips to the Microsoft and Apple stores, students talk to professionals about their STEM backgrounds. Many of Cacace’s students start the year unsure of how their studies connect to their future lives and careers; Cacace bridges that gap. Building a pipeline of students who excel in computer science is a priority: Cacace is working with her peers at the district’s elementary and high schools to create a K-12 computer science program, and an advanced coding class for Ewa Makai has been established as well. She mentors new teachers and is an active member of CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association).” To learn more about Miki, click here. FYI, this episode was recorded via phone bridge to a studio in Hawaiʻi during the Covid-19 crisis. My thanks to Daniel Gilad for engineering the audio at Thunder Studios Hawaiʻi. The post 37. Miki Cacace, OUR Hawaii Milken Award Winner appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .

I first met Justin Brown four years ago at a small Most Likely to Succeed film screening at West Hawaiʻi Explorations Academy just outside Kona. After the film, Justin (who mentors, guides and coaches kids in Kealakehe High School’s CTE, STEM and maker spaces) sat at the far end of a small panel examining the essential questions raised by Ted Dintersmith’s film. He spoke last in the first round and I recall being instantly blown away by his global understanding of public, private and charter school education. Justin is already a big guy with a big and bushy red beard, but heart is the size of California. He cares deeply about the kids he teaches and guides. He believes deeply in their agency, their ability to chart their own courses. He believes kids are complicated bundles of potential energy waiting to be unleashed at “school.” At conferences and gatherings over the past four years I have seen Justin do things with kids that put him way, way outside the box. He says, in this interview: “Improv is the defining skill of the 21st century. Empathy is the defining mindset of the 21st century.” How’s about them apples? In this episode Justin and I explore some of the biggest questions (IMHO) of education today. Why don’t more kids like school? What does it mean to fly a plane while building it? Are we preparing kids for the complex moral and ethical questions of 2020 and beyond? What about upskilling, and reskilling preparation in schools? What will “school” be in 10 or 20 years? What’s the role of the generalist and the specialist here in the 21st century? And much more. From Justin’s resume we get: “Justin Brown currently serves as the CTE Coordinator, STEM Academy Director, and lead adviser to over two dozen STEM & Citizenship programs at Kealakehe High in Kona, Hawaii. Traveling frequently with students, Mr. Brown was the lead advisor for over 40 competitions last year and his team won several births to international championships. Coming from five generations of educators, he has planned to work in education policy since the age of 10. Before entering the classroom, Mr. Brown worked as a jazz/classical bassist and believes that improvisation remains the essential skill for 21st-century success. He is an ASCD National Emerging Leader: Stanford FabLearn Fellow: Lemelson-MIT Excite Award Recipient: Woody Flowers Recipient: Hope Street Group State Fellow: National Board Certified Teacher.” To learn more about Kealakehe HS click here. This episode was edited by Marlon Utrera Jr., a 7th grader at Kealakehe Intermediate School near Kona. The post 36. Fasten Your Seatbelts: It’s Justin Brown Time appeared first on @MLTSinHawaii .