Reflection on this project

After nearly twenty years of teaching, I still feel like a novice.  This project has been a reminder that I will be a lifelong learner of teaching and learning.  My passion for transformative education centers around moving from theory to praxis.  This research is a mirror in many ways.  In it, I see how much more needs to be done to realize the objectives of culture-based teaching.  Yet I am also deeply inspired by the resonance many students find in dialogical experiences.  

Clearly, the disruption of COVID-19 had an impact on what we were able to do in this project.  However, this experience also yielded unexpected opportunities for our investigation of culture and literacy. The situation of quarantine in Hawaii has been a platform for preexisting sociopolitical conflicts of which most of my students are very familiar.  It just so happened that these worked very well with our essential question: In what ways do stories shape our lives?  During our online sessions, we had robust conversations about what it means to live in these islands during a pandemic.  Critical issues such as homelessness are exacerbated, while at the same time the spirit of aloha and community has been exemplary.  All of these experiences and observations are integral to culture-based learning.  In my school, it was decided that none of the classwork would be graded during distance learning.  I was afraid of how this might affect my ability to collect data, that students would not be engaged.  To my surprise, a significant amount of my students not only participated in class, but they also connected with the texts and reflected deeply on the topic.  I had several parents contact me to say how happy they were about what their students were saying about this assignment.  

Something that I am already aware of was also evident in this experience: timing.  I am very passionate about my work, but this often creates a backlog of tasks as a result of my biting off more than I can chew.  Simply put, I never feel like I am ready to finish.  I have made improvements over the years in recalibrating my planning, but there are still many more improvements I need to make.  This is not just a personal issue, it has direct connections to the learning outcomes for my students.  I am looking forward to reflecting further on the outcomes of this project and making necessary adjustments.

I was disappointed that another year has gone by in which I was not able to fully implement the culture-based ELA units I have been working on.  There is one element of culturally responsive teaching that came to mind during this project, and that is the importance of recruiting and retaining teachers who share the culture of their students.  As much as I consider myself a cultural worker well versed in critical pedagogy, I am still not a Kanaka (Native Hawaiian) and I know that it would take many years of consistent teacher research and practice to be proficient in meeting the needs of my Hawaiian learners.  Still, I am always humbled by the extreme generosity of my students and their families.  The love I have been shown in Hawaii has been overwhelming at times.  This might not be the most academic thing to say, but I am completely convinced that love is the key ingredient to meeting any learning objective.