July 2020 Newsletter
It’s been a truly incredible, inspiring, murky, rich, and transformative transition from Spring to Summer. On Oʻahu, the twins Māhoe Mua and Māhoe Hope led us through our night skies while Ka Lā passed directly overhead… kau ka lā i ka lolo, a hoʻi ke aka i ke kino, we feel our feels during these times of the brightest of bright suns and moons, welcoming our shadow inwards to calibrate our whole selves in the balance of dark and light. This has been a difficult time for many, and a time of growth for all. We are grateful to the many teachers we have learned from this season of the solstice and zeniths, from the very youngest of your grandchildren to the eldest of your ancestors — each of you that has graced us with your presence in our workshops, classes, talk stories, creativity challenges, and support groups has given us such gifts. We mahalo you for sharing your sparks, stretches and struggles during this time of infinite possibilities.
Inside
Education Incubator
Foundations of ALOHA
Mahalo to all the families and educators who joined us in our very first Foundations of ALOHA cohort guided by the teachings of Auntie Pilahi Paki and Pono Shim. The learning and growing we collectively experienced was so incredible; we are so grateful for those who were able to join us as we sought to deepen our daily ALOHA through the perspectives of Akahai, Lōkahi, ʻOluʻolu, Haʻahaʻa, and Ahonui. We loved hearing how this program was like a home-grown SEL (social-emotional learning) curriculum, infused with and grounded in Hawaiʻi values and culture. Mahalo nui to all of our amazing families, kumu, and community supporters who helped create the community of practice, and to Omidyar ʻOhana, Castle Foundation, and American Savings Bank for your support of this program.
We are about to launch our second round of Foundations of ALOHA, open to previous and new participants! We would love for you (and your ʻohana) to consider taking a few minutes every weekday for 4 weeks to join us in our Foundations of ALOHA cohort for families and teachers. If you are not yet familiar with Pono Shim, the Aloha Response and the Higher Skills Academy, and the teachings of Auntie Pilahi Paki that provide the foundation for that work, this would be a great opportunity to begin your journey into ALOHA. This 4-week program launches on July 6, and aims to engage youth and families in building hearts and minds around ALOHA through a cohort experience with two short daily live zoom sessions (9am and 4pm) and a daily creativity and movement challenge for families to grow and learn together. Sign up at bit.ly/eialoha2 – we look forward to sharing time, practice, and intention with you!
Our goal for this work is to focus on re-establishing our homes, families and selves as centers for healing and learning, grounded in ALOHA. To register for this cohort, please click here. The first 20 new registrants will be receiving a kit of supplies from us to support you in this journey. We look forward to beginning this new ALOHA journey with you! Please email us ([email protected] and [email protected]) if you have any questions.
Creativity Camp & Social Entrepreneurship Experience with Liliʻuokalani Trust
Mahalo nui to mōʻī wahine Liliʻuokalani and our friends at Liliʻuokalani Trust for manifesting the opportunity to work with dozens of talented and inspiring youth during the LT Creativity Camp and LT Social Entrepreneurship Experience! For a month this summer, we worked alongside our LT program leads to develop and lead experiences to support youth in building creative confidence and social entrepreneurship skills.
During the Creativity Camp, youth focused on exploring kit-based learning and engaging in creativity challenges, learning about the Queen, her values, and her teachings. We are grateful to LT leadership in taking a leap with us into stay-at-home learning and doing – the kids created so many wonderful ways to teach the world about the Queen and her legacy, utilizing ancestral, contemporary, digital, and analog technologies. In our Social Entrepreneurship Experience, kamaliʻi studied a few Hawaiʻi social impact enterprises and founders, got a chance to learn more about themselves and their communities, and rapidly ideated a social impact innovation that could be presented to an audience. We loved spending time with the youth and seeing their ideas grow throughout the week – their focus on creating positive connections within their community, spreading Aloha throughout the world in creative ways, and building a community pavilion with garden spaces to promote healthy community living gives us such hope for the future of Hawaiʻi!
Community Innovation Challenges
Also in June, we worked with Sultan Ventures and XLR8HI to host 3 Community Innovation Challenge sprints over 3 weeks – whew! Mahalo to our core partner Hawaiʻi Green Growth for helping to frame the Aloha+ Challenge and Dashboard Sprint, and for setting the vision for a thriving Hawaiʻi that guided the Reinvent Education Sprint, as well as the Regionalizing Innovation week. We enjoyed working with each of the participants and teams as they shaped the 10 presentations that were heard over the course of the 3 week challenge series, and look forward to helping each idea take its next step. Mahalo to Castle Foundation for your support of these programs to diversity our innovation ecosystem!
XLR8YOUTH Youth Accelerator
Following our fun Summer 2019 pilot program in partnership with Sultan Ventures and XLR8HI, we launched our full Youth Accelerator Program last week! The program is 100% virtual, and runs every afternoon for a month. Youth enter with ideas and innovations that they aspire will impact their community, Hawaiʻi, and the world. Through design thinking strategies, customer and market research, prototyping, and enterprise lessons, youth will learn tools and approaches to building their ideas into market-ready innovations. We’re excited to see their ideas stretch and grow!
Project Wayfinder Summer Institute
We spent 4 days with our amazing partners at Project Wayfinder connecting with educators around the world, exploring the new Belonging Toolkit (primarily for middle school) and revisiting activities from the Purpose Toolkit (primarily high school and older). We are grateful for the live sessions, talk stories and panel discussions we were able to participate in and learn from. As Hawaiʻi’s hub for Project Wayfinder, we invite Hawaiʻi educators to contact us at [email protected] for more information on upcoming Project Wayfinder explorations, and other opportunities to join the global community of purpose educators.
Huakaʻi: Mauka to Makai
In honor of World Ocean Month, we partnered with Ocean Safety ʻOhana and Nā Kama Kai to birth Huakaʻi: Mauka to Makai, a program and platform built for and by families in Hawaiʻi supporting safe access and a deeper connection with our island home through local knowledge and Hawaiian values. In this pilot phase, we are exploring a few different regions of Oʻahu, helping families to immerse in special places, learn from amazing people, and experience connection to nature and knowledge in ways that encourage exploration, respect, safety, and stewardship of natural and cultural resources. Mahalo to the team from Pacific Blue Studios and Tapiki LLC for your support in this work! And mahalo to OSO founder Jessy and her ʻohana for including us in this healing journey – may we all explore and revere our lands and oceans safely together!
Education Incubator
Book Nook
The Queen’s Quilt Book by Rhoda E. A. Hackler and Loretta G. H. Woodward
“What Would Queen Liliʻuokalani Do?” is a question we asked our youth and educators to consider as we began this time of home-containment. What would the Queen do from inside the walls of her home? Our ʻimi ʻike journey took us to ʻIolani Palace a few times in the last three months, where we found The Queen’s Quilt book. This book explains in detail each of the patches of the quilt that is displayed at ʻIolani Palace in the very room where Queen Liliʻuokalani was imprisoned in 1895 by the Republic of Hawaiʻi for nearly 8 months. Through this book, we learned about quilting as a practice of journaling. There are so many names, stories, and rich history documented in this quilt that beautifully shares a story of trauma, resilience, and hopes and dreams that Queen Liliʻuokalani had for her people and continues through the legacy she left for our kamaliʻi. Thank you to the Friends of ʻIolani Palace and our friend Paula Akana for inviting us to share and perpetuate the story and teachings of the Queen. We encourage everyone to support Friends of ʻIolani Palace, and learn more about the Queen!
ʻIolani Palace
Did you know that you can visit ʻIolani Palace virtually? The Palace also has some keiki and ʻohana activities and the Palace Shop has so many beautiful pieces you can purchase to support the Palace. Help heal the Palace so that future generations carry on the stories and legacy that the Palace carries.
Hawaiʻi Society for Technology in Education (HSTE)
Are you a teacher who is a little bit overwhelmed with the shifts in classroom teaching during distance-learning? Do you have changes you want to make to your lessons to incorporate more technology? Hawaiʻi Society for Technology in Education leapt into action in March and quickly filled the role of the most incredible, open space for all teachers to join to learn more about new and not-so-new technologies, classroom strategies, and practices to support online and digital student engagement and learning. They have so many lessons and resources; we suggest starting with one thing you want to learn and searching their site for resources. And please follow them on social media to see what new things they are sharing!
Google Jamboard
As educators who have been using Google Apps for more than 10 years, we constantly lean into new tools, sometimes they come and go, other times, they stay. We encountered Google Jamboard a few weeks ago at one of the HSTE sessions and we have been slowly folding it into our practice. Jamboard is a fun way to collaborate with others and is a creative fun space. We especially love the post it options as we learn to work collaboratively while being physically distant.!
Mahalo to everybody for supporting us during these difficult times with your multiple forms of capital! We loved receiving gifts of time, thoughtful feedback, new experiences, knowledge, as well as monetary contributions to our GoFundMe Charity fundraising campaign. We are so grateful for each of you! If you would like to contribute to Education Incubator in any way, please contact us — we would love to hear from you!