What are they teaching?

Ken and Pono, our youngest, come home from cub scouts and right away Pono says, "Mom, dad says I have to ask you."
Me: Yes?
Pono: What's afterbirth? (Of course I'm eating dinner, but Pono says, Dad said it's the sack for the baby. Did it hurt?
Me: Did having you hurt? Yes. Did the afterbirth hurt? No. Where is this coming from? Is that what you guys were talking about at cub scouts? (Ken's the pack leader - I know he was spending this afternoon trying to figure out what he was covering tonight, but come on.)
Pono: You know that chant about Papa and Wakea?
Me: Yes, (now Ahi's getting involved in the conversation from the other room, I hear him chanting)
O Wakea noho ia Papahanaumoku
Hanau o Hawai'i he moku
Hanau o Maui he moku . . .
Pono: The end of the chant says that Kaho'olawe is the afterbirth. I wanted to know what that was.
Ahi: He 'ula a'o Kaho'olawe - oh yeah, I guess so, afterbirth.
Me: How long ago did you learn about this? Did your kumu translate for you and say afterbirth? Was Kumu Crabbe talking about it?
Pono: No. Kumu Silva talked about it but she said we couldn't ask questions until she was done explaining, but we ran out of time.
Ok - let me process this. Pono had Kumu Silva in 4th grade. He is in 5th grade. I remember helping him memorize this chant and that was last fall, so that means that Pono has been thinking about this afterbirth question for ONE YEAR!

What's going on in school? What are they teaching? I may be old fashioned, but I think that certain things should be taught at school and certain things should be taught at home. How to put the dishes away and feed the dog. . . home lessons. But afterbirth and sex are definitely things that should be taught at school. That's where I learned about it, and what's good enough for me. . . ;-)

Comments

Liana said…

ONE YEAR LATER!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

September 19, 2008 at 12:26 PM

Anonymous said…

Ouch. You know, at my house that's cause to bust out all the anatomy books, and have a mini lesson on childbirthing... which Tyler did (in 5th grade) and it led to a mini lecture. Needless to say, Logan then got really disgusted (was in 3rd grade at the time) and walked away while saying "ohhhh that's GROSS!!!".

September 21, 2008 at 9:38 PM

Kino (an indigenous logic model): post 1 of 4

Passion I have. What I need is to practice my elevator speeches, those short informative program synopses that can be done in the time it takes to ride the elevator. Of course it will take me 4 posts. Post 1: The honua: building on solid ground The Alana culture-based education course is graphically depicted by the above logic model. The honua (green box), the earth, represents the mo'ok ūauhau, the geneology of this program that informs and guides the building of this course. Dr. Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni and her team lay the foundation for culture-based education (CBE) modeling and immersion within the course. Dr. Walter Kahumoku and Keiki Kawaiʻaeʻa, in consultation with Dr. Bernice McCarthy (4Mat) bring to the geneology the work of moenahā, a curriculum planning concept based on the way kupuna taught. Makawalu, literally eight eyes, is a concept practiced by Kaʻimipono Kaiwi and her teachers at Kamehameha Kapālama to encourage multiple perspectives in the standards-b

Tech Tools to Support Formative Assessment in the Classroom

Source: Dyer, K. (Jan. 31, 2019). 75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment. NWEA blog . What is sacred: Normally, when I read an article that I am going to use for class, I highlight citations that are sacred, but this is a different type of article, so what I wanted to do was keep track of apps that I tried in class or am trying and use Dyer's own lens to talk about worth and value in my own classroom. I cannot do 75. I will do 5. Her criteria: S upports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible) When possible, both students and teachers can take the activator role (sometimes teachers need to get things started) 1. Flipgrid allows you, students, families to do a video response (from 15 seconds to now 10 minutes - I love a good upgrade). New in 2020 besides the added time - it used to be maxed at 5 minutes - is the a

Visual Synectics Strategy: Beyond the Icebreaker

To get professional conversations going, one strategy is the visual synectics strategy. The purpose is to select a visual and generate comparisons as a way to foster professional conversations within the table. Our visual options were: Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz , Peter Falk from Columbo , Michael Jordan, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey. The cloze passage for the day was: Learning with other professional educators is like_______________ because_______________. Our tongue in cheek response: Learning with other professional educators is like Dorothy because sometimes we need to realize that we're just not in Kansas anymore, embrace the change, learn through the process, and only then can we find our way back home. Why is this strategy better than an icebreaker? It's not busy work. It guides participants to start thinking as a professional. It's not personal. The word icebreaker connotes that there is ice to be broken. People

Pure Manaʻo

Search This Blog