Pure Manaʻo

I saw this on Instagram just as I was thinking about a way to get our alumni and early career teachers to think about their challenges in a way that "reframes" the source of their challenge. I noticed a pattern last quarter where the source of the challenges seemed to be other people (mostly the other adults in the school ranging from parents, colleagues, department chairs, mentors, administration). @authenticallylearning posted this caption with the image above: Taking a moment to do a self check-in is so important for us as teachers and leaders. It’s truly a form of self care. Celebrate your wins, forgive your mistakes or others, and enjoy your well deserved two days off. Take care of yourself, teacher leaders! Happy Saturday! 💜🙃 What is Sacred I think taking time to actually finish these starter sentences above helps to reframe our perspective. It allows us to get out our frustration but quickly reframes to a more compassionate and healing space.  I would lik...

I  have moved from doctoral student to dissertation chair in five years. It is a scary leap (or in this case, PLUNGE) into the unknown. I learn from the other chairs. I seek advice from my mentor and I laugh nervously when the program asks me to talk about things like my theoretical lens or my methodology. But I go into those scary, dark corners and learn as fast as I can because there are doctoral students that rely on me to get it together and figure out ways to help them meet these head splitting deadlines that seemed easier for me when I was the student. I can control myself. I cannot control anyone else. I know how to push myself to get my act together. I talk about this semi abusive self talk here a lot. But how to show both compassion and actionable support for others is difficult. I am trying not to fall apart. First, our Ed.D. program incorporates two (2) capstone projects in their 3-year cohort program. What that means is that besides spending about a year in a consu...

While I am saddened by the loss of Toni Morrison (2/18/31 - 8/5/19), the power of a writer is that their message lives on to teach more generations in the future.  When I heard that she had passed, I thought about those students I had that were assigned her books for summer reading in my AP Language class back in the 90's. I assigned Bluest Eye  one summer and Beloved  another summer. I always held my breath until school started because I thought that if I were ever challenged by a parent or an administrator for my controversial choice, I would go down swinging and be willing to be fired for my choices. I also wonder what my students really thought about my choices.  I saw one of my alumni a few years back and she said that what she remembered from my AP class was that I had them read the most interesting, non traditional literature. Nice! I even gave my youngest son Beloved   to read when his 8th grade English teacher said she wanted them to r...

This may be an odd post to go here since I have a blog for books, however, Minding the Middle is a blog for books that will appeal to the middle level reader so that I can keep track of possible book talk novels and graphic novels. This book is not a middle school book unless there is a middle schooler who is really into tidying up or becoming a clutter consultant. So why here?  When I am at my most creative, I am messy. My office space reflects the multiple strands I have going on in my brain, but as this book relates, my mess is a temporary mess and easily tidied up in 5 minutes.  So why here? When I talk about self care to my incoming student teachers, and the importance of self care in the last semester when even for the strongest teachers, life comes crashing down all at once, the lessons from this book are what I want them to learn. Perhaps in the semester before student teaching, we need to focus on tidying up and finding what sparks joy and rel...

I had an opportunity last semester to propose a workshop for the AMLE (Association for Middle Level Educators) Hawaiʻi Summit. I knew I wanted to create opportunities for them to lead and share even if they were still students. I have had these students for three years. I have nothing more to give them but my support. It is time to throw the babies out and just enjoy the show. In my usual nebulous way I let them know I was writing something for them to present. I then said I got accepted and put the memo out to see who wanted to come and present. Whoever said yes, not I guess, not maybe, came with me.  Here is the write up: Title:  Our Keiki Are ʻOno! Strand:   Hawaii Lighthouses Description: The University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu middle level and secondary teacher preparation program focuses on the idea that we want to produce teachers who believe that keiki are ʻono and our student teachersʻ kuleana, obligation, is to create the pilina, the relationships ...

As I continue to reflect on a humanities conference that I just attended, I understand better why I got my two graduate degrees in education and not in English to match my BA. The problem that I have with literary scholarship is that sometimes we have to forgive the improbable, seemingly fantastical leaps in critique. As a poet, I would always be astounded when I would do a reading and someone waits around for me to tell me that they know how this character feels because (and then they give me their interpretation). Sometimes the connection is so bizarre that I am not sure where they are getting that connection from and I find myself going through my pieces again trying to find that reading that is invisible to me. However as someone who has been made to feel stupid, literally told "that's wrong, stupid" I also need to honor Rosenblatt's argument that each reading is a transaction between the reader and the text and this interaction is unique to the reader. To me...

An open letter to my LʻArts, I took a photo at the conference I was at this weekend just so you know which time and place I'm talking about. You folks were invited but no one could make it. That's not what I am writing about, but it's to give context. My mom, the original L'Art saw this on FB and said Leahi looked like a turtle popping its head out of the water. After 3 days and sitting through 33 papers/presentations, I think this is an apt metaphor for what I wanted to write about.  It's going to get convoluted because "plenty are the doubts that cloud my mind. . .merciless, merciless time is wasted on the young. . ." is blasting in my ears on loop as I'm writing this (Fly My Pretties - Mud and Stardust by A Girl Named Mo, String Theory) The honu (turtle) metaphor - this was a new conference for me but especially when I don't have to pay, I like to take advantage of professional development that at first does not seem to fit in ...