Pure Manaʻo

Source: Friedman, A. (2016, October 28). Can't find a mentor? Look to your peers. New York Magazine. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/cant-find-a-mentor-look-to-your-peers.html What is Sacred: This article is really about the lack of older female mentors, which is not necessarily true in education, but true in other careers. The author's point, though, is to look for peers and create your own what I call mana wahine circle, also known as critical friends.  Her advice:  get vulnerable recognize that some problems are generation-specific amplify each other (amen) find your peers in other fields recommend each other play a long game (peer mentoring is about mutual investment in the long run) Connections to My Current/Future Work: It's not really a connection, just a confirmation of what I knew. Also, that as I get older and have more years in my own career, I need to remember that I need to invest in people that follow, which I try...

Source:  Wilson, D. & Conyers, M. (2016, November 8). "The teenage brain is wired to learn - so make sure your students know it." Edutopia   special series . Retrieved at  https://www.edutopia.org/article/teenage-brain-is-wired-to-learn-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers What is Sacred: I love the word neuroplasticity. It is future-focused, flexible, plastic, stretchy. I see synapses firing off rather than dead connections. It gives me hope in dark days because the concept of neuroplasticity means that our adolescent students have the capacity to change the structure and function of the brain through learning! That is POWERFUL and it is the impetus for us as teachers of middle-level and high school students to not sink into apathy, anger and quiet surrender. We must continue to teach with love and rage without which there is no hope (Friere).  Here's the important messages that the authors want us to relay to our adolescent students:  They have the ca...

Source: Kamenetz, A. (2016, September 19). Sixth grade is tough; it helps to be 'top dog.' nprEd . Retrieved from  http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/09/19/494232646/sixth-grade-is-tough-it-helps-to-be-top-dog?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160925&utm_campaign=NPREd&utm_term=NPR_Ed What is Sacred: This is a review and commentary on a much larger study published in the American Educational Research journal by Schwartz, A., Steifel, L., and Rothbart, M. The study uses a very large data set (n=9,000 students in 500 schools) to study the effects of top dog/bottom dog status on bullying, safety in school, belonging and academic achievement. What they are looking at is the effect on 6th graders of being a top dog in a K-8 school versus a bottom dog in a 6-12 school. The results are that 6th graders report less bullying, feel safer in school and achieve better in K-8 schools. I had an issue with the Kamenetz article, feelin...

These young men are Pono'I and Pono B. My son is on the left. He is a freshman at Reed College in Oregon and I just saw a post on Instagram that he is feeling homesick. As a mother of a Native Hawaiian boy, this is alarming to me. The statistics on our Native Hawaiian students who get into universities or community colleges is pretty good. We can get them in. But the percentage of Native Hawaiian students who drop out after their freshman year is atrocious. We have about a 60% drop out rate after their freshman year. So this is just my letter to him. Dear Pono, I just got a newsletter in my inbox from Reed and I was drawn to the article written by Mylion Trulove, your Dean of Admission. He is the one that called and invited you and talked us through the process.  This is what I found out. There were 5,705 applicants (including you) who applied. Maybe for some this was not their first choice, but I know that Reed was your first choice. They accepted 357 of you. I th...