Pure Manaʻo

  I am currently taking a Google AI basics course and have reached the "play with generative AI" phase. A central theme of the course is the importance of a "human in the loop" approach—emphasizing human oversight and the value of an iterative process. Questions to ask when evaluating an AI workflow Is the task generative?   Yes. I was tasked with creating a social media post using generative AI tools—Gemini for the text and Gemini's image generation tools for the photo. Can the task be iterated on to achieve the best outcome?  Yes. For the photo, the tool asked for a selfie, but I uploaded a group photo instead. The AI flagged that it wasn't a selfie, but offered to crop/isolate one person from the group. For the text, once I had the image I wanted, I asked Gemini for a caption prompt. The initial output didn't quite match the mood of the photo, so I described the image in more detail and refined the request. I then selected a concise paragraph from ...

Background: These final questions came out of an Indigenous Mixed Methods Convening held as a post conference workshop for the 50th Pacific Circle Consortium Conference, May 19-23, 2026 on the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa campus. At the end of the day, these are the four questions to chew before we were sent home to ponder further.  Source: For question 1, we were given the appendix from the Moanaroa Pacific Research Guidelines, a publication out of the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Moanaroa Pacific Research Network:  https://moanaroa.aut.ac.nz/pacific-research-guidelines As our own collective, we were just given the appendix:  Moanaroa Pacific Research Guidelines_Appendix The question and my thinking-out-loud sense-making (a dialogic with myself) are based on Table 1, "Examples of Pacific Methodologies," in the Appendix.  He Nīnau: What stands out to you in Moanaroa Pacific Research? He Manaʻo: Based on a quick glance and a few deeper dives -- • Tonga and S...

Now that I am of that age where retirement is closer than the climbing years, I often think about this idea of legacy. Like Ozymandias, does my ego get left behind like a plaque outside of my former teacher's room "This room belonged to Ms. *&%$# who taught from this room for 50 years." The plaque does not talk about her disdain for us brownies, or the way her red pen slashed through our essays like a knife carving out vitriol with each stroke. It does not talk about her blatant racism towards us dumb Hawaiians or the colonizing arrogance that she, not even an English major, was the best choice to enlighten the illiterates.   If the generational trauma she left behind  is what a legacy is about, let me walk quietly through the exit doors, silent as the mist, anonymous as a shadow.

When I am weary, I remember a picture of my grandmother, Mary Uilani Kaumeheiwa Sodetani. She is sitting on the puʻunene with her feet up  Her long legs stretched out toward the ʻAuʻau Channel Her blue bandana Her long, brown arms clasped gently around her stomach Her eyes looking into her beloved yard. Once as a young child, after some nasty comments my grandfather said to her, and after his swearing that stuck out to my young ears  as sounding very much like the way my father talked to my mother, I asked grandma, "why do you let him talk to you like that?" Her eyes were tearless, steady. She looked at me and the sides of her eyes crinkled and her mouth, in the side smirk said,  "I just let it go one ear, and come out the other." I thought as a kid it was a way of forgetting. As she stared into her yard in that picture, I always thought it was what Sandra Cisneros described in House on Mango Street, "My Name," She looked out the window her whole life, the...

  Photo by Daian Gan Pexels Author's note: what color is nothing? was the prompt that led me to this rabbit hole. I'm not sure what I want to do with this. I am thinking I would like to know what unexpected lessons others have learned about themselves through teachers. I feel like the dumb girly is a different piece or I need to weave it better into the end in order to justify the space I give to the dumb girly thing.  In 7th grade art class, Ms. Glazer taught us about mixing water colors, the color wheel and the potential of water. She also told me that I was not an artist. It stopped my random doodling on the margins of my Holly Hobbie journal. It made me hesitant when I had to take industrial arts in 8th grade because we had to design a t-shirt for silk screening. How do I design on silkscreen when I have lost the ability to art?  Despite my lack of talent in art, I did remember that black can represent the presence of all colors. White is colorless. But at the end of ...

  My first job out of high school was as a student assistant with the pig eradication team at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. As a 17 year old, I was trained to trap, radio collar, and chase after wild pigs in the rainforest. I was assigned to the scientists, but I also accompanied the hunters and their dogs. I learned enough to know that I did not want to spend my career in green rubber boots and muddy jeans, but the lessons I learned from the wild boars have stayed with me in my 30 plus years in education. Pigs are very similar to humans and their bodies are studied in place of humans because of this. We have deemed this knowledge ethical to humans. Not necessarily ethical to pigs. I learned that humane treatment goes beyond just humans. The ʻāina, the kai, the animals, the birds, the fish are all sacred and have as much mana as the kanaka. How we treat each living entity defines our own humanity.  Wild pigs are vegans. I used to be a vegan. It was a lot of work. I used to ...

  Author's Note: This is going to be about how I got into teaching as a 3rd generation teacher. I guess I was fighting being a teacher, but my experiences outside of teaching led me to the fact that teaching was always going to be the choice. I have not regretted the acceptance of my role in the 30 plus years that Iʻve been doing this.   At 17, I was a pig hunter for the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Well, actually, I was a pig trapper, pig radio collar "hunter," bait girl, pig mama. I did not accompany the hunters and scientists with a gun, knife, rope. Just me and my green rubber boots, Leviʻs 501 button downs, and my favorite purple and pink Izod shirt.  On the day that one of my snares caught and killed a pig, my title changed to forensic science assistant. At 17, the title made me important enough to drive the official national park F150, pick up the police forensics guy at Kilauea Military camp at 7 am, open the evacuation locks, trek him through the rain forest ...

  Author's Note: I'm not sure what the story will be. I ended my first independent writing time with the first two lines and perhaps an idea that I would be writing about the things I lost in the fire, or maybe things I gained from the fire.  After the daily conversation about the prompt with teachers talking about events like 9/11 and Columbine, it seems to be the beginning of  a connection with some national/international shared traumas and how that linked to my own life and also shifted at that moment how I choose to live life. I am letting this just reveal itself so any feedback is welcome as I try to see what sticks.  6/5/24 On the night Lahaina burned, August 8, 2023, Tuesday, I dreamt about my great grandfather's church burning as if I was somehow in the graveyard looking toward Lahainaluna Road only to wake up to the photo of the Waiola Church social hall burning. Not a dream, more like a portal that opened up, or my spirit traveling to say goodbye one last t...

  6/4/24 Anna's last day was Friday, May 31, 2024 She collected all of her gifts and notes from her students Took pictures with her seniors who she had as freshmen four years ago Turned in her keys and walked away from her Georgia classroom made up of predominantly  black and brown students  who needed her to stay. She is not (really) leaving because of the constant shift of politics/policies/procedures of her school district She survived that. She is not (really) leaving because she suddenly lost her colleague and mentor last year, her marigold. She survived that. She is not (really) leaving because of the overwhelming needs of her students  Who continue to need her even after they have left her class.  She did this tearfully because she was both too empty and too full to stay another year. She is going to graduate school for counseling in the fall Her next dream is to do horse therapy for children and young adults. She sees this as a failure on her part. ...

  Photo by Brent Keane 6/3/24 The first sign. On Sunday the earthquakes started along Kilauea 4.0 on the surface, but  20 miles down the road in Hilo, only a community alert on my husbandʻs phone  gave us any indication that Pele was waking up from nap. The second sign.  On Monday morning, during a 4 am Zoom class, Lava, Pele, was fountaining out of an old rift zone Her glow calling locals and tourists alike out of bed like a siren luring sailors onto her rocks. By 10 am she was done, leaving only a shower of sulfuric smoke to mark her path across the new black pahoehoe. Third sign. On Monday evening, Kanehekili, brother to Pele and Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, born from the mouth of Haumea rolls into Waiakea and Hilo bringing his thunder, lightning, rain. The sky lights up the Panaewa forest outside my home rain stomping on our totan roof and waking my moʻo who calls out for me as I try to compose this poem.  ---------------------- Anarchy - non recognition of authorit...

  Dear English Language Arts Methods candidates, As you enter your senior year, student teaching, licensure, degree, your own classroom, I thought that the most loving thing I could do as your professor is give you summer reading. So ʻONO! (and I am not being facetious, it really will be utterly delicious) Choosing summer reading options when I taught Advanced Placement in high school as well as when I taught 8th grade was really the most joyful thing I did during spring break. Your first lesson is to always give readers choice  (a) and try to make the choices as diverse and disruptive  (b) for the scholars that will be coming into your classrooms. If you feel like literature may be so deliciously challenge worthy that you need to send a parent letter home, or even that for a little bit you are afraid that you may be fired. . .well you are heading in the right direction. Choosing summer reading options gives you a chance to dream about your students that you do not yet kn...

  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 ...

  Source: Garcia, A. & Dutro, E. (2018). Electing to heal: Trauma, healing, and politics in the classrooms. English Education, 50 (4), 375-383.  What is Sacred: As teacher educators, we have to find a way to navigate in the dark spaces of fear and pain that crease the fabric of our work, noting the intersections between our disciplinary commitments, theoretical traditions, and democracy. What does it mean to do teacher education and study literacy in a democratic society in which the lives of many are continually disenfranchised? We need to locate the political in our work, and l ocate ourselves within it . We need to find places to highlight how classrooms are spaces of inclusion and oppression, are spaces that value and actively resist diverse identities, histories, and knowledges. This is a moment that can and must be harnessed for change, for coalition building, for electing to heal  (p. 382). Connection to current/future work: More training on "trauma-informed p...

  Source:  Worlds, M. & Miller, H. (2019). Miles Morales: Spider-Man  and reimagining the canon for racial justice. English Journal, 108 (4), 43-50.  Gist: The authors argue that racial hierarchies and oppression in the English classroom will continue as long as teachers continue to hold the literary canon as the standard for what must be taught. They conclude that "reimagining the canon with books like Miles Morales: Spider-Man can begin to splinter the racial hierarchy that reigns over English curricula.  What is sacred: When left unchallenged, the canon is a weapon of the colonial project, which perpetuates Eurocentrism and violence against people of color (Durand and Jimenez-Garcia) English language arts classrooms must be sites to name, challenge, and ultimately dismantle oppressive systems.   Connection to current/future work: The EDSE 428, which is my secondary English/language arts methods course, was able to have conversations around ...

  With all this time at home in the midst of this pandemic, I would have thought that I had more time to read, and the direct opposite has happened. Not sure why this is happening to me, but I am trying to push through and get back to a reading and writing schedule by starting with small articles and small posts. Source:  My daily reading queue is over a year long, so I started with this brief coaching post by Elena Aguilar (July 20, 2017), brightmorning (I think it is a blog post that turned into a pdf in my email). Gist: This is just a reminder that in order to be an effective coach, practice talking less.  What is Sacred: When training mentor teachers, I often have to first make them aware of the continuum of "coaching" so they are aware of moving from consultant (lots of talk from mentor, lots of "you should. . ." or "I would. . .") to true cognitive coaching where most of the talking, problem solving and ahas are done by the person being coached.  If ...

Na wai ke kupu o ʻoe? Whose sprout are you? Whose child are you?     As I prepare to start  fall semester in a few weeks, I go through the same motions that I have for the past 28 years. I create my syllabus, gather my resources, go over my notes from the year before, create my semester plan, my units, my day one lesson. This rhythm is familiar. But there is nothing familiar about this school year. In this year of pandemic, the new normal is that there is no normal. When our leaders shut the schools down at spring break, when planes stopped flying, businesses closed, when all we had was each other on the other end of a Zoom call to understand that there was a world outside of our house, we were just playing at normalcy because the end of the tunnel was summer when schools would be out, when we would flatten the curve, when we could start opening up again. As long as we could see the light at the end of the tunnel (June 1, July 1, August 1. . .) we could talk ourselves int...

We are living in new realities. I am caged on a dining room table where Zoom classes and meetings take up so much of my time that I have difficulty being present, sitting down, staying focused. Still, my job is to take this new normal, create a hybrid of synchronous and asynchronous content to engage students in learning through relevant grappling, deep dive discussions and minds on - hands on practice. The article Open Pedagogy by DeRosa & Jhangiani guides me to the intentional transformation of content to distance education (our new normal). "Open Pedagogy," as we engage with it, is a site of praxis, a place where theories about learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures. A site of praxis! When the public schools shut down in Hawaiʻi, thus shutting out our over 100 teacher candidates out of their practicums, what we missed most was our site of praxis. Th...

When our schools closed down right after spring break, I was worried about the 28 student teachers that suddenly had no classroom to practice in. With 5 weeks left of the semester, as faculty, we suddenly needed to advocate for our student teachers both with our licensing boards and with the public school mentors who also were in a very precarious space where the information from principals and superintendents changed daily for a little while. These kinds of uncertain times are the best teachable moments for a long time educator like me. It calls for purposeful innovation, calm, and Tim Gunn fortitude to "make it work." What I found out from my student teachers was that they were missing one or two formal observations. These formal observations are our way to help student teachers to "turn the corner." I am not sure how else to describe this phenomenon but I know it when I see it. When student teachers "turn the corner," it is my "all is rig...

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...