Pure Manaʻo

Source:  I donʻt know how to cite this. Just look for it on youtube. What is Sacred:  Jason Momoa talks about what is sacred in his own life, how he learns from his children, his mother, his wife, and how he creates the education that his children need. Connections to Current/Future Work: Aside from this being a beautiful man, let's really just talk about how we reach out to the lessons that students come with from their own ohana and honor that as sacred in our own curriculum.

Source:  Meyer, M. (2014). Hoea ea: Land education and food sovereignty in Hawaii. Environmental Education Research 20 :1, pp. 98-101.  What is Sacred: I really hate writing. I am struggling to finish an overdue article and the word count is SOOOOO long for me. I write poems. My dissertation was under 75 pages and they accepted it and published it. So when I keep getting told that I need to publish articles, ugh. I just want to teach. But this short article by Manu Meyer gives me a little more hope. It is a very short article that tells the story of the work that her colleagues do. Her job is just to put her name on it and tell the story.  Maybe I can do that. Just tell the story. Can I do it in poetry form? Connection to Current/Future Work: Write, dammit. 

It's the end of fall semester, my grades are in. This normally means that I need to start reading again. What happened to my daily reading? I got caught up in all the other things I needed to do like battle traffic, go observe lessons, grade papers, sleep. So this is my day to start it up again and I just spent an hour and a half watching this. It was time well spent. Source:  Siebel Newsom, J. (Producer, Director). (2015). The mask you live in  [Motion picture]. United States: The Representation Project.  What is Sacred: This documentary is currently streaming on Netflix. This documentary follows young men and boys as they struggle to navigate the hyper masculinity that is American society. It talks about how to raise a "healthier" generation of young men. The consequences of not doing so will continue to create a society where we outlive our children.  Connections to Current/Future Work: I definitely want to use this as one of my film study...

This video has been on the Facebook feed and it is shocking and disturbing. For me, it just explained my lens in a very dramatic way. It helps me to explain to my student teachers  why I bring up certain students in a middle/secondary classroom. Even if my students felt like they did a great job, and they almost always do a great job in this journey, I notice the invisible students that seem to fly under the radar. I point out the students in their classrooms that I want them to notice too.  I don't know how to explain it. Just watch the video and stop reading this. I watched it and could not keep my eyes off of the blond boy with the headphones. He kept catching my eye. I lost track of the main character. There needs to be more of us in education who hone in on those students, and love them fierce.

Source: Meyer, M. (2013). Holographic epistemology: Native common sense. China Media Research 9 (2), pp. 94-101.  What is Sacred: First, Manulani Aluli Meyer is my mentor. She helped me to formulate my masters thesis at the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo before she left to do work in Aotearoa. The fact that we are both at the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu at this time cannot be circumstance or chance. Therefore, I continue to work with her and I continue to learn with her as part of my own journey toward conscientization (Friere). She is one who speaks in prophecy so it is not always simple to interpret, but this article keeps giving me pause. My understanding is right at the edge. Perhaps I need to first break down my mis-understandings before I can move to connection.  The title is holographic epistemology. As an English teacher who is really a poor reader, I always need to break things down into familiar terms. In other words, I need to make "maps" of languag...

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...