Posted on: Friday, March 25, 2005

ISLAND VOICES

By Gloria Marie Baraquio

I just returned from the 8th Annual E-school Technology in Education Conference, sponsored by the Department of Education, at the Hawai'i Convention Center. It was a treat to get a break from the classroom, mingle among teachers from the other islands and indulge in the delectable spreads of food. Being a 24-year-old noncertified first-year teacher, I felt quite spoiled and honored to have all expenses paid for this trip to Honolulu from the Big Island.

Coming up on my seventh month in a rural high school special-education classroom — with no prior training — I had become rather burned out. It is quite a challenge to juggle 50 students (with needs ranging from reading disabilities to mental disorders to behavioral problems), with 10 caseloads and Individualized Education Plans, with parent-teacher conferences, with faculty meetings, with training workshops, with certification demands, with my 10th-graders' State Assessment, with the school's accreditation pro-cess, and with daily lesson plans that meet the 75 state content and performance standards. It's a wonder some days that I actually get to teach, let alone enjoy a personal life.

Quite honestly, there have been many moments when I have asked myself, "What am I doing here?"

But this conference surprisingly refreshed me and reminded me why I choose to stay in this field. Tired and jaded by the system, I didn't expect much. Fortunately, I decided to stay and listen. The keynote speaker was Dr. Philip Bossert, CEO of Hawaii High Technology Development Corp., whom I found incredibly knowledgeable and insightful.

Bossert explored the recent trends in customization: custom-designed homes, customized cars, custom-made clothing, custom-made computers, customized pharmaceuticals. And yet, the recent trends in education appear to be in standardization. His questions fueled the entire convention: What types of innovations are currently available, in development, or should be created to allow us to fully customize and personalize the learning process? And what should education be doing to prepare our youth for their future?

I happened to step into a discussion on E Malama Kakou I Na Limu o Ke Kai a Me Na Kahawai, which are two nature conservation projects on Kaua'i, the 'Aliomanu Limu Restoration and the Kapa'a Stream Project. Instead of teachers Kalei Arinaga and Karen Cole simply telling us about place-based education or project-based learning, we had the privilege of fourth-grade students presenting to us, with a computer slide show, what exactly they do.

These children, with poise and humility, with knowledge and confidence, explained how they weigh the limu, how they put it back into the ocean, how they take water samples and measure the pH, and how they record data using their Palm Pilots.

At the end, the children answered questions. I asked one of the students why they put the seaweed back into the ocean. A little nervous, he slowly replied into the microphone, "For the fish. And for the water ... and for us!"

I asked, "Why for us?" The answer seemed almost too easy for him. Then he said, "So we can eat." How bright these kids were at age 9! These students were the evidence of success — they actually understood what they were doing and why they were doing it. Their education in a real setting made their learning very real to them.

So what does this all mean? Well, I'm just a first-year teacher — without certification — so I may not know as much as experienced teachers. But this conference made me realize that I actually know quite a bit. I know firsthand how the system didn't work for me. After 17 years of schooling, earning straight A's as an honor student, I dropped out of college because I realized I could be happy and make lots of money without a degree. Student loans were just putting me in more debt. I learned that I was able to gain so much more education through traveling and working than through stressing over midterms and essays.

Ultimately, I did go back to college. But not to get my degree. School was no longer about getting good grades. Instead, it was how I could use it in my life. Re-entering college was one of the best times of my life. And unintentionally, I graduated with honors in both my department and the university.

We always say let's rethink education, and we have been, for quite some time. We've been trying to solve all these problems in meeting standards, creating a safe environment, increasing attendance and improving behavior, but have we been asking the right questions, for the changing times?

Are we asking the right questions? Instead of punishing students for poor attendance or participation, why don't we ask why they don't want to come? Must the school day be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.? Instead of trying to name the learning disability, why not ask what is wrong with our teaching — or with our expectations? Instead of bringing students up to standards, why don't we first determine if the standards are truly necessary for their future?

Instead of distinguishing between school and the "real world," why don't we make them the same thing? Instead of using so much of the budget on textbooks, why not spend it on personal laptops? What do youth really need for the 21st century?

The conference's theme was "Innovation in an Ocean of Change." In these times, technology and information are moving at an exponential rate, and our youth are smarter than we may think because of all the information that bombards them. We could very well give a 10-year-old her own classroom to teach adults how to navigate the Internet. Soon textbooks may no longer be necessary. Schoolrooms may become obsolete. Education will be everywhere.

These innovations are begging us to think the unthinkable, to dream the undreamable, to do the impossible. We can ride these waves of change, but who's teaching us how to swim?

Gloria Marie Baraquio, who lives in Hilo, is a special-education teacher at a public high school. She wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.