Learn how to ground education in Hawaiian ways of knowing so that all Hawaiʻi may thrive

The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association presents an important Office Hours session: ʻĀina Aloha: Rooting content to our beloved Hawaiʻi.

This virtual event took place on Thursday, July 23, via Zoom and featured Kuʻulei Makua, an educational specialist with the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education’s Office of Hawaiian Education (OHE).

View a recording of the session at the top of this page or click here. Please note this recording has been edited for quality and content.

OHE is grounding education in Hawaiian ways of knowing so that all Hawaiʻi may thrive. We look to our Hawaiʻi and ancestral ʻike (knowledge) to plan for our future.

Nā Hopena A‘o (HĀ) is a department-wide framework to develop the skills, behaviors, and dispositions that are reminiscent of Hawaiʻi’s unique context, and to honor the qualities and values of the indigenous language and culture of Hawaiʻi.

Makua explained how educators could use ʻĀina Aloha as a tool to root content to Hawaiʻi, strengthening our HĀ, even as we face new models of hybrid learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

ʻĀina Aloha was developed in collaboration with community and the HIDOE OHE Hawaiian Studies program. ʻĀina Aloha is intended to help educators strengthen our pilina (relationship) to ʻāina (land), and to root our teaching to Hawaiʻi in order to strengthen our identities and sense of HĀ, or breath, by integrating ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language), kuanaʻike (worldview), and honua (place).

Teaching and learning should be connected and have purpose, much like flowers on a lei. We have been given an opportunity to re-evaluate who we define as teachers and what we define as learning spaces. Come learn and share about how ʻāina aloha honors ʻohana (family) and ʻāina as teachers, home as learning spaces or classrooms, and encourages our students to deepen their relationships with their sacred spaces in order to understand the importance of and how to mālama, or become stewards of, our beloved island home.

ʻO Hawaiʻi kuʻu ʻāina kilohana. Hawai‘i is my prized place.

Glossary

ahupuaʻa: Land division usually extending from the uplands to the sea, so called because the boundary was marked by a heap (ahu) of stones surmounted by an image of a pig (puaʻa), or because a pig or other tribute was laid on the altar as tax to the chief. The landlord or owner of an ahupuaʻa might be a konohiki.

ʻāina: Land, earth. ʻai, to eat; ʻaina, kamaʻāina, child of the land

akua: god, goddess, spirit, ghost, devil, image, idol, corpse; divine, supernatural, godly. Among Hawaiians, formerly, the name of any supernatural being, the object of fear or worship; a god.

hōʻihi: Sacred, holy, majestic, dignified; treated with reverence or respect

honua: Land, earth, world, ground, realm, environment, a contained place

inoa: Name, term, title

kanaka: Human being, man, person, individual, party, mankind, population

kuanaʻike: Perspective, position of sight or knowledge

kuleana: Right, privilege, concern, responsibility, duty

mahalo: Thanks, gratitude, admiration, praise, esteem, regards, respect, appreciate

mauli: The essence of spirit, life

moʻolelo: Story, tale, myth, history, tradition, literature, legend, journal, fable, essay, chronicle, record, article; minutes, as of a meeting.

ʻohana: Family, relative, kin group; related

ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi: Hawaiian language

ʻōlelo noʻeau: Proverb, wise saying, traditional saying

pono: To be good and upright; morality, correct or proper procedure

wahi pana: Legendary place

About us

This event is brought to you by SHiNE and HSTA CARES as part of HSTA’s Office Hours, a series of online seminars designed to educate and inform our members on a variety of topics.

Supporting Hawaiʻi’s New Educators (SHiNE)

SHiNE is an HSTA program for members who are new to the profession or new to Hawaiʻi’s public school system.

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HSTA CARES (Culture, Advocacy, Respect, Equity, Support)

HSTA CARES is an initiative developed by HSTA’s Human and Civil Rights Committee to integrate social justice principles into education to create schools and communities that are safe, inclusive, and equitable​ for all keiki. We know Hawaii is a unique, diverse community, and Hawaiian culture is woven intricately into our surroundings and our way of life. Whether you were born and raised in Hawaiʻi or moved here, as educators of this paeʻāina, it is important that we create learning opportunities for our students to connect to the unique culture of our island home.

HIDOE Office of Hawaiian Education

​In February 2015, the Office of Hawaiian Education (OHE) was established under the Office of the Superintendent, a result of a policy audit of Hawaiʻi State Board of Education (BOE) policies pertaining to Hawaiian Education and Hawaiian Language Immersion programs.

Additionally, OHE has also been charged with the task of planning for the implementation of a new ends policy. This policy, known as Nā Hopena Aʻo, will provide for the expansion of Hawaiian education across Hawaiʻi’s K-12 public education system for all students and adults.