Multiple Senses of Place and Teaching

Prior to reading any articles or listening to others about what Sense of Place was, I had my own ideas of it. My idea of having a Sense of Place is to have a natural sense for something where one is able to create and predict the actions of the place based off of his/her own experiences and even gut feelings. It would involve us using our five senses, our na'au, and how often we interact with the place that would make us more sensible to it. However, from our readings and other's experiences with this definition, I feel that it is still my own idea, in addition to so much more because everybody's own sense or senses of place is different.

Gruenwald puts his definition of Sense of Place into five categories, Perceptual, Sociological, Idealogical, Political, and Ecological. I feel that these categories do add up to a sense of place because each place is defined individually by each person's perceptions from their experiences, their awareness of society's agreed upon beliefs and ideas of the place, the politics and capital involved with the place, and a person's interactions within the environment of the place. The sentence that you just read is pretty much my definition of Gruenwald's Sense of Place categories. I meshed it all into once sentence because I feel that it is difficult, I would like to say impossible, to only have one idea about a Place. All these things that he talks about shouldn't be separated, but it's all the parts that contribute to a person having a sense of place. So, what matters, to me, is to have an open-mind to everybody's individual sense of place for everything that they respect and are passionately involved with and a way to do that I could see myself doing that is to not individualize, separate, or assume a person's sense of place.

Something was brought up in an online session that I had with the STEMS2 cohort that I can't get out of my head. It was a comment that the military students don't have a sense of place. I was a little bothered by this comment because by making this assumption, we are not being open-minded to the military students' sense of place. From our readings, we should have learned by now that everybody has a sense of place. I feel that our goal as educators is to do our best to educate ALL of our students and one of the best ways to do that is to get all of them involved. Involved could be involved with the school, the community, the society, anything really, but most importantly, involved with their own learning within the classroom.

Yes, students that have recently moved to Hawaii don't have a sense of the culture in Hawaii, but they could have their own sense of place here in Hawaii. Many of my students in Waipahu immigrated here from the Philippines. Heck, half of my family immigrated from the Philippines. My dad moved here when he was four and got adopted by his aunty, while his birth parents and siblings stayed in the Philippines. It wasn't until I was 8 years old and 25 years later for my dad that they moved to Hawaii and have stayed ever since. They did not know the culture, they did not know the area, but they knew their perceptions and ideas of Hawaii as well as the politics of America. For a while, it was actually difficult for me to have a sense of their place as well as they did for mines. They would talk in Ilocano to each other but whenever they'd talk to my family it'd be English. This made me feel left out and it was difficult for me to want to even BE Ilocano, I admit, was somewhat ashamed because they'd always talk Ilocano wherever we went. Looking back now, whenever we went to the beach, they would always feel left out because they never knew how to swim. From realizing our differences in our sense of place, we taught each other the things that we were missing. My dad taught them how to swim and they taught me a little bit of Ilocano as well as how to cook some of the most delicious food. From this experience, I know that I have grown to better have a sense for myself.

I am rambling about my experience because I would like to relate my experience to how it should be within our classroom. If we learn about the different senses of place of our students, then we can build connections and relationships with them that'll enable them to learn in a more positive environment. My students don't even know what the Hawaiian word, " 'ae " means, but they do know how to change a diaper or speak in many other languages that we are even unaware of. Sorry, wanted to say change a diaper because that is the type of environment that many of them do have to live in. Anyways, I feel that if we include our students' senses of place within the classroom then we will have culturally responsive instruction and this will teach the students respect (through modeling) as well as even change their negative perspectives of school and our classrooms. Many of the students coming into my class think that Science is hard and that they don't like it, but when I relate it to things that they do know or are passionate about, then they too become open-minded to learning what I have to offer.

Portrait of Waipahu High School

Hey guys! Here's the link to my portrait, enjoy this video. Took me a while but like my Portrait of Place, I like it :)

https://youtu.be/B38THS9D3qw

Beginning Stages of STEMS2

From what I have learned about making an effective learning environment, the students need to be able to work well together, trust, and to be blunt, like each other. In order for me to get this started, I have taken the Marshmallow Challenge and used it in each of my classes. I used the challenge with minor "tweeks" of not allowing the students to use tape, they would use string and 2 more marshmallows instead, because I had a feeling that a few students may have already done this challenge. From this challenge I got to see some of the students' strengths, weaknesses, like who in my class I could view as leaders and who in the class needs to work on their speaking and teamwork skills. This challenge can be seen as something perfect for Engineers, but it is perfect for any individual that wants to build their teamwork and social skills, which are great skills to have in any job or future goals/plans that the students have. From this, I have noticed the students that worked together in the challenge are more friendlier. Therefore, I plan to create different teamwork challenges throughout the school year so that they each get to experience working with different types of people and personalities, further strengthening their social skills.

Besides teamwork, my science and engineer classes require the students to build their observations skills. Kilo was the perfect word that came to mind. According to wehewehe.org (Hawaiian dictionary, check it out.. click on it.. type a word in.. it's awesome and accurate), the type of kilo that I'm referring to is observing in great detail. Scientists and engineers use this skill to help them with asking questions, solving problems as well as discovering and creating new things. To introduce my Kilo assignment to the students, I asked them if they knew what the word meant. The students that spoke up mentioned kilogram, kilometer, etc. Probably because we just went over the metric system together. I backed up and asked them what language did they think it was. They guessed that the language was Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, French... not Hawaiian! Not one of them guessed Hawaiian. I asked the students where they were from, forgetting to realize that majority of them were born from the Phillippines. So I rephrased my question, where do you live? The response: "America!" The thought "oh dear" went through my head and finally with more pushing they said they lived in Hawaii and I told them that the word originates from the Hawaiian language. The fact that they are not involved with the Hawaiian culture was very surprising to me because I knew a lot about it as I was growing up in Kauai. 

It is sad for me to find that the students live in Hawaii but have no idea of the culture and the language, or even have the thought of "Hawaiian" in their head. The reason for this could be that a lot of the students are immigrant, so they probably know their birth culture really well and haven't had anybody introduce them to the Hawaiian culture yet, gladly, that is what I am here to do. Overcoming my sadness and realizing the reality, I explained the assignment. Whenever kilo is on the agenda, we are all going to go outside for 15 minutes to observe my object/purpose/task for the day. For my Integrated Science class, we are going through our Photosynthesis unit. We went outside and they chose one plant to take observations on. It was a great experience for me. I saw the students touch the plants, getting really close to them, looking for every single detail. I told them to use their senses, except for taste of course, and they did. When finished with kilo, some of them found it difficult because they realized how many details there are in just one little object. As for my Physics class, we went to one of the highest points on campus to observe all the different types of energy that they saw. Since there was so much, I tried to have them focus on one type of energy or else we could have been out there the entire class period.

I explained the importance of kilo from a science and engineering perspective. However, I haven't explain to the students the power of kilo in the Hawaiian perspective, yet. I plan to very soon but not exactly sure how to approach it yet or intertwine it within my curriculum. The students seemed excited when I told them that we'll involve more culture within their learning and they also helped me think of some field trips that we could do for physics. I can't wait to continue with the school year and plan my units based off of STEMS2.