The What School Could Be Podcast

What does it mean when we talk about “capturing” learning (as if learning is some sort of fish in the sea)? What is the relationship between student and teacher when student-driven learning sits at the core of the classroom, or learning space? It’s these and other essential questions Fred Delse and Will Reppun tackled when they decided to found and develop the learning capture app, Unrulr , which...

On October 25th, 2020 the Honolulu Star Advertiser published a column by Susannah Johnson, founder of Individualized Realized LLC, co-founder of IMPACT Bound and former educator at Assets School. The column was titled: Reimagining education with purpose is needed in a pandemic, and for the future. In this Teacher Voice Special #3, Susannah reads her … Continue reading "S2: Teacher Voice Special #3...

In an October 28th, 2020 blog post at XanEdu Jonathon Mederios wrote about about curiosity as a planning tool for educators. It’s a fabulous blog post. Here, in this Teacher Voice Special #2, he does an out loud “semi dramatic” reading of his post. It is my intention that when educators publish in public places, I … Continue reading "S2: Teacher Voice Special #2, with Jon Medeiros"

My guest today for this final episode of Semester 1 of Season 2 is Aaron Jamal Schorn, Nalukai Foundation Program and Academy Startup Camp Director, and Capstone Coordinator at Hawai’i Preparatory Academy on Hawai’i Island. At Nalukai, Aaron creates and implements curriculum, hustles to find mentors and teaches digital storytelling. Outside of Nalukai he is focused on creating student-centered sys...

Metamorphosis, dragon flies, Hoʻokipa writers, coffee talks, Poetic Couture, Carol Dwek and finding the Filipina within, oh my! My guest today is Jannica Breslin in an episode I am calling my Teach for America Special. This is a partnership with Jill Baldemor, the Executive Director of Teach for America Hawai`i . When I offered Jill the opportunity to name a TFA Hawaiʻi alum to be on this podcast,...

What exactly is student voice? This question has become the hot topic in public, private and charter schools here in Hawaiʻi, for which I am glad. Sometimes the conversation revolves around giving students agency over their learning. At other times we talk about public exhibitions of learning and the ways students might articulate what they know and what they can do. Conversations around student a...

I have learned, as a podcast host, that some episode interviews are question and response, and some conversations are more…intimate. My episode here with Ululani Shiraishi is decidedly the latter. Ululani gave me a gift during this interview, a phrase I will use in my life going forward: Working at the edge of your seat. She comes from a place of part frenzy crazy, and part deliberate intentional....

Chris Balme, my guest for this episode, writes: “Middle school is one of life’s great forks in the road. As the time when puberty begins and thus incredible neurological changes are taking place, middle school has an outsized impact on child development. For some students, it’s the time they begin to find their voice, their social identity, their sense of self in a bigger world.” Chris is the foun...

The Kupu Hou Special: When I asked my dear friends, Mark Hines and John Cheever at Kupu Hou Academy to recommend a Kupu Hou friend and supporter to interview for this podcast, they both immediately and enthusiastically recommended Po’o Kumu Kaulana Smith. Kumu Kaulana is the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School located near the ocean in a small town...

My guest today is Mathieu Williams, our 2019 State Teacher of the Year who constantly strives to be…better. It’s why I love the man, why I admire him so much, why everyone in Hawaiʻi, public, private, charter and community admires him so much and why his students love working with him. He is the ultimate guide, coach, sponsor and mentor of our Hawaiʻi youth, and for that, we are all grateful. Math...

To be a learning coach, a teacher-leader, an educator coach and an expert on kids with special needs, some on the autistic spectrum, you have to be a deeply empathetic person…right down to your core. Danielle Mizuta has empathy in spades. Empathy is in her DNA. I have known this for a long, long time. She and I got our graduate degrees about the same time, in the late 90s. Over the years she has b...

In schools, as in life, the commodity in shortest supply is time. How we spend our time is how we enact our values (SEEQS.org). Buffy Cushman-Patz and I have known each other for a long time. Mere words cannot capture the enormous respect I have for her and the work she has done in our community. And, it was my high privilege to be on the team she assembled to write SEEQS charter. So what is SEEQS...

Dan Gaudiano is the Academy Science Department Head at Punahou School. He has a BA in geology from Colgate University. At the University of South Carolina Columbia he earned an MS in geology, and then a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT). Dan has written in scientific journals, authored scientific papers, been a coastal geologist and a scientific researcher. He was the lead coordinator for a water c...

“All Good Things Are Wild and Free” (Henry David Thoreau). As it turns out this episode is four years in the making. At the very start of my work with Ted  Dintersmith  and his film, Most Likely to Succeed, Christina Hoe, a humanities teacher at  Le Jardin Academy , reached out to me via an intermediary and asked to bring all 77 of her students to my 2nd MLTS screening in January, 2016. What follo...

Hey everyone, this is the What School Could Be in Hawaii podcast. I am your host, Josh Reppun. From time to time it is my intention to highlight educator voices as they pop up across media platforms in Hawaiʻi. Whether these voices come to my attention in a blog, guest posts on Civil Beat online, op-ed … Continue reading "S2: Teacher Voice Special #1: Matthew Tom"

At the end of this episode Waikiki Elementary School educator, Lory Peroff read the following excerpt from a poem: The people I love the best, Jump into work head first, I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, Who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, Who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, Who do what has to be done, again and again. (Marge Percy...

Matthew Lynch and I recorded this interview back on March 24th, just as the Covid-19 “shelter-in-place” lockdown began in Hawaiʻi. What we planned to do in person suddenly had to be done via Zoom. The resulting audio is pretty sketch, but wow, Matthew and I covered some serious ground over a 90-minute conversation. Matthew is the Director of Sustainability Initiatives for all 10 campus of the Univ...

Daniella Lopez White is a graduating senior, Class of 2020, at James Campbell High School on the West Side of Oahu. She is also a member of the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders. On December 1st, 2019, well before our Covid-19 pandemic began and before Hawaiʻi moved to distance learning, Ms. White wrote a column in … Continue reading "Student Voice Special #1: Daniella Lopez White"

Imagine a place where your lead elementary school teacher is a trained ballerina with a propensity for breaking out the dance moves during a lesson. Look no further than Maui and Heather Baylosis, a creative, imaginative and innovative teacher at Hawaiʻi Technology Academy’s Maui Campus. HTA is a seven-campus public charter school (on four islands) that uses a blended learning model. Over more tha...

In Part 2 of this episode, Brian Dote, the Chief Innovation Officer at Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawaiʻi, dives deep into ideas and concepts around educator professional development, the so-called “21st century transcript,” the wild and wonderful things happening at Waipahu High School , how he deliberately and intentionally worked to develop his skills, habits and dispositions, and his proximity t...

Brian Dote has been orbiting near “Black Swan” (type) events all of his professional life. To qualify as a “Black Swan,” an event has to be: Completely unpredictable and rare: Hugely impactful: People love to say after the event, we saw it coming (which they didn’t). Brian worked on Steve Jobs’ team that designed, built and launched the first iPhone, which changed the arc of and accelerated the co...

In one of my longer episodes Robyn Vierra, the Director of Global Education at Punahou School , and I range across a wide variety of subjects, including a day in the life of her 4th grade classroom, what it really means to have a global perspective, the dangers of “keeping it simple” during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, models of distributed work in this 21st century, Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities,” co...

Meet Rob, Colin, Abbie and Miki, collectively known as the Cacace family. Colin and Abbie are a couple of wonderful rowdy kids, Rob works at the Myron B. Thompson Public Charter School and Miki is OUR Hawaiʻi 2019/2020 Milken Family Fund Award winner from Ewa Makai Middle School. It is hard to put into words what Miki has already accomplished in her career as a teacher, guide, mentor, coach. All t...

I first met Justin Brown four years ago at a small Most Likely to Succeed film screening at West Hawaiʻi Explorations Academy just outside Kona. After the film, Justin (who mentors, guides and coaches kids in Kealakehe High School’s CTE, STEM and maker spaces) sat at the far end of a small panel examining the essential questions raised by Ted Dintersmith’s film. He spoke last in the first round an...

As the COVID-19 crisis began to roll over Hawaiʻi, I reached out to a group of trusted education friends and asked for the names of potential guests who could speak clearly to the conceptual, and technical nature of so-called distance learning. Very quickly my colleagues suggested Leslie Witten, and glad I am that they did. Leslie is an education technology specialist at Le Jardin Academy, a mediu...