Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

  What does a family culture of curiosity mean? What does it look like to have shared family interests that lead to real-life learning and skills? What have you observed about what kids do with freedom? So my friend Myra did a cool project for her Masters about unschooling and homeschooling and she kindly let me read her thesis and it has me, as usual THINKING THOUGHTS ABOUT THINGS. Did ya'll know I was homeschooled? Not forever, not from stem to stern. More like, I dropped out of high school and then haunted the basement for two years. I messed around on my brother's weight-lifting set-up, listened to my dad's record collection (Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkle, Joni Mitchell on repeat.) I played around on our 1994 desktop computer and used a CD-Rom to learn the anatomy of the human hand and post dramatic poetry to AOL forums. I read my mom's college textbooks from when she taught Freshman English ( Flowers for Algernon , The Rise of Silas Lapham , and Walt Whitman). I...

Isn't it amazing? We have all of human knowledge, history, art, and music in our pockets. Open source courses and libraries and archives-- the internet is an astonishing artifact-- a weightless Alexandrian library. Sometimes I even remember that fact, and poke at my Kindle reading list, and then go back to scrolling through "Garden Design" and "Celtic Tattoo" tags on Instagram, or *LOL* or *ANGRY REACT* to memes on Facebook. Not doggin' on Instagram or facebook, I love it and I love all your kids' shining prom faces and your beautiful crème brulee and your pouty selfies and your yoga-in-the-surf shots. But I'm been thinking about something--about the value of being exposed to things you don't seek out-- allowing yourself to have curated experiences from some other brain that shock, shake and stretch you. I love driving with my podcast library, and all my favorite tunes and playlists bluetoothed onto my car speakers. It's a relief, in ...

I read a book on decorating, of all things. This was years ago, when we had just moved to Koloa, and Rosie was just a toddler. We had been living in other people's homes for years in Waimea-- an attached garage at Auntie Queen's and Uncle Jamie's on Mana Road horse ranch, and an Ohana unit at the Lindsey's, looking out over Parker ranch, and just down the road from Church Row. Our Koloa house was our first stand alone house. We bought a truck, we bought a couch! Microfiber sectionals and a car payment--like real adults. And I checked out this book from the library about home decor. Years and years later, one idea stuck with me. Your space should reflect your values. The colors, the designs, the way the space connects to itself, the way bodies can move through it-- it needs to be a true reflection of who you are and what you love. If not, it doesn't matter how chic or trendy or clean or impressive it is, you'll be miserable in it. It sounds simple. Obviou...

Warning: Contains NSFW language in the context of describing students' Sex Ed Questions! For years I've been disturbed, amused and shocked by comments my students make about sexuality. I've occasionally had to bring my English classes to a screeching halt to talk about consent or sexual identity or even basic anatomy. A couple of years ago, our school was able to participate in a pilot pregnancy and STI prevention program called Pono Choices. This program is funded by the University of Hawaii, and co-created by Planned Parenthood and Alu Like which is a nonprofit for empowering Native Hawaiians. The social studies teacher taught the curriculum, and I saw an immediate improvement with my students. They gained new confidence talking about their bodies, sexuality, and the tools they would use to accomplish their goals. This is a big deal-- Every year we've had kids get pregnant either senior year or right after graduation. And considering that some years we only have...

I left Hawaii. Not forever-- just for two months. Just the day school got out-- all my book shelves pushed into one corner of my classroom, all the partitions folded and desks stacked and supplies boxed up. I got on an airplane-- actually three-- and left Hawaii behind. I just got back Sunday. I learned a lot. Some of what I learned I should probably write about. But not today. Today, I went back to work. And the day sort of embodied everything that is sacred and amazing, and everything that is enraging and crushing about this rock in the middle of the pacific. I left the house at 4:30 am. I drove my truck through the dark-- down the mountain, along the coast. Just knowing the black ocean was right there, invisible and inky on the side of the road, lapping at rocks in the dark-- gave me chills. The ocean is big and powerful-- a force to be acknowledged and respected. Good morning unseen ocean. By 5:30 I made it to the beach. Many of the other teachers were already there, stand...

I came late to the faculty meeting yesterday. I walked in with my laptop and planner but the conference table was gone and everyone was sitting on the floor in a circle. Kaina, the Hawaiian language teacher and charismatic force of nature, was sitting shirtless at the front of the circle, with three large wooden bowls in front of him. At either side hovered a shirtless teenage boy. To their left sat our two graduating seniors. Ah. A Kawa ceremony. Cool. I mentally changed lanes. Last year's kawa ceremony was out in the school garden one evening, in the handmade hale, and was followed by a hi'uwai-- a purifying dunk in the ocean to symbolize letting go of the old and embracing the new.  Apparently this time it was in the social studies homeroom, on the carpet. I noted the three bowls-- one full of the stringy dried Kawa, one full of murky grey-green liquid, and one full of clean water with many little coconut bowls bobbing around. Kaina whispered to the boy helpers, di...

Today us the kind of day that shortens my life by five years; that parches my skin and carves the jagged lines around my eyebrows and mouth deeper into a scowl; that makes me want to escape or run or fight. Or write. So right or wrong, I need to write it out. Yesterday I read the Ramayana to my students. I have a short graphic novel version, and the kids got all swept up the the grand drama of princes, princesses, gods, goddesses, demons, gurus, bears, and monkeys. They imagined how they would retell the epic Hawaiian myths in their own styles and sketched Hawaiian gods and goddesses in sarongs and swim shorts, with Disney princess faces as they listened. And today I loaded them up into two school vans and took everybody-- all of the secondary teachers and students-- up to the Hindu temple and monastery in Wailua. I was impressed-- every kid followed my instructions to bring their permission slips and wear modest pants or skirts. I quizzed them in the van-- Rama and Sita, Jambavan and ...

Today I got to accompany my 7th-12th graders to a heiau restoration project. In the discussion amongst us teachers leading up to this excursion, we were warned that "he wahe kane." It's a man place, a makahiki games sight. I didn't know what to expect As I picked up my walkie-talkie from the front office, the Hawaiian language teacher pulled me to the side with something like: "I na aia ia oe ka wailehua, a'ale pono e komo i ka heiau." I didn't understand-- he had to rephrase. "Ka waihooluu no ka lehua? Ka wai ulaula?" Ah. I finally got it. "Ma'i?" I answered. Monosyllabic and agrammitical,  as usual. He was telling me that, if I or the other women were on our periods, we were supposed to wait and not enter the heiau grounds.  The colorful idiom is "the water of the lehua blossom." Much more poetic than "auntie flow." We piled all of the non-menstruating students (luckily all of them) into the vans and ...

Aloha. Kokua. Malama. Pono. Ohana. According to the sacred holy and untouchable image of Hawaiian culture that exists in the popular imagination both on island and around the world, native Hawaiians are healthy, ruddily righteous people. They honor their ancestors, protect their young, cultivate their taro. They respect the land and care for the poor. They remember their past but face the future with hopeful optimism. They are stewards of the land, spiritual conductors of otherworldly light, and grounded in the earthly reality of the soil. They are gentle giants, like Braddah Iz and his high pitched giggle and teensy Ukulele. They are carefree and generous surfers and dancers, quick to laugh, devout at church, comfortable on the back porch with kids tumbling all around. It's a lovely image-- it appeals: the generous underdog, the happy Native. This isn't just a set of images you see in pastel in-flight magazines. Of course the tourism industry benefits from this story. Co...