Ānuenue is the equivalent of a New Zealand Wharekura, i.e. it's an immersion school and goes from K-12.
The principal, Glen is a lovely calm elder statesman in the place, where we were shown around by Vice Principal Baba.
Their inclusion of traditional crafts, built to honour parents and grandparents, along with their commitment to land and gardening was a real challenge to us.
When it comes to digital pedagogy, we are achieving a great deal, without the $1M grant for technology, most of these folks got.
By and large, our buildings are superior in build quality and design. Something our welfare state and government can be very proud of. This state has so much money it isn’t funny, but the way property taxes in poor areas have to fund school buildings causes so much inequity.
Never have we seen such run down school facilities in such close proximity (i.e. 3 city blocks) to really rich and fancy ones. It would be like Pt England built like St. Kentigern College, 4 blocks away from Ruapotaka looking as though it were in Papua New Guinea!
Anyway, back to Ānuenue, -they are like the days of the early kura movement, making the best of what they have, working in funny old buildings, beautifying the lands around them. Many native Hawai’ians choose to send their kids here and you can see and feel the love all around you. Like other Hawai’ian schools, the welcome is warm, but in the main the classroom is the domain of the class teacher and people don’t wander in and out like we do.
These guys are interested some of our stuff, including the questions we use to run our parent meetings. Along with other schools we visited, they are also keen to have Google Hang-outs with some of our classes.
All the kids in this class were making different kinds of Mothers’ Day or Grandmothers’ gifts, by traditional means. Some were weaving, some were polishing stones, some were sanding and polishing shells. All of them were to be presented with love to someone special.
Like the early days of the kura movement, they have few resources, and a massive problem with assessments not being in the language of instruction.
Like our kura, the kids do poorly in tests till they reach the equivalent of our Y10 and then they just take off and do really well, so the parents have to hold their nerve and not shift them out to mainstream at Y6, (like some of ours do).
And then there’s the gardens………... see photos above...
Different grade levels are responsible for different parts of the gardening process.
Original post by RG Burt
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