Hoping to walk in their students’ shoes, Hawaii teachers to study language, culture in the Philippines

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Eight Hawaii lecturers are taking a particular area journey overseas to assist them higher join with their college students.

The group might be visiting the Visayan area within the Philippines for a six-week mission funded by the Fulbright-Hays Group Tasks Overseas Program below the U.S. Division of Schooling.

Eva Washburn-Repollo of Chaminade College received a $100,000 grant to fund a summer season program meant to extend Hawaii’s capability in Filipino culture-based schooling in Ok-12 lecture rooms.

The academic journey started with an introduction to meals, together with squid adobo cooked in its personal ink, kinilaw — the Philippines’ model of ceviche — and humba, a pork stew.

A lot of the lecturers don’t know a lot about Cebuano tradition, however they’re about to get a crash course in it.

The group will spend the summer season within the nation’s Negros Oriental area, particularly Bohol, Dumaguete and Apo Island, studying the native dialect and historical past.

A couple of quarter of Hawaii public college college students determine as Filipino, extra in case you depend these of blended race — and these lecturers say they need to stroll of their sneakers.

“I hope that they see that I worth them and that I see who they’re. However I additionally suppose studying the tradition and the language will assist me talk higher with their households,” stated Kalika Ayin, Pearl Metropolis Excessive Faculty English learner coordinator.

Washburn-Repollo, affiliate professor of communications, says bringing these lecturers to her native nation means bridging the cultural hole between educators and their immigrant college students.

“Then we will make that scholar who goes to that classroom. And feels worth as a result of they’re Filipino. And they’re they arrive from a ravishing nation.,” Washburn-Repollo stated.

“Once you’re a scholar and also you don’t know methods to converse English, you might be put in an ESL classroom and you are feeling such as you don’t have quite a bit to supply. However your loved ones your mother and father really come from a ravishing place.”

From kids’s books to curriculum constructing to classes on the setting, every instructor is planning a product so as to add to their curriculum.

“Wanting on the, how the mangrove over there helps the setting and the way it compares to over right here in Hawaii,” stated Kauanoeanuhea Zabala-Moore, a sustainability scholar from UH-Manoa.

“I’ll be partaking with the totally different indigenous strategies used to measure crab traps within the Philippines,” stated Terrius Harris, legislative schooling fellow for U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz.

“I primarily concentrate on instructing them the science requirements, however I really feel like it’s actually essential to include tradition as a result of they at all times ask me, why does this matter?” stated Clarissa Torres, Mililani Center Faculty science instructor.

The opposite instructor individuals are LeAndre Browne, Brittni Friedlander, Maiana Minahal and Jessica Watkins. Katrina Roseler, affiliate professor of schooling at Chaminade College, might be supporting this system.

Washburn-Repollo says the merchandise lecturers create might be added to the Nationwide Archive so universities can entry it to show Cebuano Tradition and Language.

An expertise this group hopes to share with others — that studying doesn’t at all times come from contained in the classroom.

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