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Educational Perspectives v Volume 47 v Numbers 1 and 2

From School-Culture-to-Family-Culture: Ref lections
on Four Generations of a Deweyan Educationin Hawai‘i
Amber Strong Makaiau
with
Linda Summers Strong

In 1918, my great great aunt,
Sophie Judd Cooke foundeda small progressive school in
Honolulu. Her brother Henry
named it Hanahau‘oli School,
which means joyful work school.
In her memoir she gives an account of its beginnings,

Since Dewey’s “green light,”
four generations of myimmediate family have attended
Hanahau‘oli School, which, tothis day, continues to carry on
the vision of Dewey (1916;1938)
and other progressive educators
who dedicated their lives tomaking “a child’s school life
I attended a series of lectures
more meaningful” (Palmer,
for mothers on ‘Literature for
1968, p. 1).
Children,’ given at Washington
In this essay my mother,
Place by Mrs. Goodrun ThorneLinda
Summers Strong andThomsen of the Francis Parker
School in Chicago. These
I ref lect on the impact oftalks were fascinating to me,
Hanahau‘oli School’s Deweyan
and I was happy to meet Mrs.
approach to education on theThorne-Thomsen and got todevelopment of our family’sknow her quite well. I discussed
culture. We start with memories
my particular situation as to my
Sophie Judd Cooke, Hanahau‘oli Schoolof my grandmother, Catherine
children’s education with her andfounder (Courtesy of Hanahauoli School)
she suggested that I start a little“Cappy” Cooke Summers, whoschool of my own and invite other children to join.
attended Hanahau‘oli School in the 1920s. Then weThis idea appealed to me, so we moved the homerecount our own experiences at the school, which werenext door to us on Makiki Heights, which we hadremembered over a series of dialogues and inquiries
recently bought, down to an empty lot on Makiki
that we engaged in with one another over the pastand Nehoa Streets…Our school was ‘progressive’couple of months. Finally, we share observations of myin every sense of the word. We tried new methods
and broke with the stilted formal type of instruction
daughter, Catherine “Cappy” Kala‘iopua Makaiau, who
which was common at that time…we persisted, andis currently attending Hanahau‘oli School as a junior
I note that many of the methods—of correlatingkindergartner. At the end of the essay, my mom andthe work and ‘learning by doing’—have been widely
I comment on the special role that women played in
adopted in the public schools. Our crowning event
progressive era education reforms, including the ways
was when Dr. John Dewey, who had advocatedin which the women in our family have integrated athis theory of teaching, and Mrs. Dewey, came tovisit our school and gave us the ‘green light.’ This
Deweyan approach to teaching and learning into our
gratified us! (Cooke, 1964, pp. 78–79)
family culture.

John Dewey in Hawai‘i

45

Cappy Cooke Summers

When we started to think back on my grandmother’s
experiences at Hanahau‘oli School my mom remembered hermother telling her “they didn’t know what to do with me.”
When she asked her mother what she meant by this, mygrandmother explained that over the course of her time at
the school, some years she was promoted to the next grade
and other years she was “placed back” a grade. I asked mymom what my grandmother thought about this, and she said
that she got the feeling that my grandmother didn’t take it
personally because she knew that the school was doing its
best to accommodate her specific learning needs. Overall,
we remembered my grandmother having really fond memories of her time at Hanahau‘oli School.
Among these memories were her warm recollectionsof her teachers. My mom recalled that one of my grandmother’s teachers was Caroline Curtis. Miss Curtis wasa deeply respected storyteller and writer who brought her
knowledge of ancient Hawaiian legends into the classroom.
My mom shared with me that she once asked her mother
why Miss Curtis often mistakenly called my mom by mygrandmother’s name, and my grandmother told her thatMiss Curtis had also been her teacher.
As my mom and I did more research about the origins
of Hanahau‘oli School we realized the significance of thismemory. Mrs. Gudrun Thorne Thomsen, the lecturer
who originally persuaded Sophie Judd Cooke to start
Hanahau‘oli School, was also a renowned storyteller.
Thorne Thomsen, who had a strong influence on
the development of storytelling in [American public]
libraries, believed that imaging exercises and listening to oral literature prepared children for reading…
This insight into the relationship of oral literature,
imaging, and reading, shared by Gurdun Thorne
Thomsen, Francis Parker, and John Dewey, was lostfor many years while schools emphasized the technical aspects of reading (Greene, 1996, pp. 18–19).
Storytelling, and its role in the development of children’s
literacy, was not lost at Hanahau‘oli School during my
grandmother’s era. In fact, listening to Miss Curtis re-tell
Hawaiian myths right before naptime was one of my mom’s
warmest memories of her time at Hanahau‘oli School.

Linda Summers Strong

Before my mom entered the third grade, her family moved
from Kailua on the windward side of the island. At that

Cappy Cooke Summers, studied at Hanahauoli, and herdaughter, Linda followed in her footsteps. (This picture,taken by a press photographer, appeared in a local
newspaper sometime during late 1950’s)time, my grandmother had to make decisions about where tosend her three daughters to school, and my mother remembers my grandmother telling her that she was a “Hanahau‘oli
child” and that “she would be happy there.” Later in her life,
my mother recalls my grandmother sharing with her the
belief that Hanahau‘oli School isn’t for every child, but in thecase of my mother it was an ideal learning environment.
When I asked my mother to think back on her
experiences at the school she remembers clearly how each
grade level had a unique and distinguished focus of study.
In third grade the students studied ancient Hawai‘i. They
made kapa, learned chants for Makahiki, and, throughstorytelling, learned ancient Hawaiian myths. In fourth
grade the students studied pioneers and Native Americans,and missionaries and whalers in Hawai‘i. The fourth graders
also ran the school store, which “sold” classroom materials
to the students and teachers in the other classrooms. On adesignated day, student representatives from each class would
come with a list of supplies that they needed to purchase. The
fourth grade students would take inventory of the students’46

Educational Perspectives v Volume 47 v Numbers 1 and 2

list, add up the bills, distribute merchandise, and makethe business transactions. In fifth grade students studied
the Greeks and other ancient civilizations. The students
represented various Greek city-states and competed in theirown Olympic Games. My mother remembers how the olive
branches, which were used in the Olympic awards ceremony
were harvested from her grandmothers’ house.
In sixth grade the students studied medieval history,
explorers, and inventors. They made books and learned
about calligraphy. As a part of the curriculum, the sixth
graders also gave a gift to the school. In my mother’s case,her class wanted to buy a movie projector costing one
hundred dollars. They spent the entire year planning andcarrying out various activities to raise the money. They soldlabels and stationary, painted stilts for a Junior Achievement
Club, collected silver and gold to redeem for cash, and had
every student in the class enter an essay-writing contest
with the hopes of winning a cash prize. When they finallypurchased the movie projector they invited eachclass at Hanahau‘oli School to come and view movies intheir classroom.
Another lasting impression on my mother was shopclass. What she liked the most about shop was making
things. She recalls how she used wood to build a stool, adollhouse, and a “crazy critter” that was made up of thescraps of past projects. The shop students also worked inclay, sewed on a treadle machine, wove on a table loom,
created block prints, and learned how to hand bind books.
They engaged in seasonal projects such as painting Ukrainian Easter eggs, constructing crèches for Christmas, andmaking kapa for Makahiki. And in all of her recollectionsof shop class, my mother’s most vivid memories were ofMiss Ramey, her shop teacher, a woman of many talents
who also tended to the school’s beehive. At the end of eachshop class my mother remembers how clean-up was always
part of the lesson, and to this day she thinks about thisritual as she cleans up her own art studio.
Rituals, traditions, and events are an integral part oflife at Hanahau‘oli School. My mother remembers morning
flag, reciting St. Francis’ canticle to the sun, Friday assemblies, Christmas carols, the school fair, annual visits to the
Honolulu Museum of Art, stepping stones, and shaking thehand of the principal when the school bell was rung at theend of each day. These same rituals, traditions, and events
are a lasting part of my memory of the school as well.

Amber Strong Makaiau

When I think back to my days at Hanahau‘oli School, I
instantly remember singing and “learning by doing.” I canremember word-for-word all of the songs that we learned
during music class. Not only were the songs fun to sing, forthe most part they all had lessons embedded in them. For
example, I learned about the history of slavery in America
and the 1960’s civil rights movement through AfricanAmerican spirituals and songs like “Abraham, Martin &John.” I vividly remember singing these songs during Friday
assemblies, where the students who were chosen to lead theassembly each week would stand in front of the entire student
body, faculty, and parents with the lyrics so that everyone in
the Hanahau‘oli School community could participate.
Like my mother, I also remember acting out a Greek
Olympics, Greek oratory, Hawaiian Makahiki, medieval
feast, and a number of other dramatic plays like the story
of Helen Keller’s life. On each of these occasions we would
research the history of the event, read about the people andcultures through literature and informational text, plan out
how we would enact the event, designate roles and responsibilities for everyone in the class, create traditional costumes,
design artistic backdrops and props, and then carry out theevent in front of our school community. In addition, we
would document the event through reflective writing and art.
I have particularly strong recollections of using thisprocess to study endangered species in the sixth grade. We
started by researching endangered species in the library, andthen we used our findings to construct models of endangered
species habitats in a blended art and science class. Then webuilt wooden masks of the different endangered species that
we were studying in shop class. We wore the masks in amusical production about endangered species that we put onfor the entire school. We also created our own chapter of theWorld Wildlife Fund, which we had weekly bake sales for sothat we could send our raised donations to the headquartersof this international organization. To this day, I often think
about the impact that this interdisciplinary approach toteaching and learning had on my current abilities to thinkcreatively, make connections, and see the big picture.
I also think about Hanahau‘oli School’s emphasis onlearning how to learn. One of my most enduring memories isconnected to the school library and learning how to conduct“independent” research. In every grade level we would selectinquiry topics that we were interested in and that related

John Dewey in Hawai‘ito the theme of our classroom studies. Then we would ask
questions, and learn how to pursue our questions by finding
resources in the school library. Within the library we were
given a quite workspace of our very own where we could immerse ourselves in all of the information that we gathered.
We were taught to challenge our thinking, open up the
topic, and pursue further questions as a part of the inquiry
process. We learned how to analyze and organize all of theinformation we gathered, outline our findings, and developa piece of writing that we could share with the class.
The heart of my experiences at Hanahau‘oli School
was learning how to balance my individual interests withthe goals of our community of learners. I also learned how
important music, art, and drama are to learning about math,science, English, and social studies. I developed a voice, andwas frequently told that what I had to say was important aslong as I was mindful of my peers and teachers. Hanahau‘oli
School gave me the tools to be self-reflective and connected
to others. Most importantly, through my experiences at
Hanahau‘oli School, I learned to love learning.

Cappy Kala‘iopua Makaiau

This year, my daughter began her journey at Hanahau‘oli
School, and although it has only been a couple of months
since the school year started, I can already identify theways in which Hanahau‘oli School is inspiring her own
love of learning. Since starting at the school, my daughterhas become fanatical about illustrating, narrating (shehas someone else write her words onto the pages), and assembling “books” of her very own. Not only have I enjoyedseeing the ways in which her teachers at the school havenurtured her interest in book making, but I’ve also seen
how they have introduced her to new language to help her
articulate her thinking about the bookmaking process. Shetalks continually about “new ideas” for her next books, andthis language comes from the “idea box” that she has in herclassroom, in which students are encouraged to use theirideas to create things out of recycled objects. This is just one
example of how Hanahau‘oli School has stayed true to its
student-centered origins.
I have also observed other ways in which the school has
maintained its progressive roots. Each day that my daughter
comes to school she is expected to mark her own attendanceby writing her name and moving a small yellow version ofherself to a board at the front of the classroom. These two

47

actions, although they may seem simple demonstrate how
she is learning how to write and count by doing authentic
and meaningful activities in her pre-kindergarten classroom.
She has also been encouraged to learn through playand creative work. This past summer the class read books
about bears, and in one of the stories the bear traveled tothe moon. The class was then encouraged to use their own
imaginations to go on their own adventure to the moon.
They constructed a large spaceship out of cardboard, as well
as space gear. They practiced shape recognition and fine
motor skills as they cut out shapes, squares and circles todecorate the rocket ship. Then, during dramatic play they
acted out their trip to the moon, and played with “moonsand” on the playground. Through classroom initiatives andexperiences like these, my daughter is experiencing “joyous
work,” which is teaching her, in turn, that learning is fun.

Progressive Education and Feminist Pedagogy

In her book about Hanahau‘oli School, Louisa F. Palmer, aformer principal of the school, explains how innovations in
education, and how a school based on Dewey’s educational
philosophy, are not always easy to put into practice.
To break with tradition has always been a difficult
thing to explain. Words have many different meanings to people. To label work at this new school in1918 as ‘joyous work’ immediately meant only play
to many, as well as the lowering of academic standards. And when phrases like self-expression, creative
work, and freedom were added, this immediately wastranslated by the school’s critics as ‘children doing
as they please, no discipline, etc.’ The idea was not
yet accepted that school work utilizing a child’s realinterests and abilities gave him the motive power todo his best. Few could conceive that a child’s school
should be, not a thing apart, but a vital element ofyouth and growth-‘a process of living and not simply apreparation for future living’-as Dr. Dewey expressed
it in My Pedagogic Creed. (Palmer, 1968, p. 15)
As I reflected with my mother on our family’s history at
Hanahau‘oli School, I couldn’t help but think about the boldways in which Sophie Judd Cooke had helped to break the
tradition of male dominated educational leadership that waspervasive in the United States at the turn of the century.
With further research, I learned that she was not alone.
There were a number of other women in the early 1900’s
who were female founders of innovative progressive schools

48

Educational Perspectives v Volume 47 v Numbers 1 and 2

and leaders of “educational organizations and movements,
including public school districts, teacher unions andmuseums” (Sadovnik & Semel, 2002, p. 1). Although they
didn’t get as much press as other progressive era reformers
like Dewey, these women had a profound impact on thedevelopment of child-centered approaches to education in
the United States.
For example, contemporary scholars in feminist
pedagogy point out the ways in which these women helped
to introduce into the field of education new styles of school
administration. They explain how the research, includingcase studies of women educational leaders during theProgressive Era suggests “female pedagogy and leadershipare more humane, less authoritarian, more democratic, andmore concerned with caring and relationships than abstract
goals” (Sadovnik & Semel, 2002, pp. 2–3). In light of thisresearch, I often wonder if part of Hanahau‘oli School’s
success in effectively translating a Deweyan approach toeducation from theory to practice was due to the fact thatmy great great aunt was a woman of her time.

From School-Culture-to-Family-Culture
In her memoir, Sophie Judd Cooke wrote,

I believe a valuable thing in life is to develop a child’s
initiative. At Hanahau‘oli there are opportunities todevelop individual and group initiatives in various
projects. A well known math teacher at Punahou
called me aside once and told me that on the firstday of school at Punahou, she could always note a
Hanahau‘oli School child by his or her initiative ingoing to find out where his classes were to be held,
instead of wandering around bewildered (Cooke,
1964, pp. 78–79).
This quote resonated with my mother and I as webegan to think about the lasting impact of Hanahau‘oli
School’s Deweyan approach to education on thedevelopment of our family’s culture. In addition tocultivating a multicultural home life which is full of song,art, inquiry, community service, and projects in which
we are constantly engaged in the business of “learning by
doing,” we believe that it is Hanahau‘oli School’s cultureof student-driven initiatives that has become the defining
characteristic of our home culture.
This is reflected in both the small and large actionsof our daily lives. For example, just last month I was incharge of Halloween decorations for my son’s classroom,
and instead of buying them from Walmart I felt compelled
to hand-craft an intricately designed Halloween bat foreach student in the class. When I was a teenager, and I
wanted a “cool” vest like all of the other girls at school, mymom got out the sewing machine and taught me how to
sew the garment myself. And I will never forget how mygrandmother, as she was trying to figure out how ancient
Hawaiians made cordage, sat with me on our front lanai,
and taught me how to make a bracelet by braiding coconut
and horsehair. Common phrases in our family are “wecould make that,” or “we can do that” which often leads to
a new endeavor that everyone is invited to engage in.
This is especially true on a larger scale. In the past
three generations, the women in my family have carriedout this sense of initiative in the larger community. My
grandmother was an archeologist who was originally led
to the field by her curiosity of Ulupo heiau, a Hawaiian
temple located near her home in Kailua. In my memoryof her, she always had a question that was driving her
archeological inquiries, and during our time on Moloka‘itogether, she would take the entire family along to find thespecial pōhaku or fishpond that she was currently studying.
Fueled by her own sense of wonder and inquisitiveness,my grandmother went on to write a number of influential
books about Hawaiian sites, fishponds, cordage, and thehale pili at Bishop Museum.
My mother, an art educator at an all-girls school
dedicated her career to focusing on women artists
because she recognized that they were sorely absent inhigh school art history programs at the time. When
asked to reflect on her life in the classroom, my motherbelieves that her Hanahau‘oli education has been a major
influence on how she teaches art, including her desire
to design projects where everyone is able to participate
and experience success. In recent years my mother has
dedicated her time to reviving the Honolulu Museum ofArt’s Lending Collection—a project that has inspired me
to work alongside her to find new ways that we can support
teachers in integrating the arts of diverse cultures into theirteaching across all subject areas.
When I reflect on this collaboration with my mother,
I realize that much of my career in education has been
dedicated to giving students in Hawai‘i access to the typeof education that I was given the privilege of experiencing

John Dewey in Hawai‘iat Hanahau‘oli School. This includes my work withphilosophy for children Hawai‘i (p4cHI), which practices
an approach to teaching and learning that transforms
traditional classrooms into intellectually safe communities
of inquiry. When my daughter was only a year-and-a-half
old I would take her with me to practice p4cHI withstudents and teachers at Waikīkī Elementary School. I
realize that she probably won’t remember sitting in a circle,
asking questions, and thinking with the students during
those p4cHI sessions, but I’m assured that she will have
similar types of experiences as she engages in discussion
around the dinner table at home and in her classrooms withher peers and teachers at Hanahau‘oli School.
At the very end of her chapter about the origins ofHanahau‘oli School in her memoir, Sophie Judd Cooke
writes, “I hope Hanahau‘oli will be my ‘monument’ when
I pass out of the picture” (Cooke, 1964, pp. 80). From myperspective, not only has Hanahau‘oli School memorialized
the incredible legacy of my great great aunt’s vision forprogressive education in the community at large, but
it has also helped to shape the culture of her family infuture generations. In our case, Hanahau‘oli School andits Deweyan approach to education has empowered thewomen in our family to use the initiative that was fosteredin each us at Hananhauoli School to create a home lifethat is characterized by genuine inquiry, a love of the arts,
creativity, a sense of responsibility to the community, thehonoring of tradition, and a drive towards innovation. It
has also helped to ensure that the lives that we live at home
are mirrored in the lives that we lead as educators in thecommunity. As time marches forward and the lives of future
generations, like my daughter, unfold, I am encouraged
that the role of education in our family will continue to be“a process of living and not a preparation for future living”(Dewey, 1897, p. eighty-seven).

49

REFERENCES
Cooke, S. J. (1964). Sincerely Sophie. Honolulu, HI: Tongg
Publishing Co., LTD.
Dewey, J. (1897) My pedagogic creed. School Journal, 54, 7780. Retrieved from http://dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.
htm
Dewey, J. (1916; 1938). Democracy and education: An
introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY:
The Free Press.
Dewey, J. (1929). Experience and education. New York, NY:
MacMillan.
Greene, E. (1996). Storytelling: Art and technique. West Port,
CT: Greenwood.
Palmer, L. F. (1868). Memories of Hanahau‘oli: The first fifty
years. Honolulu, HI:
Hanahau‘oli School.
Sadovnik, A. R., & Semel, S. F. (Eds.). (2002). Founding
mothers and others: Women educational leaders during the
progressive era. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.