Blog #3: What Does Sense of Place Matter?

"Why does Sense of Place matter and what does it mean to the practice of teaching for there to be multiple sense of place in any one moment and in any one place (i.e. a classroom)?"

From all of the readings and the assignments we did on our School Portrait as well as the Multilayers of My Place have taught me a lot about sense of place and my own sense of place.  If you had asked me a couple months ago whether I knew what sense of place was and if it were important, I would have told you “yes I do” and “yes it is” but I probably couldn’t have explained why very well.  However, from our readings I have learned about so many different layers of sense of place and it’s importance.  On a personal level I have learned that sense of place is more than just a geographical place and particularly not just the place you were born.  My sense of place had always just encompassed places on Maui where I grew up.  Those places are very special to me have shaped my beliefs, life experiences, and culture.  I originally felt very uncomfortable teaching anywhere else besides Maui since that was the only place I knew for 21 years of my life.  I figured I would be able to relate to the students on Maui better an anywhere else since we mostly came from the same place, particularly central Maui.  I never really thought about Kapolei and Ewa Beach really being apart of my sense of place since I have only lived in Kapolei for two and a half years and I’ve only been teaching at Campbell for a little over a year.  At first, I really didn’t see me fitting into these places.  However, after a year of teaching at Campbell I definitely feel a stronger sense of place in the community, my school, and my classroom.

There was and still are so many things I don’t know about Ewa Beach, Campbell High School, and my students.  I really didn’t know what to write when it came to my Profile of School assignment.  However, as I started writing it I realized that I did know quite a bit more than I thought.  I really have learned so much about Ewa Beach, Campbell High School, and my students in the last year.  I didn’t know that there was a distinction between Ewa Beach and Ewa or the two intermediate schools in the area.  I was really lucky to have a good friend, Ms. Jo-Hanna Valdez, who graduated with my from UH Manoa who is a Campbell grad and is also a new teacher at Campbell with me.  It was extremely helpful to have her share her sense of place of Ewa Beach and Campbell with me.


I always felt that placed-based education was extremely important.  In the beginning of my education I always felt that it was all about the “place” that made place-based education work.  However, it’s not just about the “place” itself.  Placed-based education means nothing without our students feeling a connection to that “place” through experience such as service learning or through other’s sharing their sense of that place with them.

The "place" does not always have to be off campus.  The most important "place" for us as teachers and our students are our classroom.  It is where I will spend the most time with my students.  We need to have our classroom a positive an safe environment.  To do so we need to give our students experiences in our classroom to give them a sense of place that it a safe place to share and so they become invested and engaged in class discussions and activities.

As a teacher, I want my students to leave my class at the end of the year better than they when they started.  Whether that is with a better understanding of mathematics or just a better understanding of themselves or life itself.  As a second year teacher, I always understood I would have students from different backgrounds and with different life experiences.  I didn’t really think about those things as multiple senses of place.  Now with a better understanding of what sense of place means and my own sense of place in Ewa Beach, Campbell High School, and our classroom I can be more aware of the difference sense of places of my students to help engage them in the content.  I also hope that by my co-teacher and I sharing our different senses of place with our students and our students sharing their sense of place we can all grow through understanding and become more aware of and proactive in our classroom, school, and community.

Blog #2: Portrait of My School

James Campbell High School (JCHS) in Ewa Beach was named after, James Campbell, who was once the largest and wealthiest landowners of Hawaii.  I think that is fitting since now JCHS is the biggest school in the state.  According to the School Status and Improvement Report (SSIR), the enrollment for the 2013-2014 school year was 2890 and 44.8% of those students were of Filipino decent.  I have a mixture of students that are from military families, have lived in the area their whole lives, and have recently moved to Ewa.

Ewa (population: 6,108 according to 2010 census) and Ewa Beach (population: 14,955 according to 2010 census) have been growing at an exponential rate due to numerous housing developments in the surrounding area.  I didn't know that there was a distinction between Ewa and Ewa Beach till I started working at Campbell and some of my students would say they lived in Ewa and some would say Ewa Beach.  However, there are also other subsections such as Ocean Pointe, Ewa Gentry, Iroquois and Ewa Villages that are not included in the Ewa Beach CDP (Census Designated Place).  Ewa Beach is closer to the ocean and Ewa is above Ewa Beach.

Ewa has a lot of the newer housing developments and the newer (and perceived as the better) intermediate school, Ewa Makai, which was built in 2010 and already equip with air conditioning.   Ilima Intermediate was the only intermediate school till Ewa Makai and they were the largest intermediate school in the state with 1,350 students and a cafeteria that could only hold 750 students.  When I first started at Campbell I kept hearing teachers say that the Ewa Makai kids are usually always better behaved and even smarter than the Ilima kids.  It sounded weird to me since the two schools are only 1.6 miles and 6 minutes apart by car.  Growing up on Maui our intermediate schools are far apart from each other, built around the same time and are feeder schools for only one high school so I've never been at a high school with two feeder schools.  I don't feel that it matters which intermediate school my students came from and I definitely don't judge them on that.  

Sports and clubs play a big part of the culture at Campbell.  There is a club for everything when you have so many students with so many different interests!  There's a trivia club, app making club, video game club, ghost whisperer club, and of course the math team.  There is a lot of "Saber Nation" pride which is really nice to see.  If you visit our campus you will see hundreds of students sporting their team shirts or club shirts which are all really nice shirts.  A local clothing brand "Get Nutz" makes a lot of Campbell shirts also, though those are not really apart of the dress code.  All students wear a dress top or they can wear college shirts or approved campbell gear with the school seal on it.
Our football team hasn't been that great this year and it sucks that our football field is under construction at the moment so our home games are all away.  I went to a couple football games last year and the community and students really show up to support the football team.  I can tell you from experience that the Track and Field team does not get the same type of attendance but for our trip to the state championship last year we had several donors from the community such as Safeway that donated gift cards to the team so we could buy water and snacks for the student athletes.  Our baseball and softball team also get a lot of support from the school and community, especially since they both won the state championship last year! Go Sabers!  There was a lot of pride going around the school during May last year and throughout the community.

There were signs all over Ewa Beach congratulating both the baseball and softball teams.  Though one sad thing about being the largest high school in the state is the fact that each team has to make a lot of cuts.  I think the football team made five rounds of cuts this year because there are so many students wanting to be on the team but there are only so many athletes you can have.  I know several of my students that had wanted to play a sport but just didn't try out because they felt like there was no way they would make the team with all the competition.  My softball team in high school didn't even have to cut anyone most of the time.

In all honestly, there needs to be a new high school in Ewa soon.  I've heard rumors that a new high school will be built soon but those are just rumors and that doesn't help the current situation of overpopulation at JCHS.  Though in January we are getting 8 new air conditioned portables from the Big Island (this was also on the news and it's true).  There are also plans to build a new three story building however we have not got the funding for it yet and honestly I have no idea where they would put it...

Recently, JCHS has a focus of media attention.  From welcoming the largest freshman class in the state of Hawaii, shooting threats, and most recently with record high temperatures.  We currently have approximately 3,000 students at JCHS.  Campbell has a HUGE faculty of about 200 total teachers including emergency hires and permanent substitutes.  We also have a lot of turn over mostly due to Teach for America teachers and  teachers form military families.  This year I think there were 30 something new teachers just about the same amount last year. There are also 3 Vice Principles per grade level and 3 counselors per grade level also.  There is a definite classroom shortage since there are approximately 15 floating teachers and a couple of our testing classrooms have been converted to classrooms.  We can't even have an assembly with the entire school their since the freshmen class this year takes up half of the gym.

JCHS Welcomes largest Freshman Class (click for video) 

Classrooms are overcrowded and as of two weeks ago there were at least ten teachers I knew that had NO fans in their classrooms!  My co-teacher and I are lucky that we have eight fans in our room (2 I purchased with my own money, 1 I got from my fiancee's mom, 1 my co-teacher already had, 2 the school had given us last year, and 2 a teacher that was leaving gave us last year).  Though it does not help that the fans just blow hot air around mostly and that certain students try to hog the fans by stopping them from oscillating.  I don't have a thermometer to gage the temperatures in my classroom but my car right outside my classroom reads anywhere from 90 to 106 degrees almost daily as the outside temperature.  Almost ever day this school that my students and I have been dripping sweat.  My co-teacher and I try to be extremely considerate of students needs for water and short breaks.  I mean if I have headaches and feel exhausted I can only imagine how my students feel, especially since many of them walk to and from school.

Soaring Temperatures in Hawaii's Schools (click for video)

I do have some good news though!  Today we were told that all the portables without air conditioning will be receiving 3-4 portable AC units...so hopefully since we are in a portable we might be getting portable AC's as soon as this weekend!!! We will see though how cool that will keep our classroom because I'm not sure our portables are insulated right for AC...Also really how energy efficient is that?  We'll see...maybe we can make a lesson out of it...

UPDATE:  During the weekend of Sept. 12-13 we were luck to receive 3 portable AC units in our classroom!  Our students were so excited when they came into our classroom that Monday!  I do understand that there are many others who need AC on our campus and classrooms all over the state. I know that the DOE has said that they bought every portable AC unit in Hawaii so I pray that relief will come to everyone in need. 

Anyway, this is my classroom.  My home away from home for two years now.  I found these really fun memes that  I love and I placed them all over my classroom.  I also have some student samples of their Order of Operations PEMDAS projects posted up.

 I have exactly 30 desks and my biggest class has 30 students so we have just enough space.  I had them in rows facing the white board before but the rows were so close together with that configuration and it was hard to walk down each row and students were too close together.  I originally wanted to have them sit in groups.  I tried several different layouts but there just really wasn't enough space and honestly I really don't like these types of desks but you work with what you get.

This is my corner.  My desk looks like this a lot lately.  I try to clean it up every week but by the end of the week it looks that.

I really love my board! I have a beautiful word wall with the SMP's to the left, agenda, rubric, standards, and SWBAT on the right.  I do really wish we had two white boards like most of the other portables though...It would make it possible for use to do parallel teaching and or small groups easier so that Ms. Faumui could work with students using the other board.  Our promethean's calibration is extremely off which makes writing on it difficult so we use a projected on the promethean board mostly.  We're going to request to have our promethean fixed during one of the breaks.  

Our bulletin board has the bell schedule, students bulletins, lunch schedule, sports schedules and any flyers for upcoming events.  Below is my AMAZING co-teacher Ms. Faumui hard at work at her desk.  Our desks use to be right next to each other at the back of the room.  Although we like being closer to each other we chose to have our desks farther apart so we can place our students that need a lot of redirection next to either of us.  Also this way we can more easily keep an eye on them when we are at our desks.  That desk right next to the promethean is where I sit when I use the projector connected to the promethean board.  I sit when I'm going writing their notes or sometimes I have a "scribe" student that writes as I lecture Students also share their work on there and I have small groups at that table.

 This year we numbered each table and color coded the numbers as well.  We use it to make groups with the numbers or colors and we pull sticks with numbers on them to call on students when they don't volunteer to participate.  I like the sticks because it helps to keep my students on their toes and forces them to pay attention because they can be called on at anytime and they don't feel like they are being picked on unless they feel the sticks are out to get them.  It also makes putting them in a new seating chart so much easier.  We just call out their name and number instead of pointing to where they go.  We also strategically placed that one chair right next to Ms. Faumui so she can work with an individual student that might need more one on one instruction on the side or for those students that get distracted too easily.  The numbers also help when they work in groups because they know where each desk belongs when they have to put the desks back.

I co-teach an inclusion classroom.  I am the content specialist and Ms. Faumui is the learning specialist.  The students are not suppose to know that their in an inclusion classroom.  Though I do suspect that some might realize that there are SPED students in their class.  Our first period has 7 students with IEP's and 2 students with 504 plans, period 2 we have 11 students with IEP's, and in period 4 we have 7 students with IEP's.  All together we have 25 students with IEP's out of 87 students.
The accommodations on their IEP's include giving extended time, modeling with examples, group work, chunking, prompting, preferential seating, frequent checks for understanding, graphic organizers/visuals, small group testing, modified assignments/summative assessments, homework logs, guided notes, simplified instruction, student initiated breaks, and the use of a calculator.
Our lowest students tested at a 2nd grade math level and reading level.  We also have general education students that are doing extremely well.  Differentiation has been quite difficult given our range of students.  We use their interactive notebooks to help all students keep organized  and to simplify/chunk their notes to try to make it as comprehensive as possible.  Last year, I had a hard time with getting students to keep and use their notes.  I use to give out printed guided notes and I would find them all over the floor of our classroom. In their interactive notebooks we use a lot of foldables and graphic organizers that seem to help my students understand the content better.  We also use Cornell notes in their interactive notebooks. I keep their notes to one page to simplify/chunk their notes so we don't overload them with information like I had last year.  My notes were sometimes three or more pages last year!  I would lose my students during the second page of guided notes...I now separate their notes into main ideas.  For example, on our unit on function notation we started with notes on "Relations", "Domain and Range", "What is a Function?", "Independent and Dependent Variables", "Function Notation", "Evaluating Functions", and "Functions in the Real World."  All in all I feel that this year is going a whole lot better than last year with my students' understanding of the material!

One thing that happens in my classroom that makes me love my job even more is watching my students help each other.  I really enjoy watching my general education students helping the SPED students without either Ms. Faumui or I asking them to.  Like I said before, there are some students that our general education students can tell are in special education and instead of ostracizing them, they help to keep them on task and try to get them involved with group work.

One thing that I have noticed this year that has been troubling for me is how many students that were in a resource setting in intermediate school for math and english that have been placed in inclusion classes as freshmen.  I have six students that were previously in a resource class for math last year that are really struggling in our class.  I'm not shocked to see behavior issues from these students seeing how they came from a smaller class for math last year and now they are in a class with up to 30 students and they are not getting as much help as they had before.  It is very hard with so many SPED students and students overall to constantly give one-on-one instruction to a handful of students.  Especially, since some of them will not do their work without constant prompting and redirection.  The transition to high school is hard enough without changing the environment of a student who needs special services.  However, our administration and SPED department have been very supportive and we have PST(Positive Support Team, which includes all of their teachers, a behavior specialist, counselors, SPED department personnel, and an administrator) meetings for students with IEP's that are struggling in all of their classes to discuss how the student is doing in their classes, what we can do to help them and to reevaluate their placement if needed.  I think the PST meetings are a good example of how our school is committed to helping our students by looking at what is in the students' best interest for them to succeed.

So that is our community, school, and classroom.  I feel that "Saber Nation" pride is a common factor of our culture throughout each aspect.  Also that our community is large as well as our school and class sizes.  The community, school, and our classroom also are dealing with the heat issues and we are all working together in the matter.  Many community business's and families have donated fans to help our students have a better learning environment.  I feel that those gestures are really impacting the culture of our community, school, and classroom.  It seems we all want the best for our students by having a safe and effective learning environment and I do feel that social media and the news have really brought awareness to the community about these issues.

Blog #1

It feels like such a long time ago since our learning journey to the Big Island!  I was extremely nervous to start my second year of teaching but it I feel that it has been going pretty good.  I feel much more organized and a little less stressed since I have gone through the curriculum once already.  I also started using interactive notebooks in my classes which I feel really helps my students and myself with organization. 

            One of my colleagues and good friends, Jo-Hanna Valdez, and I were designated with the immense task of create a field trip for the entire math department.  This wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t approximately two thousand students what would be going on this field trip.  What we have decided to do so far is to split the students up by grades.  Freshman and sophomores will be going on a service learning field trip and the juniors and seniors will go to a job and career fair.

            For the Juniors and Seniors, we want to have the job and career fair off campus if possible to make the experience more appealing too the students.  James Campbell High School has many partnerships and we would like ask them to participate in our job and career fair to show case how they use mathematics in their line of work.  Also we want to showcase a wide variety of possible careers to our students that they could consider after high school or college. 

            Our freshmen and sophomores will bee going on a service learning experience during term 3.  We are currently working on getting a count of how many algebra I, geometry/MOW (modeling our world), and algebra II students we have that are Freshmen and Sophomores so we can find a venue that can accommodate us.  We contacted Kupu and they recommended contacting the Waianae Watershed Partnership.  I looked at their website and I think it would be a great place to take them on our side of the island.  Also I figured out that since we would be going in term 3, we can integrate how watersheds work into the Algebra I curriculum by using systems of equations to determine approximately how much water gets to the ocean while considering equations for the rate of rainfall, the approximate amount of water absorbed in the soil.  Algebra II teachers can also incorporate the function of a watershed to systems of equations.  Geometry/MOW teachers can possibly incorporate volume and/or trig ratios.

            If anyone has been to a Waianae Watershed Partnership site please let me know how it went and what you and your students did there.  That would be greatly appreciated!

            Though we are having a hard time even just starting to plan.  We are currently just struggling to get an accurate count of all the students taking each mathematical subject.  We have sent out emails and had a sign in at the last math department meeting and we still have only gotten fourteen out of about forty math teachers to give us their student counts.  Also we need to sort out which algebra II classes are freshmen and sophomores.  We currently want to get an accurate count before we contact the Waianae Watershed Partnership so we can figure out how many students/classes can go on the field trip a day and how many days we are looking at overall.  Also to find a venue for the job and career fair for our juniors and seniors.  If anyone has a better strategy to get teachers to cooperate and give us a count of their students please help.