What do you get when you knead artists and teachers with collaboration? That is exactly what the Maui Arts & Cultural Center intends to discover as they fund this educational project for the 2009-10 school year. Artist Makamae Murray and seventh grade science teacher Maggie Prevenas plan an Inter-Disciplinary Unit (IDU) which takes elements of storytelling, Hawaiian culture and visual art and embeds them into Hawaii State Science Standards. Seventh grade Language Arts teacher Benny Uyetake guides students as they reflect and communicate their understandings of place through narratives and poetry.
Each student is assigned a Hawaiian Canoe Plant, a plant selected by the Ancients to ride in the belly of the canoe in the journey to Hawaii, as a metaphor in their own personal journey to understanding their place in the world. Murray and Prevenas co-teach the students in lessons meant to help them visualize their uniqueness, connection, and belonging. Through chanting, ceremony, and storytelling, students work together to discover their true sense of place.
Sense of place refers to the understanding of self, relationship to others, and to the world around them. No where is this knowledge needed more than in our children as they prepare to take their personal place as a citizen of this planet. Students take this knowledge personally, and explore their kuleana using tools of writing and art.
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This is an unbelievable idea. What you are proposing sounds beautiful and meaninful and I think it is something that will resonate with your students for years to come. I was directed here by a call-out on scuttlebutt and am so glad that I followed the link - this is very inspiring
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Seacoast Science Center
Rye, NH