Here is the portrait of ULS as presented on our school website, universitylaboratoryschool.org. This photo shows the main building in which classes for grades 6-12 are held, although we have classroom space in historic Castle Memorial Hall and in the portable classrooms also used by the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa College of Education. Our school's history has been intertwined with that of UH for many years, as we were once part of the Curriculum Research and Development Group with instructors who were employed by UH who wrote and tested curriculum while teaching students in the classroom. Today we are a public Charter School and our teachers are highly qualified, licensed by HSTB, and pay dues to HSTA like all DOE teachers. Now that those technical details are cleared up, let me share my school, ULS.
Below is our entire student body (grades K-12) and faculty after the first assembly of the year in 2014. With such a small school community, it is not uncommon for students to have friends in grades six years above or below their own. Interaction between high schoolers and elementary and all grades in between is encouraged through "Share a snack" days where students spend a time getting to know their "buddies" from grade levels as many as 12 apart from their own (Kindergarteners and Seniors) over their favorite snacks from home.
It may be a bit difficult to see, but ULS has a very diverse student population, which is "selected
by lottery to create a student body evenly distributed by gender that reflects the ethnic distribution
of Hawai‘i, and includes a broad range of student academic achievement and family socioeconomic
levels." The approximately 450 students from grades K-12 include (but are not limited to) the following ethnicities:
Much of an individual's culture is rooted in their ethnicity as well as where they are raised and by whom. Last year one of the major projects my 7th graders did in Science was a "Family Food Tree" to investigate how the foods they eat at home might be connected somehow to their ethnic backgrounds and culture. When we began our discussions of foods we eat, many students brought up their favorite foods, chips, drinks, and other snacks, which were common and recognized by most of their classmates. During our studies of biomolecules (carbohydrates, fats/lipids, protein, etc.) to determine where most of the kilocalories (Calories) we eat and therefore our energy source comes from, students began to bring up more culturally-specific foods like pancit, gyoza, jackfruit, and goulash which provided opportunities for sharing and learning about each other. Students for the most part at ULS are intrigued by the many cultures of their classmates and want to learn more and their classmates are usually willing and happy to share.
As a school, due to our small student population, entering Kindergarten classes of 10 students which increases to a high school graduating class size of 56 in 6th grade, most students have friends in multiple grades from being in mixed grade level classes in elementary, to music, art, extracurricular teams in middle school, sports, and electives in high school. This feeling of "ohana" is extended to the faculty and administration as we all want to provide the best learning opportunities for our students. Many teachers set up "early bird," "lunch crunch," or after school times for students to get extra help or to participate in activities such as Middle School Speech team, Pacific and Asian Affairs Council, Science Olympiad, Math Counts, Photography and Film, Select Choir, Robotics, and Kimono Culture. Our students already take eight classes every day but many participate in sports after school on ULS teams after school finishes at 3:15 p.m. They spend a lot of time with their peers and this adds to the feeling of family.
In my classroom, I try to extend the feeling of belonging in a group (in this case their grade level) to create an environment where students take ownership of their learning and work cooperatively and collaboratively during labs and other activities. Students have classroom jobs such as Paper-passer outers, Window monitors, Attendance monitors, Energy monitors, Praisers, and SNB monitors and work in groups for nearly all labs which are inquiry-based, requiring communication, creativity, and problem-solving skills. I am currently working with the other 7th and 9th grade teachers to collaborate on lessons that tie-in content between our classes, building upon the Omnivore's Dilemma project from the last four years with English to include more sense of place and culture with identity. In 9th grade Modern Hawaiian History this year, we will tie-in Hokule'a's current Worldwide Voyage with the Hawaiian renaissance movement.
Edit:
While ULS is located in lower Manoa Valley, geographically, ULS students come from as close as just a five to ten minute walk down the road to as far away as Makaha, Kahuku, Waimanalo, and Kalama Valley. This is another part of the student body population that is determined during admissions, we seek to serve and represent students from every neighborhood on Oahu. In some ways this may adversely affect our students' connection to the community of the physical location of our campus, I feel that it deepens our understanding of our island community overall because our students (much like other private and Charter school students) come from many different neighborhoods. Going to friends' houses (especially finding them when all I had was a Street Map of O'ahu, no GPS in those days) was always an interesting experience and I am sure that my students are exposed to similar experiences today, seeing other neighborhoods and their friends' connections to place, such as crabbing at night on Kailua beach, Morman church on Sundays, swimming in Nu'uanu Stream, getting in over your head (literally) at unfamiliar shore breaks, and boogie boarding at Walls.
As we look towards our STEMS^2 units, I feel that this lack of connection to our school's place can and should be addressed by making sure that our students know about the community that their school's place is in and identifying issues that affect our community that we can propose solutions to. The Be Ready Manoa Fair that we participated in last year is a great example of how ULS can be more involved in its community. We presented an activity that was supposed to help the public be more aware of what they should do in order to be prepared for natural disasters such as Hurricanes, Tsunami, and Storms. Many students attended, but not as many as I think would have had this been in their local community, so it is difficult to have a sense of ownership and belonging in a place that you do not spend much time outdoors in, where you do not know your "neighbors."
As for cultural layers, after our discussion of ahupua'a when we were on the Big Island and how to find out which ahupua'a our schools are in, I started looking for information on Manoa and remembered receiving a booklet about the ahupua'a of Manoa a couple years ago that I have not really looked at. I did want to incorporate information on ahupua'a with my 7th graders this year so I will try to do so with an emphasis on how changes from the traditional system to our current system have affected our connection to the land. Looking back at historical photos of the area our school is in will hopefully help the 7th graders to think more about their personal connections to 'aina as well as to Manoa and their own places.
