Stephanie David-Chapman began working on her final document, “Weaving
Creativity, Culture and Indigenous Education,” with the question “How
can teachers share ‘i ka olelo ke ola i ka olelo ka make?’ She loosely
translates this to be “How can teachers share the life in literacy? How
can teachers share the life in words and the death in words? In what
ways could teachers have students taste the flavor of words and share
the power and intimacy of text?”
Through an action research study with native Hawaiian middle and high
school language arts students, Stephanie identified six recommendations
on how to use creative teaching strategies to promote student motivation
and self-actualization: set the foundation, discover student’s creative
appetite, feed appetite, learn the internal library of your students,
establish real and genuine relationship, and find a project with purpose
and relevance. She applied these strategies to placed-based,
project-based and culturally-focused education in Hawaiʻi, which allowed
students to channel, direct and develop their own creativity. These
creative teaching strategies resulted in an exciting increase in student
performance, motivation, skill-building and relationship-building per
the pre- and post-class assessments.
This school year Stephanie primarily works as a middle school project
teacher. She uses her six recommendations to ground her
interdisciplinary curriculum design. This year's project surrounds
genealogy, relationship building and community service. Students will
take part in a yearlong study of their genealogy, birth stories, and
place of birth in order to envision their goals and sense of place for
the future. Occasionally, she shares her action research project,
findings and observations during school wide professional development
and through indigenous education networks around Hawaii.
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