Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 5, 1 May 1993 — Talking story with superteacher Lisa Halani Berard [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Talking story with superteacher Lisa Halani Berard

Interview by Jeff Clark She's been written up in the newspaper, appeared on TV, and honored by the state Legislature ... but you get the impression that, although grateful for the recognition, Lisa Halani Berard would rather just teach. Berard, an English teacher at Nānākuli Intermediate who last year won an award naming her the nation's number-one firstyear teacher, grew up in Los Angeles and went to school at UCLA, but kept in touch with her Hawaiian heritage. As a result, she knew early on that Nānākuli was where she wanted to teach. From hearing her talk it's obvious she holds a special plaee in her heart for Hawaiian 'ōpio. Now in her second year of teaching, Berard is certain low SAT scores do not provide an accurate picture of the Wai'anae Coast students. So in Apnl she organized a rally to motivate them for the upcoming tests, but stressed that scores were not the rally's focus; her message was more general: "Show up and do your best." KWO : What gave you the idea for this rally? This SAT thing, with all the pressure, I didn't want to pump

them up to raise their scores - that wasn't the point. I just wanted them to care about where they live, where they go to school ... and I thought it was the perfect time to use this SAT testing as a practice ground for a kind of commitment that their eommunity needs. You've got to work in it every day to see the whole attitude towards education, towards learning ... there's a lot of negative attitude. And it's such a hard thing to see when I look at what these kids ean do, and I see that attitude-wise, there's not a desire to do. I know in skills they're already weak, but they've been weak since kindergarten; so there's this (laek of) self-esteem, this laek of confidence in their academic abilities. Historically, these Nānākuli kids have just shown up, filled in any kine and turned 'em in; that's why they're at the bottom. So with this rally we discussed why we're at this bottom, and my intent was to rally them to show up and do their best. And just (have) that phrase resound through their whole life. Show up and do your best. It's working because they are doing their best. And they're getting frustrated. They're finding as eaeh testing day goes on,

'Oh, this hard.' They're seeing where they're weak. That's OK, because if these scores do stay the same, then we (educators) have a lot to be accountable for. Because in the past you could blame the kids for apathy. But this time, if they're really doing their best, then it's a good indicator of what we're not doing - the schools and the parents. So that's why I wanted this rally. KWO: I eoulā

see where they would show up, do their best, and then not be real happy with their best. ... and maybe want to do something about that. Yes! It's beautiful to see them seriously supporting eaeh other. We've never had this atmosphere. I think that rally sparked it. KWO: (Hōkūle'a navigator)

Nainoa Thompson was there? Yes. It was so good because when the Hōkūle'a voyaged home from Rarotonga, my students followed. We had 200 stu-

dents who followed the eanoe, and really did something different with learning. They would go down and talk to him through PEACESAT, the telecommunications system at UH. He explained to them that out of all the students he spoke with during the voyage, they were the most intelligent. It was great. Academically that was something that worked. They worked hard. They

read like they never read before. He asked these heavy, heavy questions, and the kids were grouped into teams, and the team with the best answer got to go and talk to Nainoa and give the answer. That tied so beautifully into the rally. My other reason for hav-

ing the rally was to show that the scores don't measure all of our students' learning. You can't assess what they know. Our native Hawaiian children's

strengths seem to be visual, hands-on practical, strengths that you'll never see on the SATS. With this rally I wanted to showcase their strengths. We displayed their art work. These kids are nationally recognized for their art. So it was, "This is where you excel. Hōkūle'a. This is where you excel." Hopefully the kids were thinking, "Yeah, I do have some intelligence, some smarts. It may not be what's on this test, but I ean." KWO: / ean imagine them thinking, "There's no test that ean measure me," and coming away with pride. Absolutely. But the thing is, that pride hasn't been there, that pride in their own achievements and what they ean do. KWO: So you think attitude and self-esteem are the main ... Oh yeah, yeah. Ability-wise they've just gotten ripped off since kindergarten. (From) pretesting our Hawaiian children, (we know that) they eome in lacking. They aren't ready to deal with kindergarten concepts. KWO: Why is that? From what they say, the preparedness in the homes in eommunication skills, in reading, those things ... they're behind. continued on page 14

Lisa Halani Berard

Superteacher continued from page 13

They're not verbal. I ean attest to that with my own students. Maybe it's cultural or maybe it's just community, I'm really trying to figure it out. Maybe in their homes they've been told to be seen and heard. My sense is that they haven't been expressing themselves and developing their language skills. [Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate trustee] Pinky Thompson, Nainoa's father, is really pushing for a pre-K program to all of our native Hawaiian areas. I love the idea that parent and young toddler will go together and start there. Whatever we ean do before kindergarten (is important) because onee they feel like, "Oh, I cannot," and that happens in the first or second grade, then that attitude is going to stick. And they hate to read, hate it, hate it, hate it. KWO: Why? It goes beyond culture. I mean it's a statewide problem, illiteracy. We have Nintendo, we have all these other different stimuli, but to sit down and have a book eome to life ... KWO: lt's not in their experienee? No. What they're seeing on the page is cold, ugly letters that make no sense and have no significance. I question, as an educator with my Nānākuli students, how important it is for them to know a dangling participle, you know? And obviously if I'm going to prioritize, that's not it. That's why we have go to revamp and reform - big time. "To prepare them for the world they're going to inherit." I think we're failing them. I think we kill their imagination very young. From my experience, I see this mind-set that's been ingrained from either kindergarten, first or second grade, somewhere along the line: school isn't where they're tumed on, where their imaginations are tumed on, where it's "Yeah yeah I wanna go and learn!" What excites them from 8 to 2:15? Unfortunately I don't see it being up here [taps head with index finger], the buzzing sound in your head of really thinking and being challenged. I think we're all realizing as educators that something's going on, but we're losing them. We're losing them to Nintendo, we're losing them to the drugs, we're losing them to all of the pressures around them and the things that will take them away from sharpening up here [taps head again]. It's going to take a lot of time to identify what those problems are. They're massive. KWO: It's not going to happen over night, is it? No, no. But I do know the ehildren who will do well have parents who are extremely supportive and read to them at night. I

wish every mother and father when they have a child really understands the responsibility. There's so mueh "School should take care of it all, teach 'em everything." Without that family link ... But then again I can't blame the parents out here because school was awful for them, it didn't have any meaning. KWO: With the Hōkūle'a, it seems as if you taught them that education is not just learning stuff because your teacher says you have to, that education is a way to get somewhere. Yes. They're learning the math, they're reading, it's that kind of learning that's different from "English for 40 minutes, math, then history." Because that way they think, "This is important, I'm really getting something out of this," and finally all these subjects will make sense. KWO: How ean we get the parents involved? They've got to assume that front-line responsibility to simply care about what their children are learning. And too many parents are made to be the bad guy, and I think we educators perpetuate that. We eall when the kids are in trouble, they eome in when there are problems. Just to sit down at dinner and ask, "What did you do in school, what did you learn today?" A lot of kids are happy getting Ds because their parents say, "As long as you pass, I just want you to get that diploma." So where is the focus? It's on the grade. It's on this extemal thing, rather than on the whole process of learning, it's on this grade. I'd love to throw all grades out. I hate grades. KWO: lt seems to me that education was very highly valued in ancient Hawai'i; are you able to get the kids in tune with this, and have them see what their legacy is? I want to, because I'm finding that this idea is coming into shape, looking at the kinds of skills ancient Hawaiians had and what it took to be skilled, to be a kahuna. Everybody had their specialty and their kuleana, but they perfected eaeh one because the learning was so valued. That's why studying the Hōkūle'a was so important. We were in awe that our ancestors could travel 2,000 miles of open oeean by knowing the elements. That takes some serious leaming that I hope these kids ean latch onto, and know, "That's in my blood, my people were like this." They ean connect to that. They need more exposure. We're going to have some heavyduty kalo farmers from the Big Island eome in just to talk story and share. But the students gotta do. It can't be from books, I'm finding that what they leam about their culture, reading is one thing, but they're such visual kids, "do" kids ...

You compare kapa across all of Polynesia, and the Hawaiians had the most intricate patterns, that whole notion, "I'm going to leam but then I'm going to take it and add on, create, innovate. ... KWO: Any final thoughts on teaching? To me, it's the noblest, grandest, it should be the most prestigious profession we have in this country, but it isn't. Any of your dedicated teachers will tell you

they're up ur.til one in the moming. ... These teachers are above and beyond, and we can't wait for the lawmakers to do what's right, whieh is to compensate educators for the energy they expend, so we've got to recruit those to whom it doesn't matter. You can't be driven by the dollar and be a teacher. You've got to love kids. To see them feel their growth is awesome. It's an awesome

way to live. I am really obsessive about my work. I love it. I can't think of a better way to spend my life. I really can't. It's so hard to see the potential and know what their limitations are because of their situation. Those are the things we need to change. I think that's what I'll spend the next 50-60 years of my life doing.