Tue. Sept. 18th Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, Room 201 5:30 pm Free and open to the public
Kevin Kumashiro, author of Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture, will participate in a discussion of national and local educational reform. Kumashiro will talk about how scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions, and teacher education masks real, systemic problems. Nor do such current trends such as market-based reforms and fast-track teacher certification programs address these problems, instead creating overwhelming obstacles to achieving an equitable education for all children.
Following his remarks, Kumashiro will participate in a discussion about the state of Hawai‘i’s educational systems with UH Law Professor Mari Matsuda, UH Associate Professor of Political Science Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, and Mililani High School teacher Amy Perruso. UH West O‘ahu Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education Jeanne Marie Iorio will moderate the discussion; there will be ample time for questions and comments from the audience.
This event is co-sponsored by Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, the Center for Biographical Research, and LGBTI Student Services at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the University of Hawai‘i Commission on LGBTI Equality, and The Value of Hawai‘i Discussion Group.
For more information, please contact 956-4753
Brief Biographies of the Speakers
Originally from Hawai‘i, Kevin Kumashiro is Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Formerly Chair of the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Interim Co-director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, he is the project director of the UIC AANAPISI Initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Education to support Asian American and Pacific Islanders in higher education. He has authored or edited nine books, including Troubling Education and Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning toward Social Justice. He is the founding director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education, and the President-Elect of the National Association for Multicultural Education. For more information on Bad Teacher!, go tohttp://antioppressiveeducation.org/badteachertour.html
Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi Hawai‘i. Her forthcoming book, The Seeds We Planted: Portraits of a Native Hawaiian Charter School, discusses the complexities of initiating Indigenous culture- and land-based schooling within a settler state education system. Noelani is a co-founder of Hālau Kū Māna public charter school and of MANA, a movement- building organization supporting Hawaiian independence.
Jeanne Marie Iorio has focused her research on child-adult conversations as aesthetic experiences. She is currently working on a documentary depicting the stories of LGBTI adults and their early childhood experiences. She serves as Chair of the Critical Perspectives in Early Childhood Special Interests Group (SIG) for the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She also serves as Co-Chair for the University of Hawaii President’s Commission on the Status of LGBTI Equality.
Mari Matsuda is author of two of the hundred most-cited law review articles in the United States. She is a founder of Critical Race Theory, a professor of law, and a proud product of Hawai‘i public schools, including Mānoa Elementary, Stevenson Intermediate, Roosevelt High School, and the William S. Richardson School of Law. She is the author, with Charles Lawrence, of a forthcoming book entitled The Last Public Place: Essays on Race, Education, and Democracy, and also of the essay on Public Education in The Value of Hawai‘i: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future (2010).
Amy Perruso teaches AP history/government courses and serves as the head of the Social Studies department at Mililani High School. She is completing her doctorate in political science, examining the relationship between the rise of neoliberalism and a new public discourse on public education. She is, most importantly, proud parent of Olivia, second grader in a Hawaii public school.