The Nuances of Namahana School’s Educational Model: a Conversation with Kapua Chandler and Elliot Washor

Feature, October 10, 2023 — We recently spoke with Namahana School Leader Dr. Kapua Chandler and Big Picture Learning Co-Founder Elliot Washor – two leaders on the frontiers of educational innovation. The eye-opening conversation helped to clarify key concepts that are central to Namahana’s vision and values, such as the advisory structure and ‘āina-based learning, as well as how the international Big Picture Learning network helps to guide Namahana’s educational model.

Below is a preview of the conversation. You can read the full interview here.

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Let’s talk a little bit about advisories in the Big Picture Learning learning model. Some people might just think of this as homeroom, though the Big Picture Learning advisory is actually a very different and much more expansive concept. 

Elliot: Well, it’s a very different iteration of what a school is – where students are known well, students are learning through their interests, connecting to adults who are connected to the community, where parents know what’s going on and the teacher-advisor serves as an intermediary between the community and the school. 

And so your outcomes are defined around questions like: What are the things that give meaning to your life? What are the things that make you tick? What are the things that you click with? Your family, your community, your health, your education, the work that you’re going to be doing, the community that you’re going to live in – all those are different from getting just a grade in a course that’s measured around a specific content that you’re supposed to learn in a certain amount of time. A grade that may or may not represent what you know, because nobody knows, really, who you are. 

So it’s an advisory system, I would say, like no other schools have, but that schools really want. The Big Picture Learning advisory system is a main piece of the culture of a school where students are known. We know when things are going to happen before they happen. There aren’t as many interventions and there aren’t the disciplinary problems and there aren’t the anxieties and depressions that students feel from a testing regime. It’s about what you learn and what you’re interested in.

Kapua: One of the measures for how successful students will be is based on whether or not they have a relationship with an adult in their secondary school experience. Every single Big Picture Learning student who’s graduating has at least one amazing solid relationship with an adult, and that’s missing from a lot of our schools. They come in the class, you teach them, they leave, and there isn’t that space to develop a meaningful relationship. And that can do a lot for a student and their trajectory towards college and/or career. 

‘Āina-based learning is another area of the Namahana vision that sometimes leads to confusion. There’s this sense of: Well, is it like a farm school? Is this an agricultural education? 

Kapua: ‘Āina-based learning is not the same as place-based learning, environmental learning, outdoor learning, or agricultural education. And the biggest difference is really about building a reciprocal relationship with your place. Some of the core pieces in order for it to be successful are, one: time spent in a place. Two: observations and listening. Three is the history of place – the naming of the place, the winds of that place, the rains of that place, what grows there, what people are from there, what people care for that place, what makes it thrive, what doesn't make it thrive. 

Whether you’re a lawyer, a doctor, a fireman, a plumber, a contractor, a real-estate agent, all of those professions have an impact on our place and our ‘āina. And for us, it’s really about developing each student’s lens to think about how your passions and interests and what you’re doing in the world – whether it’s in your home, whether it’s in your profession, whether it’s in your personal life – how that is supporting and giving back to and taking care of place. And the only way you can really know how to take care of it is to have a relationship.

Read the full interview here.

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Elliot Washor is co-founder of Big Picture Learning, an internationally recognized educational nonprofit founded in 1995 that supports schools through personalized and real-world learning tied to students interests and passions. Today, schools in the BPL network can be found in over 28 states and around the world in countries from Australia to Italy to India and beyond. Elliot has been involved in school reform for more than 50 years as an educator and writer whose work has encompassed school design pedagogy, learning environments, new forms and new measures for learning, and he supports others doing similar work around the world. For a complete bio, visit the Big Picture Learning website.

Dr. Kapua Chandler is Namahana School’s inaugural School Leader. She was born and raised in Kīlauea and is a lineal descendant of Ko‘olau and Halele‘a moku. Kapua has been working on the Namahana School project since 2018, when the Kaua‘i North Shore Community Foundation organized a community engagement process to create a North Shore charter school. Kapua completed her Ph.D. program from UCLA in 2020 in higher education and organizational change. She is also a leader in the local community, where she actively volunteers and supports a number of nonprofits and community associations. For a complete bio, visit the Namahana School website.