I live in a rural community on an island, within an archipelago of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I am located in one of the most isolated landmasses in the entire world. Yet I feel completely connected to what is happening in capstone education at schools from a variety of geographic regions. How is this possible?
In Hawaii, we have a proverb that states, He moku he wa’a, he wa’a he moku*. This translates as “the canoe is our island, the island is our canoe.” This proverb means what we do on our island, is what we do on our canoe. The philosophies that allow us to work together on a canoe can be applied to our own individual island. So whether we are in the middle of a vast ocean, or in the center of a bustling urban center, we operate in our own little islands.
As an educator at an international K-12 international boarding school with a robust capstone program at grades 5, 8, and 12, I am constantly seeking out more information, more knowledge, and more expertise. But more importantly, I am looking for more connections and more opportunities for conversation around all things capstone. This is why I feel so fortunate to have found the National Capstone Consortium, and now the online network on the Mighty Network platform.
On this platform, I have been able to share ideas, ask questions, and above all participate in moving the conversation forward on how we can use capstone programs in our schools to give students more agency over their learning.
This was not the case for me when I started out on my journey as a capstone educator. Looking online and asking colleagues, it was difficult to find information or access expertise in this field. After attending my first National Capstone Consortium summit I was excited to bring what I had learned back to my school community. My fellow capstone faculty members and I were able to directly apply this new expertise to our program. Then a year later I was able to return to the next summit with a new cohort. Their summit experience helped them grow in their expertise, which in turn had a domino effect on our overall capstone program across our school.
With travel becoming more challenging and face-to-face meetings less likely during a global pandemic, there is a lot of opportunity with the Mighty Network that we launched earlier this year. As a capstone educator in a rural community, on an island, within an archipelago of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I see the network as an island. An island that I can visit in order to meet my fellow capstone educators.
This coming month we will be introducing new opportunities for all of us to come together on this “capstone island” that is the Mighty Network. Monthly chats, video meetups, and themes for us to focus our collaboration are some of the initial ideas that we will be introducing in the coming weeks. These will all be completely free and open to all members of our Mighty Network. It is through the collective efficacy of educators sharing that we'll all grow and in turn help support and serve our students.
So to tie it back to, he moku he wa’a, he wa’a he moku, on this canoe of capstone we have to work together to move capstone education forward. Then on your own island, whether it be your school, your district, or state, or region, you can collaborate and share to make the experiences for our students the best that they can be.
*See www.nakalaiwaa.org for more information on the Makali’i Voyaging Family
Dagan Bernstein
Hawai'i Preparatory Academy
HPA Capstone
The views of each blog post are the experiences of the individual instructor and school and do not necessarily represent the views of the Consortium