Keaau & Pahoa Schools - USNews &WR Best List

[Carey]

Keaau & Pahoa HS have both made it onto the US News & World Report "Bronze Medal" standing in the "Best High Schools in the US" . Link:
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-hig...ols/hawaii

WOW! & Congrats!

Talk about a change for the best!

[birdmove]

Very cool!!

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[terracore]

Reading through the supporting web pages, it appears that to achieve this level of excellence, the Hawaii schools are only being compared to other schools IN HAWAII. And a bronze medal is third place...

[punafish]

Hey, being the tallest midget ain't so bad!

Seriously, this is an impressive accomplishment if you understand where Pahoa and Keaaau were just a few years ago. I expect both schools to continue their improvement. One step at a time. Congrats to both schools!

[unknownjulie]

The schools are definately getting better. If the stats took into account that half the kids dont really speak "english" at home, then they'd probably be considered very good.

[topograph]

quote:

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Originally posted by unknownjulie

The schools are definately getting better. If the stats took into account that half the kids dont really speak "english" at home, then they'd probably be considered very good.

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Wow- that comes across as seriously racist...

[Kapohocat]

quote:

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Originally posted by punafish

Hey, being the tallest midget ain't so bad!

Seriously, this is an impressive accomplishment if you understand where Pahoa and Keaaau were just a few years ago. I expect both schools to continue their improvement. One step at a time. Congrats to both schools!

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I like your glass half full attitude! Even third in the state is better than they were 10 yrs ago.

[csgray]

As a teacher in Hawaii schools I can honestly state that what is called "standard English" is not the first language in many homes, pidgin is. That is not a racist statement, unless you believe that there is something inherently negative about using pidgin in the home and with friends. Pidgin is considered a language by linguists, it has a distinct vocabulary, a grammar of it's own, and is part of a culture. Most kids in Hawaii easily move between the two languages, but for many standard English is not their first language. There are many other kids whose parents and grandparents speak some entirely different language than either English or pidgin.

Carol

[sputnut]

Why is it "seriously racist" to mention a difference in language? If the schools teach exclusively in English, then not being a native speaker of that language is a disadvantage. That is not racist, it's true.
Why is it in today's world, any mention of any difference between the races is called racist? Black people (negroes, colored, or even African Americans--although there is no such thing-- whatever you prefer) have flatter noses, larger lips, and darker skin on average than caucasian (whitey, cracker, honkie, haole, whatever you prefer)people do. That is not racist, it is anthropological fact.
Chinese people speak Chinese and Japanese people speak Japanese (for the most part)this is not racist, either... it is simply fact.
And nobody ripped you a new one for the crack about the midget... they are vertically challenged people, hellooo!! Or maybe just little people? Who knows, who cares? At least I didn't say the "N" word cuz the whole world's a bunch of 2 year olds. Ummm! you said the "N" word! I'm tellin' Mommy!
I'm a middle aged white man without any riches, so I guess that makes me the only true minority there is, huh? .... ;-)

comin' your way soon!

[punafish]

I'll fess up and plead guilty to the "midget" remark. But just for the record, I didn't call anyone a racist! (And my sincere apologies to the vertically-challenged little people of the world.

As usual, csgray's remarks are spot on. Looking at pidgin purely as a linguist, I see it as a tribute to human brilliance and creativity. Humans giving birth to a new language to bridge linguistic gaps with other cultures? How amazing is that? If anyone has given pidgin a bad name, it's elitist social/cultural attitudes, definitely not linguistic scholars. Local kids who can switch back and forth from pidgin to standard English are "bilingual" in my book, conditions that can give them a great advantage later in life. (http://youtu.be/rhpVd30AJaY)

Language is absolutely about culture, not race. And Hawai'i definitely has its own culture, although it's easy to get lulled into assuming otherwise because the locals speak English. But patterns attributed to any given cultural group are speaking to observed tendencies, not absolutes. So even though patterns of thought and behavior are clearly discernible from culture to culture, it doesn't change the reality that humans are spread across a bell curve. Members of any given culture may share similar basic values, but priorities rarely line up exactly from value to value. (Not to mention there's always that oddball on the end of the curve doing his or her own thing, the very exception that proves the dominant cultural pattern.)

So yeah, it's useful to acknowledge cultural tendencies from group to group, especially if one hopes to communicate across cultures. The real danger is dehumanizing entire groups of people by making flawed associations to race, and/or painting entire groups of people with a single brush.

End of cross-cultural disclaimer. Carry on!