Retreat

Won't be posting tomorrow. Just finished packing for school-sponsored retreat in Makaha tomorrow and Saturday. Each year the school selects, more or less at random, a group of about 25 teachers to spend two days off-campus doing a number of activities that are designed to encourage dialogue and reflection. The retreats include some good food, an evening movie, and some recreation time as well. These retreats are more or less modeled on the David Mallery Seminars for Educators, but they are designed and run by Punahou teachers for Punahou teachers. We'll leave by bus at 8:00 tomorrow morning from school for the one-hour ride to the far side of the island, which happens to be where I began my teaching career as a Teacher Corps intern in 1969. I lived in Makaha for two years—for a while right on Makaha Beach, near the large palm tree in the picture above—and taught elementary school at Nanaikapono School in Nanakuli. Later, when we were living in Waianae, the duplex we were renting was right at the foot of Kamaile'una, the mountain pictured in the background. And then when we finally moved back to Hawaii in 1998, we stayed at a friend's condo in Makaha for the first month we were here as well, before eventually moving to Honolulu. So this is in some ways two days of leaving home, and in some other ways two days of going home. I'm looking forward to the change of pace, the change of rhythm, the chance to take a few breaths and get some perspective before the end of the year sprint gets started.

Picture by Sholecka