Maya Soetoro-Ng: The Chalkboard Champion with Presidential Connections

Maya Soetoro-Ng is a former high school history teacher, current university professor, and expert in comparative international education. She also happens to be the half-sister of President Barack Obama. Born in 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia, she is the daughter of Anne Durham, Barack Obama's mother, and Anne's second husband, Indonesian businessman Lolo Soetoro. An accomplished educator in her own right, Maya's work as a promoter of international relations would be amazing even if she did not enjoy her presidential connections.

Early in her career, Maya taught history at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls and at the Education Laboratory School, both located in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has also taught courses as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii, College of Education, and between 1996 and 2000, she developed and taught curriculum at The Learning Project, an alternative public middle school located in New York City. She has also served as an Education Specialist at the East-West Center, an organization that promotes understanding between the United States, Asia, and the nations of the Pacific.

Maya published a children's book entitled Ladder to the Moon in 2011 and is currently working on a book about peaceful conflict resolution aimed at high school students. She also oversaw the 2009 publication of her mother's dissertation, entitled Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, penning the foreword to the book and presenting it at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.

Oklahoma's Chalkboard Heroes Protect Students From Devastating Tornado

Once again our nation is reminded of the heroism of our teachers, who go above and beyond the call of duty to care for, protect, and comfort their students in crisis situations. Such was the case yesterday, in Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, when a devastating tornado tore through this Mid-Western neighborhood. Two elementary schools, Briarwood Elementary and Plaza Towers Elementary, lay directly in the tornado's path of destruction. Thankfully, all the students at Briarwood have been accounted for, and already there are eyewitness accounts from the rescued children describing what extraordinary measures their teachers took to ensure their safety and well-being. Every one of those educators is a chalkboard hero. This photo shows a teacher from from Briarwood evacuating a student. At Plaza Towers Elementary, there is still grave concern for 75 teachers and their students, most of them third graders, who are still missing. I know we will keep all of them in our thoughts, and hope with all our might for the best of outcomes.

Turn-of-the-Century Farm Schools Educated Orphan, Homeless Boys

While conducting research for my book Chalkboard Champions, I learned a great deal about various types of schools that I had never heard about in my thirty-odd years as a teacher. Industrial schools, emancipation schools, farm schools, normal schools, specialist schools. Where were all these terms when I went through student teaching? One type of school I learned about that I found particularly intriguing is the farm school.

 

A farm school was a boarding school which primarily served young boys. Typically these schools were established by missions or charitable organizations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The farm school provided housing, food, and medical care, usually to orphans or homeless boys who were over fourteen years of age. In addition, the school offered training in agricultural skills and fundamental lieracy skills in such subjects as reading, writing, and mathematics. The purpose of the farm school was to care for orphans and homeless youth, while simultaneously giving these youngsters the opportunity to learn a marketable skill which would enable them to find employment on farms in the Midwest or the South.

Chalkboard Champions Added to Nine More Public Libraries

I'm pretty excited to announce that my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America's Disenfranchised Students, has been added to the catalogues of nine more public libraries in the Southern California area. These libraries are located in Cathedral City, Eastvale, Idyllwild, Palm Desert, Perris, San Jacinto, Temecula, Valle Vista, and Woodcrest.

 

How wonderful is it to know that the general public is interested in reading stories about remarkable teachers! I love to tell stories about extraordinary teachers, and in today's world where so much negativity hits the news, this knowledge should give all of us who are professional educators a lift!

Princess Pauahi's Kamehameha Schools Preserve Native Hawaiian Culture and History

While conducting research for my book Chalkboard Champions, I learned a great deal about numerous types of schools that I had never heard about in my thirty-odd years as an educator. Industrial schools, emancipation schools, farm schools, normal schools, specialist schools. Where were all these terms when I went through student teaching? One type of school I learned about that I found particularly intriguing is the Kamehameha School located in the beautiful state of Hawaii.

Kamehameha Schools were first established in 1887 at the bequest of Bernice Bishop, also known as Princess Pauahi, a member of the Hawaiian royal family when the state was still a territory. Princess Pauahi and her beloved husband, an American named Charles Reed Bishop, had no children of their own, and so when she passed away in 1882 at the age of 52, she directed that her vast estate should be used to benefit and educate underprivileged Native Hawaiian children. Two schools were built: one for boys and one for girls. Eventually the two schools were merged to form a coed school, now located on a six-hundred-acre campus on the main island of Oahu overlooking Honolulu Harbor. 

 

Kamehameha Schools serve the important function of preserving Native Hawaiian culture, history, and language. One of the ways this is done is through the annual choral competition known as the Kamehameha Song Contest, where traditional Hawaiian songs and dances as well as new compositions in the genre are performed by the students. This is a wonderful tradition that goes back 45 years.

 

When I think of Chalkboard Champions, my first thought is of teachers, of course, but individuals such as Princess Pauahi who support schools financially and with their volunteer hours are also heroes to our students!

Read more about Kamehameha Schools in my book Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon.

The "Soup School": Food for Thought

While in the process of conducting research for my book Chalkboard Champions, I learned about many types of schools that I had never heard about in the thirty-odd years I have been a professional educator. Industrial schools, emancipation schools, freedom schools, farm schools, normal schools. Where were all these terms when I went through student teaching? I was particularly intrigued by the concept of the "soup school." What was that all about, I wondered?

 

I learned that a "soup school" was an institution established during periods of pronounced immigration to our country. Their purpose was to provide assistance to immigrant children as they struggled to assimilate within a new, dominant culture. Often times these schools were founded by charitable organizations or missionary societies. It makes sense that these schools were located primarily near areas of immigrant entry, New York City, for example. The main curriculum in these facilities was instruction in the English language, basic literacy skills, and American culture. Apparently, the school got its name from the fact that at noontime a bowl of soup was served to the students, a free meal which would have been most welcome to the poorest of immigrants. In contemplating this practice, I'm wondering if our nation's free lunch program would be considered a modern version of the "soup school"?

 

You can read more about soup schools in Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon.

Indian Boarding Schools: A Cultural Disaster

While I was conducting research for my book Chalkboard Champions, I was surprised to learn a great deal about numerous types of schools, more than I ever learned in the thirty-odd years I had been teaching. Industrial schools, soup schools, farm schools, normal schools, specialist schools. Where were all these terms when I went through student teaching? I was particularly interested in reading about Indian boarding schools, and the controversies these generated.

Indian boarding schools were created specifically for the purpose of educating Native Americans. Indian children were sent to these schools, sometimes involuntarily, because it was believed the only way Native Americans could ever succeed in a predominantly white society would be if they abandoned their tribal ways and adopted the lifestyle practiced by the dominant culture, and that this assimilation could best be accomplished when the Indians were very young. Most Indian boarding schools were first founded by church missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later, some were established and run by the U.S. government. The intentions were pure, but in retrospect the results were disastrous. Some historians go so far as to assert these schools were institutions of cultural genocide.

The children, some as young as four years old, were taken away from their families, sent many miles away from home, and forced to give up their languages, customs and religious beliefs, art and music, native clothing, and even their names. These youngsters often found it traumatic when they were forced to cut their long hair, a symbolic act of shame and sorrow to Native Americans. The highly regimented routine and military atmosphere were harsh on the youngest ones. Exposure to diseases to which they had no natural immunities, coupled with homesickness and, in some locations, unsanitary conditions, led to a disturbingly high death rate. In despair, some of the youngsters ran away from their schools, freezing or starving to death trying to make their way back to their home reservations. Such a terribly sad thought for educators who care so much about kids and really believe in the liberating power of schools.

 

You can read a quick overview of these schools in the book Indian Boarding School: Teaching the White Man's Way, available on amazon.com. You can also read about them in Chalkboard Champions.