Aloha and ‘Āina: Healing Trauma with Place-Based Social–Emotional Learning

It is early morning, and the students and families of Kāneʻohe Elementary are gathered, virtually and in person, for piko—a ceremony opening the school day. Together, students recite an oli, a chant composed by cultural practitioner and head custodian, Wali Camvel. The teachers respond with an oli welcoming students to the campus. It concludes: 

Eia i nā leo o ke aloha 

Here are the voices of aloha 

Ka mohala Ko’olau, i nā ulupua 

The blossoms of the Ko’olau, the growing children 

E ho'okipa e, e ho'okipa e 

Welcome, welcome 

This practice is one of many that Principal Derek Minakami and his team have introduced as part of a larger program of place-based social–emotional learning (SEL). School leaders are weaving the values and practices of Aloha into the school’s culture. 

“When we do piko in the morning, it’s a means of getting everyone on the same page,” Minakami explains. “We’re doing the same thing and hearing the same message. This year, our theme is he kaula pa’a—the strong, firm rope. Piko is another way we are that strong, firm rope because we are joining together.” 

First Steps Toward a New Approach

Integrating Aloha into the school’s SEL and academic curricula arose from the need to address student trauma. 

“Generally, our school doesn’t have a huge behavior or discipline problem. We’ve had kids who have fought, or vaped, or even used alcohol on campus—but it’s rare occasions,” Minakami says. “But we were seeing students who were facing tragic circumstances. We had one student who was expressing suicidal ideations in the first grade. One in the third grade lost both her parents in separate instances in the same year. When counselors were in contact with our families, there was just an outpouring and a cry for help.”

A first attempt at SEL didn’t go as planned. “We did an off-the-shelf SEL program, but we were having a hard time implementing it. It just wasn’t resonating with our students,” he says.

Then school leaders embarked on a Design Thinking course in which, Minakami says, they asked, “How do we strengthen SEL for our students? How do we provide that connection, so they understand this is not something disconnected from our lives, but has been practiced by their kupuna, their ancestors, so their family is aware of it? Aloha had become lost a bit in modern culture. We find ourselves having to reteach it. So we decided to design our SEL program around that.” 

How Aloha Shapes Everyday SEL

For many years, the language, culture, and ancestral knowledge of Hawaiian people were excluded from formal education in public schools. But school leaders in many communities have begun looking to their heritage to build resilience and well-being in students, and to strengthen the school’s connection with the families they serve. Their goal is to foster a deep inclusion that is based, Minakami says, on “reverence, not reference.” This requires that values be integrated intentionally. 

In addition to piko, the principal hosts a weekly Aloha Focus blog in which he shares stories that illustrate how Aloha values make a difference in day-to-day life.  School leaders provide teachers with daily prompts and reflection questions to help them relate these values to the day’s academic lessons. When students design and carry out project-based learning, the projects are often informed by Aloha values. And school leaders incorporate Aloha instruction as they work with students to resolve conflicts and address behavioral issues that inevitably crop up.  

SEL in the Soil

One of the most important aspects of Aloha is a connection to ‘Āina, land. When Western missionaries and traders arrived generations ago, they took Hawaiian land and suppressed Hawaiian histories, language, and traditions. The loss of land, identity, and connection to ancestral wisdom has had lasting psychological and physical effects (Keli‘iholokai et al, 2020).

At Kāneʻohe Elementary, students regularly tend to trails, gardens, and beautification projects on campus. Some have opportunities to cultivate food in partnership with a local farm.

“What we want kids to understand is that they have a kuleana, a responsibility, to be caretakers of the land,” Minakami says. “When we think about the fires that have consumed different parts of Maui, it underscores that when we don’t take care of the land, there can be severe consequences. We want students to focus on that symbiotic relationship between the land and themselves. The two are intertwined.”

A strong bond with ‘Āina is “imperative” to Hawaiian health, well-being, and resilience. In research published in the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, study participants told researchers, “The health of the land is the health of the people” (Antonio et al., 2023). In another study involving Hawaiian teens who had experienced the effects of historical trauma, students called land “a pathway to healing.” They told researchers that working in the soil changed how they saw themselves and how they behaved with each other (Riley et al., 2022).

Minakami has seen similar changes. “I think when students develop a sense of agency—and their families, too—over their fate, seeing that they can heal the land and find healing from the land, when they participate in planting, in showing Akahai to this place, then there is a measure of healing.”

Does that mean there are no more trauma symptoms, emotional difficulties, or behavior issues at Kāneʻohe Elementary? No. It means a new sense of hope has sprouted.

“Hope is essential to recovering from trauma,” Minakami points out. “If we hope and look ahead at where we can go, and realize that we have power to get there, then we can move beyond trauma.”  

Where to Start with Place-Based SEL 

If you’re not sure where to begin designing and implementing place-based SEL where you are, here are some questions to consider:  

• When designing curriculum, you might ask: Whose stories are we missing? Who does not see themselves in the school and curriculum? Looking at the secondary and tertiary demographics of your school can reveal hidden populations whose voices and identities may have been overlooked. 
• When working with place-based and project-based learning, you might ask: How can students have a voice in the projects they do? How can faculty have agency in designing projects?  
• You might also ask: How can stories of place support other subjects? Minakami cites the story of Pele the fire goddess and her sisters. “Their journey supports the science of volcanos,” he says. “Science and storytelling arrive at the same destination. That’s the genius in ancestral knowledge.” 

Key Messages

When SEL practices are grounded in a specific place—when they grow out of a culture that belongs to students and teachers—they can 

• extend a feeling of belonging to those whose stories aren’t normally told; 
• help students see themselves in the curriculum;  
• build resilience to enable students to cope with adverse events; and 
• re-connect staff and students to the natural world. 

In short, place-based SEL can be the strong, firm rope that connects people to each other, to cultural resilience resources—and to the land on which everyone depends. 

WPS acknowledges and honors the foundational teachings of Auntie Pilahi Paki and Gholdy Muhammad in shaping this approach to learning.