Kathryn Hu-pei Au

1. Kathryn Hu-pei Au Debunking the Myth” Social Constructivist “My underlying thesis is that teachers must be able to recognize negative, socially sustained patterns that hamper the literacy achievement of students of diverse backgrounds, and put new, positive patterns in their place.”

2. Legacy • Kathryn Au has worked for decades as an educator, teacher educator, educational consultant, researcher, research analyst, speaker, writer, and social activist. She has become an iconic figure nationally and internationally for her models for culturally responsive instruction and whole school reform. She has made major contributions in the process of closing the “Knowing to Doing Gap” in educational research. As a pluralist, her primary focus has been on school reform that results in equity in the classroom for children of all diverse backgrounds. She has proposed a break from the traditional participation structure as the sole delivery method for instruction and provided research based support for a culturally responsive instructional model. According to Kathryn, teachers must build on the rules for social interaction and sociolinguistic skills culturally diverse children bring to the classroom. Years of research and multiple collaborative studies support her claim that culturally responsive participation structures are an essential component of instruction for socially and linguistically diverse students. Implementing culturally responsive instruction affords diverse students an opportunity to learn essay literacy and thereby an opportunity to become a successful participate in mainstream culture.

3. Contributions • Researcher, Curriculum Developer for KEEP/ 1971-195. • Professor and endowed chair at University of Hawaii • Founder of INPEACE, a Native Hawaiian initiative that focused on Early Pre-school education, Workforce Development and Cultural Land Stewardship.

4. Contributions Continued Co-Founder and CEO of School Rise.LLC • Educational Consultation • Standards Based Change • Staircase Model • Seven Levels of Development • Teachers collaborate in the creation of the curriculum

5. Contributions LaLama Teacher Education Initiative - Program design to assist Native Hawaiians in becoming teachers. Developed literacy curriculum that was implemented in 10 Native Hawaiian schools. QAR Comprehension Strategy with co-author and co-founder of SchoolRise Taffy E. Raphel

6. The Achievement Gap • Evidence of the gap between reading achievement of African Americans and Hispanics along with changing patterns in literacy have resulted in an urgent need for reform according to Kathryn. Reports from the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that African Americans and Hispanic students are about four reading levels below white and Asian or Pacific Islanders (Au K. , 2008). Adhering to the theories of social constructivism, Kathryn placed the responsibility for the poor achievement of minorities on the “historical and systematic conditions rooted in discrimination” (2008, p. 19)

7. Quote “As educators, we must be aware of the controversial history of schooling as a process of imposing mainstream culture on students of diverse backgrounds. We must acknowledge the lingering effects of this long history on education today.” Multicultural Issues and Literacy Achievement, p.21

8. Background Kathryn’s perspective on equity pedagogy, a dimension of Multiculturalism is rooted in her own background in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was born in 1947. Her great-grandfather was a Chinese immigrant. Like her great-great father, other immigrant populations, and Native Hawaiians, she spoke Hawaii Creole (HC) growing up. In one of her articles (Au K. H., 2008), Kathryn presented a detailed account of how Hawaii Creole developed from the syntax of the Hawaiian language and English lexicon. It provided a common language for communication with British settlers. She discussed the history of the subjugation of Native Hawaiians and their language. She compared attitudes towards speakers of Hawaiian Creole to those held of speakers of African American Vernacular. It was not until a college Language Arts teacher explained the development of the language did Kathryn begin to develop a positive attitude about her language. After becoming a profession at the University of Hawaiian in 1995, Kathryn included the history of Hawaiian Creole in her Language Arts course because of the prevailing negative attitudes about the language.

9. KEEP KEEP was an experimental laboratory school funded by the Kamehameha Schools and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate. The purpose of the school was to research and develop a program that offered a different approach to teaching Hawaiian children. (Tharp, et al., 2007) Prior to KEEP, the academic achievement of Hawaiian children was bleak. A 1962 report of the problems of Native Hawaiian issued by the Liliuokalani Trust Advisory Board showed their problems resembled those experienced by other minority communities. Native Hawaiian comprised 17% of the population but comprised from 35 to 50% of those afflicted with the major social ills of financial destitution, school dropout, crime, and illegitimate births. Participates in KEEP were limited to “at risk” children of Native Hawaiians (Tharp, et al., p. 273). Designers of the KEEP Program challenged the longstanding myth that difference was equivalent to deficient. After researching the natal culture of Hawaiian children, program designers developed a program that was congruent to Native Hawaiian culture. Although the program accommodated the children’s home culture, the ultimate goal was to use home culture as a bridge to facilitate acquisition of mainstream literacy or discourse, which was essential for success in the larger social structure.

10. Keep Instructional Approach • Culturally Responsive Instruction • Scaffolding, learning in zone of proximal development • Interactive patterns must be acceptable to children • Peer assisted learning • Assessment to identify developmental level and instructional level.

11. Transition The KEEP program served two thousand students. Program results enabled it to transition to the next two stages of the program in two cohort classes in the public schools, and field-testing in two public schools. After fifteen years, Kamehameha school administrators dissolved the Lab school, but the program model was implemented throughout Kamehameha schools. The outstanding improvement in Standardized test scores for Native Hawaiians resulted in experimental programs using the KEEP model with the Navajo of North American in 1983 and Zuni Puebla in New Mexico in 1990. Kathryn gave twenty-three years of service to KEEP. In addition to her role as a teacher, she served in the capacity of Educational Specialist, researcher, and teacher educator.

12. CREDE The legacy of KEEP (Kamehameha Elementary Education Program) has continued at the University of California Stan Cruz as the National Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellency a.k.a CREDE

13. Culturally Responsive Instruction in Multiethnic Classrooms Key Characteristics • Rooted in Pluralism • Aimed at success for students of diverse background • Bridge home and school by using familiar participation structures • Content of the curriculum • Maintain competences in home culture and language • Fosters social justice through emphasis on equity of education outcomes and celebration of diversity • Multicultural literature

14. Culturally Responsive InstructionKeep Design • Instruction began with prior knowledge • Appropriate level of difficulty • Moment to moment in flight responsiveness • Incorporates children’s language into comments and paraphrases. • Ownership of Literacy and a sense of classroom community.

15. Post Masters Work • Kathryn received her M.A. in Psychology from the University of Hawaii, in 1976. She was also a Pre-doctoral fellow at the Institute of comparative Human Development at Rockefeller University. Prior to receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Kathryn published the following: • Participation structure in a reading lesson with Hawaiian children: Analysis of a culturally appropriate instructional level, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 1980 • The competence/incompetence paradox in the education of minority culture children, Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1979 • Using the experience-text-relationship method with minority children (Au K. H.-p., 2013) •   The research presented in the aforementioned articles supported her theories that social structures influence the academic success of children.

16. Dissertation University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Kathryn explored her theories on social influences in the classroom further in her dissertation, testing the Social Organization Hypothesis. The purpose of her study was to test the influence of teacher/student interactions in the classroom on achievement. Kathryn asked the question “How do the teachers and children interact with one another to foster learning? (2013, p. 4)” She compared the effect of a culturally responsive participation structure with a mainstream participation structure on the reading achievement of eleven seven year old speakers of Hawaiian Creole.

17. Procedure Two teachers, one with limited contact (LC) with Hawaiian Creole and the other with high contact (HC) with HC provided the instruction. Both had similar years of experience and education. LC teacher used a traditional participation structure, which primarily limited student responses to one child speaking at a time and when initiated by the teacher. The HC teacher allowed the children to respond according to the rules of Story Talk, a traditional Hawaiian participation structure.

18. Contrasting Participation Structures High Contact Teacher • Teacher directions • Primary rights • Volunteers • Primary non-volunteers • Open turn • Silent reading Low Contact Teacher • Teacher Direction • Exclusive rights • Exclusive rights • Non-volunteer • Student initiation-teacher nomination • Student initiation-no teacher nomination

19. Proximal Indices • Time engaged • Student Responses or utterances • Reading or Reading related responses • Appropriate or correct responses • Idea units • Logical inferences

20. Results Results showed significant differences in learning based on proximal learning indices for students using the culturally responsive Hawaiian participation structure. Results also indicated that off task behavior and discipline problems were more prevalent during the LC teacher’s instruction. Kathryn concluded, finding that “results supported the Social organizational hypothesis, clearly social organization and sociolinguistic factors were associated with difference in Hawaiian children’s performance in to learning to read (2013, p. 167)”. Kathryn also pointed out the importance of a Balance of Rights, which insured the ultimate goal of learning was accomplished.

21. Balance of Rights • A proportion of time for each participation structure, i.e. traditional and culturally responsive • Relationships within the structure.

22. Education and Native Hawaiian Children: Revisiting KEEPRoland G. Tharp, Cathie Jordan, Gisela E. Speidel, Kathryn Hu-Pei Au, Thomas W. Klein, Roderick P. Calkins, Kim C. M. Sloat, and Ronald Gallimore “The deficiency model for minority-child underachievement is like the worm that will not die, though cut shorter and shorter by logic and evidence (Cole & Bruner, 1971; Howard & Scott, 1981). That cultural differences have educational consequences is not in dispute; but the differences are commonly understood as deficiencies with respect to the institutional majority-culture expectations of public education. This is a common human attitude: “To be unlike us is to be less.” Such ethnocentrism may to some degree be ineradicable.” Hülili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being Vol.4 No.1 (2007)

23. COLLABORATION Specialty Advisor PROJECT READ (Understanding Across Grade 6-12) • Assist students in developing the ability to think critically across multiple text sources (science, history and literature • Identify a target for intervention • Develop comprehension software • Efficacy studies of interventions

24. “Learning in and out of School in Diverse Environments, Life Lone, Life Wide and Life Deep Member of the Diversity Consensus Panel/2004-2005 The Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington and the LIFE Center— a research collaboration between the University of Washington, Stanford University, and SRI International, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) The Panel’s goal was to develop a set of principles that educational practitioners, policy makers, and future researchers could use to understand and build upon the earning that occurs in the homes and community cultures of students from diverse groups.

25. Applications in the Classrooms • Multiculturalism • Collaborative and Peer learning • Centers • Workshops • Standards Based Learning • English Language Learners (Bilingual and African American Vernacular) • Comprehension Strategies • Higher Level Thinking

26. Affiliations • International Reading Association, President 2009-2010., Board of Directors from 1998-2001, President of the IRA Aloha State Council, 1997-98 • National Reading Conference, President • American Education Research Association, Vice President • Advisor Boards: Reading Research Quarterly, The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy • Journal of Literacy Research • Board of Directors of INPEACE

27. Conclusion My study of Kathryn Au, provided in depth insight into steps being taken to close the Achievement Gap between and culturally diverse students and mainstream students. She takes a firm stand on appropriate participation practices. Although she discussed the importance of curriculum content she indicated that it is not her focus. I recognize the importance of appropriate participation structures but feel it is imperative that equal attention is given to research on the influence of curriculum content that does not equitably represent or misrepresent African American and other minorities. Culturally relevant pedagogy places a stronger emphasis on students receiving the kind of instruction that will prepare them to influence the social structure they live in.

28. Awards & Honors • Western Regional Scholar, 1969 • Albert Bushnell Johnson Prize in French • Bruce A Bigelow Scholarship • Eva A. Moor Award • University Fellowship in Education, University of Illinois , Urbana-Champaign • National Reading Conference Oscar S Causey Award, Outstanding Contributions to Reading Research • Reading Hall of Fame/inducted 1999 • 1st National Scholar Award presented by the National Association of Asian & Pacific American Education • Distinguished Scholar by AERA Standing Committee on the Role and Status of Minorities in Educational Research • National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy Fellow • Native Hawaiian Education Award for Service to Kamehameha Schools and the co-founder of INPEACE • Distinguished Alumini Award from College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign