Kala’s Molokai mountain
By Kanoe Turner Special to the Herald
Writing does not come easily for everyone. Being able to express yourself on paper so that your readers can feel, taste and smell what you are creating in words, but also to generate a voice that is so powerful it becomes real, is especially difficult for young and developing writers.
With the motivation and constant encouragement of our principal Caryn DeMello, the children and teachers of St. John Vianney School in Kailua began a four-month journey of discovery in learning about the stories of the patients who lived at Kalawao and Kalaupapa, the sites of the famed Hansen’s disease community on Molokai. From the youngest of our students in the early learning center to the eighth graders, each child created an artistic piece, which, in the case of the older children, would influence details in their writing.
Liberty’s Kalaupapa dress
With religion teacher Gina Carnazzo and art teacher Caren Demeo, I began to correlate ideas that would culminate into a curriculum of art-inspired writing. Carnazzo and I began with the idea of the older students researching Kalaupapa. We read to them and told them many stories about the patients there.
“But I needed help coming up with a project idea,” Carnazzo said, “so I asked St. Damien and St. Marianne for help. They guided me to the idea of writing from the point of view of inanimate objects, to give voice to something that could not speak for itself, something that served at Kalaupapa and had therefore served God.”
We brainstormed extensively, and as the children began to write the results were stunningly poignant.
As the students created their objects in art class, they imagined what it might be like living away from their own families, enduring the heartbreak of separation. Yet, many of the patients found an embracing community in Kalaupapa and found themselves not wanting to leave.
During the writing process, the children recognized the strength of voice in their writing, voice that was inspired by compassion for the patients and that equally reflected details of everyday life in Kalaupapa. The children, through their research, directly empathized with the patients. No longer were social justice issues something we studied about happening to people in other countries, social justice issues were in our backyard, happening to our people, our relatives, and in our homes.
So, too, did the children recreate the topography using vibrant colors to express in their art what the landscape and rugged mountains of the Kalawao coastline looked like. The students took field trips to the Cathedral and St. Patrick Monastery Archives to view St. Damien’s artifacts. They used computers and iPads for research, photography and photo editing. Art teacher DeMeo said, “In the seventh and eighth grades especially, student expression in art is far more productive when it is connected to the curriculum.”
At our annual open house in early December, we showcased the students’ work along with beautiful exhibit boards on loan from Ka ‘Ohana O Kalaupapa. Many of the student pieces had QR codes attached so that the audience could read the story through the “voice” of the artifact. Student artists and writers were docents at the exhibit. With tears in their eyes, parishioners and community members approached teachers and students, recounting stories of their own relatives who had lived in Kalaupapa.
Making the connection to who we are and what identifies us as Catholics was integral to creating this project. As it continues to unfold, the hard work and dedication it took to build this curriculum makes it all worthwhile.
Kanoe Turner teaches social studies and language arts to grades six through eight at St. John Vianney School in Kailua. She recently completed her master’s degree in education with an emphasis in leadership from Chaminade University. Turner chose to write her final project for her master’s degree on the process of creating voice in writing through art, using this Kalaupapa Project as inspiration.
