Q&A with Denby Freeland, Director of ‘Āina Education

Interview by: Kanoa Jacang (Intern 2022)

How is this new promotion different from your previous position with HILT? What new responsibilities do you have?

I currently work with the school groups on Maui at Waihe‘e Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge and occasionally at Nu‘u Refuge. With this promotion, I’ll now support our educators at all 7 of our Preserves throughout the islands. Each site is unique to the ahupua‘a. Our Educators & Stewards are the onsite facilitators each day, working with their communities and working with the children in our ‘āina-based education programs. Naturally, each of our sites and programs are a little different, so I plan to visit with each of our educators more frequently, to learn first-hand how we can expand our programs effectively. Most recently I gathered with our Maunawila Heiau Complex team in Hau‘ula O‘ahu and in the next month I’ll be visiting our team at Kāhili Beach Preserve on Kaua‘i. I look forward to having more frequent in-person meetings that will allow us to collaborate and be resourceful with one another’s shared experiences.  

With this promotion, how will you improve the support for HILT’s educators and their ‘āina-based programs for keiki?

As a statewide organization, our team is dispersed across the islands with offices in Honolulu, Wailuku, and Hilo with other staff working on Kaua‘i and at Mahukona on Hawai‘i Island. Collectively our team members are independent and self-directed to get their jobs done. To build more support, I think there is room to better connect and stay updated with the happenings at each site. A big part of feeling supported is sharing with one another, and having opportunities to bounce ideas off one another. We mostly work over Zoom, so I hope to improve our connections in-person on the land, and then carry it to our virtual meetings.

With your background in education, art, and cultural practices, how do you think you can improve HILT’s connections with the community, each other and throughout the islands?

I’ve been working outdoors and with kids for 24 years now. I work with many local school groups, volunteer groups, and community partners. I’m always happy to collaborate with our communities and share these connections with our team members as it can lead to other developments and ideas down the road. Together, we can learn a lot from each other and as a supervisor, I see myself as someone who works alongside our team members, to offer suggestions and resources as best I can.

During your time at Hawai‘i Land Trust, what has been your top achievement with the greatest impact?

For me, it’s more about hearing and observing the students’ feedback. They mention all the fun they had and how much they enjoyed their outside classroom. Sometimes it’s delayed, and later in the year I’ll receive their thoughtful cards. It makes my time worthwhile knowing how gracious our students and teachers are. For my larger groups, at times I can feel like my talk may be repetitive, and then I hear back from attendees how informative the program was for them. I pay attention to those comments and gauge from their reactions, comments and enthusiasm. Hearing from our groups of how impactful our programs are is my greatest achievement. Knowing we provide a safe place to learn, grow, and carry on the knowledge home or to our communities is so rewarding. Especially coming out of Covid, I notice a difference in how time outdoors for the students can excite them and I see they’re more engaged.

Would you say the pandemic has increased the need for school groups and people in general to want to be outdoors?

Yes. The Pandemic definitely increased the need and want to be outside more. There's always been a large amount of kids that don’t have the time outside, and now it's more evident. It’s a sign of the times as technology makes everything more convenient and people are less likely to get outside. It's a combination of factors, but I’m happy to see more people wanting to be outdoors in an impactful way through volunteering and educational opportunities.

How would you say your travels and education outside of Hawai‘i have impacted your perceptions of the islands?

I think anytime you leave Hawai‘i and are able to learn about other places is such an amazing experience. If you don't see it while you’re away, you definitely see it when you come back. It's always a great feeling to come home. I think that feeling has always been a good reminder to me, and I know how lucky we are to be here. I’ve always appreciated Hawai‘i and having it be my home. Now my kids are starting to have that gratitude. We had a fun time on the continent recently, but they really looked forward to coming back home. So, there are many ways to appreciate Hawai‘i. There's a lot of great places in the world, but being from Hawai‘i is pretty awesome, and I'll always be responsible to cherish our islands.

Do you perpetuate Hawaiian values when you teach on ‘āina? Do you try to portray how special and unique Hawai‘i is in the world?

I don't think I take it to such a global level, however we have children that live 20 minutes away and have never been to Waihe‘e. So in that case, it's such a great resource in your own back yard. For now I keep it more specific to Maui and home and share our values and culture in each program. I do try to touch on how special these places are, and tie it back to the uniqueness of their schools, house, and neighborhood and keep in mind the things they learned that day and how they can take it with them wherever they may go. I like to educate the children here, and they always have a positive experience and learn relevant knowledge to take home and build on. If it’s something fun, they’ll want to do it again. That’s true for our school groups and larger groups that include visitors and residents who have never been to the site.

What is your biggest goal with your new position that reaches across all islands?

A larger goal I have is to get our team members more connected with one another through in-person meetings and time on the land together in our seven Preserves. Many times staff members remain on their sites, so we would like to get them more familiar with the other sites and each other. We have great resources within HILT because of the diverse knowledge and skills among our staff. 

To me, it’s also important to teach traditional techniques and use traditional materials, including locally sourced materials. It displays how resourceful and innovative our ancestors were. My approach is if we teach Hawaiian crafts, we do it properly, and mindfully for our sites; if you can collect materials onsite, or I was taught if you aren't able to grow your own plants, you can go volunteer at a property that does, and then ask if you can have some. There's a lot of people that aren't taught that mentality, so I try to share that with our programs. At Nu‘u Preserve, we have petroglyphs and pictographs. I've taught some groups how to make their own pictographs traditionally; they grind up the cinder and mix it with kukui oil. We decorate on smaller rocks and then toss them in the ocean, instead of adding modern day pictographs to the site. There's ways to learn and educate while respecting the area. With new technologies and tools, our traditional methods are being lost, so I hope to perpetuate our traditions, especially in kapa making which I have been practicing for many years now.

Pretend you have a microphone that will broadcast across our islands to each of our communities, what would be your message, what would you say?

Here in Hawai‘i, it is important for all of us to learn about Hawaiian culture and to honor how culture works in our modern society.

One time when I was on Kaho‘olawe, I learned: When you go to a new place and you learn about it, that place becomes a part of your kuleana or responsibility. What that means is different for every person and each person will have to figure out what that means to them. For some people it looks like you take care of the land, or bring others back to educate them, for other people it may mean you don't come back, and you leave it alone, because that will be better for you and the site.

For all who live here and all who visit here; now that you know about this place, what's the best thing you can do to help it out in the future?

Know your place. We all have the ability to impact a place in many ways, taking the approach; what's the best thing you can do personally for this place, rather than do whatever you want. If more people had this mentality we would see different actions and results in Hawai‘i.

We are all just visitors. I tell the school groups, the ‘āina is the educator and I’m just the facilitator. At the end of the day when the student say Oli Mahalo, they turn to me, and I correct them that they can oli to Waihe‘e, to the ‘āina, that’s been our main kumu today. Our mahalo goes to the ‘āina and all of those who were there before us.

An ‘Olelo No‘eau that became a theme for our high school summer programs this year is: He ali‘i ka ‘āina, he kuawā ke kanaka, The land is chief, the people are the servant.

— Kanoa Jacang was an intern with Hawai‘i Land Trust this summer, assisting with a number of marketing and communications projects. Kanoa is from Honolulu and is a sophomore at Arizona State University earning a degree in Environmental Sustainability. We wish him well in all his future endeavors and mahalo him for his contributions this summer.