To honor Edith Kuttner for all she has done for foreign language education in Hawai‘i and for HALT, HALT has established the Edith Kuttner Memorial Fund. We encourage you to join us in building this fund and remember Edith’s lasting contributions. Donations can be sent to HALT, P.O. Box 61903, Honolulu, HI 96839-1903. Please note that the money is for the Edith Kuttner Memorial Fund.
A LETTER OF THANKS
Dear HALT members,
My husband and I were so touched and overwhelmed with the beautiful tribute HALT gave to my Mom at your annual conference on March 13th.
We know she was looking down and smiling and was so honored with the beautiful tribute and wonderful memories shared by Teresita Ramos, Hazel Hasegawa, and Cynthia Ning.
Thank you for establishing the Edith Kuttner Scholarship Fund. Her beautiful memory, legacy, and dedication to foreign language studies will live on through the scholarship fund.
Mahalo Nui Loa.
With Our Warmest Aloha
Bonny and Nick Tinebra and Family
March 16, 2004
REMEMBERING EDITH KUTTNER (JUNE 18, 1916-JULY 5, 2003)
Last year’s HALT Spring Conference: Connecting Communities & Classrooms, was dedicated to Edith Kuttner, who was a Spanish teacher, an active HALT member, executive board officer, and a tireless foreign language education advocate. Her warm presence and inspiring dedication to world language education will be greatly missed.
The following are various colleagues’ remembrances of her and her impact inHawai‘i: “Edith held Masters degrees in Spanish language teaching from both Columbia University and theUniversity of Hawai‘i. She taught Spanish at the East Meadow High School in New York for 20 years (from 1958-78). Concurrently, she taught at Post College of Long Island University. In 1979, she and her husband, Milton, moved toHawai‘i, and Edith began a 10-year career at the Star of the Sea High School, ending as department chair. After her retirement from there, she worked for a number of years as Curriculum Coordinatoron the Asian Language Grant Program at Chaminade University. At the time of her death,she was president of Teleclass International, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving heritage languages. Of the latter Edith wrote ‘After retirement from the classroom, my special interest is the maintenance of heritage languages in Hawai‘i. At Teleclass, we offer heritage language students the opportunity to communicate with their peers around the world via videoconferences.’ “In addition to her full-time career commitments, Edith took the time to serve as president of HALT from 1985-87. In this capacity, she organized its first Conference in 1985, held at the University of Hawai‘i and Brigham Young University. “Edith was a loving and devoted wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, great grandmother, friend, and educator. She was an extremely giving person who strived for excellence throughout her life. A social butterfly and world traveler, she was dedicated and committed to language arts studies.” (contributed by Cyndy Ning) “Edith was forward-thinking and passionateabout making foreign languages part of the regular curriculum for Hawai‘i’s public school students. She had the early foresight and was instrumental in establishing FLES, ForeignLanguages in the Elementary School. She was the driving force behind presentations before the Board of Education in the mid 1980s, where professors and classroom teachers made a case for the need for FL in the early grades. The result was a State Mandate for FLES in the schools. Subsequent to that mandate, principals in Honolulu District made the program a voluntary one (the present AEPL program),citing lack of teachers and resources as the deterrents. She spent countless hours at BOE meetings and in task forces to ignite a spark for foreign languages in the DOE schools. She also sought to promote articulation among all levelsof foreign language learning. Her most recentprojects involved promoting heritage languages, providing different groups with the opportunityto continue study in their language in after school or weekend programs.” (contributed by Hazel Hasegawa)
EDITH
E is for energy, positive and boundlessenergy to be involved
D is for dedication, dedicated towhatever she believed in
I is for inspiration, an inspiration toall World Languages educators
T is for tireless, her tireless efforts onbehalf of language learners andteachers
H is for Hope, her unending hope thatall her efforts be realized Edith Kuttner’s dedication and effortson behalf of languages will live on.
(contributed by Lynette Fujimori)
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