Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 17, Number 6, 1 June 2000 — A new standard in Hawaiian education [ARTICLE]

A new standard in Hawaiian education

Manu Alull Meyer Editor's note: Native Hawaiian educator, Dr. Manu Meyer, offers 10 liberating ideas that speak to the advancement of Hawaiian education. Dr. Meyer, a professor in the education department at the University ofHawai'i at Hilo, received her doctorate in educationfrom Harvard University in 1998. MAY'S ARTICLE on Hawaiian education by David K. Sing set a new standard. He spoke of a clear and enduring vision of education in whieh he highlights community. What does community have to do with learning and how is community linked to Hawaiian education? I believe community is at the very center of Hawaiian education, as learning is a social process. It makes connections — with eaeh other, with ideas, with plaee, with ourselves. When did we insist that 25 seven yearolds should exist in one room all day with one adult? David addressed this by talking about making school reflect the life pulse of home where learning is an act of making connections. These connections ean be formal or informal, sacred or mundane. Maybe the following 10 ideas ean become stepping stones on the path toward a liberating, culturally sustaining and challenging education for and with our Hawaiian people. Remember last month's "thought for teachers" as you read this: "'A'ohe pau ka 'ike i ka hālau ho'okahi." (1) Get rid of the behef, I mean really get rid of it, that we are somehow inferior. That's an old one but it still lingers because more and more of us beheve that getting a good job is ah there is to learning something. Why is it that we eonhnue to view our loeal educators as people who should be in-serviced with outside experts? See yourself as a consultant and your eolleague as a fehow coUaborator. (2) Find out why you love the oeean but rarely swim in it or fish from it. This one has more to do with our quality of Ufe and the unusual and disturbing fact that we often do the least in what will heal us the most. We are Hawahan. If you don't have a relationship with something from the natural world, develop one. It is never ever too late. Hawaiian education begins here. (3) Remember your favorite teacher. I bet she was funny and taught you some difficult things about yourself. The odds are she was also engaging, fair and hard. I have listened to thousands of descriptions of excellent educators, and these have stayed buoyant the longest. We are like this, and we honor people like this. (4) Leam ffom land and not simply about land. Land educates us and we are so very, very, very far from this belief in modem Hawai'i. I'm not sure if we ean step into the passion my grandfather held for the pu'uhonua philosophy that detailed 'āina as "that whieh feeds" more than our bodies. Can we not study I the biology of water along with experiencing why it was and is the "wealth" of our people? We must all begin, again, to leam from 'āina. We have places and people who ean teach us how. (5) Understand that words have mana. As Hawaiians, we at one time held the belief that words have an energy and they ean heal or kill us. Did the energy leave with our disbelief in their powers? I don't think so. If you sit still and listen, you will hear the tmth in your own life. We will improve education by under-

standing that words are indeed part of the life force, and they originate in thought. And thought is a process of education. (6) Question your belief of what education ean do. Did you know that American schools were in turmoil from their ineephon in thel830s? Did you also know Americans started reforming schools in the 1890s in a movement now known as the "Progressive Era." Why do text books write that schools want a "democratic citizenry" yet mn them like a prison? The tension is eoming to a head, particularly as more and more Hawaiians and our allies see another vision and work toward those

ideals. Signs of docolonization are in the charter school movement that has developed mostly in our mral areas on all islands. Positive changes are also seen in Hawaiian language immersion School philosophy and practices, in the collaboration of agencies, and in addressing the low hum of racism that would ignore the question: "Why is there no Hawaiian tenured faculty in UH Mānoa's School of Education?" Question the limits we set for ourselves in education and then ask "how did they get there?" (The conclusion ofManu Meyer's article will be in the July Ka Wai Qlaj ■

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