It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled ou... more It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled out on the classroom floor, twenty Native Hawaiian students are working on their genealogy projects. The children chatter excitedly as they sort through and arrange their family photographs on a large poster board, which each student will fashion into a uniquely themed family tree. As the students glue photos and record the names of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, aunties, uncles, and cousins, they begin to notice family traits that have been passed down through the generations, and they recall family stories, which they share with their classmates. One can sense great pride in who the children are, where they come from, and their relationships to their families and communities.We selected this particular vignette because we believe this classroom is an exemplar of inclusive, culturally based literacy education. While research has been conducted on the benefits of culturally based education for indigenous and culturally diverse students, many educators continue to ponder what a culturally based literacy curriculum looks like in practice. We address this important question by providing examples of culturally based Native Hawaiian literacy instruction and considering how teachers in other diverse classroom settings can build upon and extend these examples.historical ContextBefore the institutionalization of education, Native Hawaiians enjoyed a rich oral tradition characterized by an intense appreciation for and refinement of oratorical practices. Our Hawaiian kuuna (ancestors or elders) had a keen awareness of the many expressive and communicative functions of language. They captured family histories, genealogies, and the ancient wisdom of our people in elaborate legends, proverbs, poetical sayings, and lengthy chants, which were meticulously memorized and passed on from generation to generation (Au & Kaomea, 2009).Once the language was rendered into written form in the 1820s, Hawaiians "enthusiastically took up reading and writing as a national endeavor" (Nogelmeier, 2010, p. xii). Our Hawaiian kupuna "loved to read and eagerly bartered for the pages that came from the press" (Day & Loomis, 1997, p.16). In two generations, nearly the entire population could read and write in Hawaiian. By the late 1800s, the literacy rate surpassed most of the world (Nogelmeier, 2010).As the effects of western contact began to erode our native culture and national sovereignty, Native Hawaiians embraced Hawaiian-language newspapers, which disseminated information of national importance as well as Hawaiian historiography, genealogy, literature, and general cultural preservation. Hawaiian newspaper editorials pleaded for historians, genealogists, storytellers, and cultural specialists to submit material so this cultural knowledge would be available for future generations. The resounding response from Hawaiian authorship was over 100,000 newspaper pages of Hawaiian mo'olelo (stories or histories), mo'okuauhau (genealogies), oli (chants), and mele (songs), all of which were eagerly consumed by a highly literate populace (Nogelmeier, 2010).In stark contrast to this aupuni palapala, or nation of fervent readers and writers, after nearly two centuries of American occupation and the neartotal obliteration of our native language, Native Hawaiian students in Hawai'i schools today, like students from other diverse cultural and linguistic communities, are consistently identified as struggling in the area of literacy. While many suggest a need for more standardized, externally developed literacy programs, we contend that more locally developed, culturally based literacy curricula can reconnect Native Hawaiian students to our rich cultural and literary heritage and increase educational success.The Study: Background and methodologyCultural diversity and Literacy AcquisitionThe politics of high-stakes assessment and the awareness that schools have failed to provide students of color with the literacy skills that society demands have led literacy researchers to increasingly aim their efforts at understanding the relationship between cultural diversity and literacy acquisition (Fairbanks, Cooper, Masterson, & Webb, 2009). …
‘White men are saving brown women from brown men.’ Gayatri Spivak suggests that this phrase is fo... more ‘White men are saving brown women from brown men.’ Gayatri Spivak suggests that this phrase is for her as fundamental for an investigation of colonial dynamics as Freud’s formulation ‘a child is being beaten’ was for his inquiry into sexuality. Through a deconstructive interrogation of elementary Hawaiian history textbooks, Hawaiian studies curricula and Hawaiian studies classroom conversations, this paper examines
It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled ou... more It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled out on the classroom floor, twenty Native Hawaiian students are working on their genealogy projects. The children chatter excitedly as they sort through and arrange their family photographs on a large poster board, which each student will fashion into a uniquely themed family tree. As the students glue photos and record the names of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, aunties, uncles, and cousins, they begin to notice family traits that have been passed down through the generations, and they recall family stories, which they share with their classmates. One can sense great pride in who the children are, where they come from, and their relationships to their families and communities.We selected this particular vignette because we believe this classroom is an exemplar of inclusive, culturally based literacy education. While research has been conducted on the benefits of cult...
A Hawaiian adaptation of Tobin et al.’s (2009; 1989) video‐cued ethnography (VCE) illuminates the... more A Hawaiian adaptation of Tobin et al.’s (2009; 1989) video‐cued ethnography (VCE) illuminates the possibilities and challenges of implementing culturally sustaining and revitalizing Indigenous education in contemporary Hawaiian schools. Findings highlight (1) the successful classroom integration and transmission of Indigenous interactional styles and (2) the potential of VCE as a collaborative professional/curriculum development model to support Indigenous educators who strive to enact sovereign pedagogies while personally contending with the ongoing legacies of settler‐colonial occupation and assimilatory education.
ABSTRACT Girl Scouts aims to foster leadership by encouraging girls to discover themselves, make ... more ABSTRACT Girl Scouts aims to foster leadership by encouraging girls to discover themselves, make connections, and take action to make the world better. This paper chronicles the five-year journey of eight professional mothers of color who sought to provide their daughters with a space to ‘think and live differently’ as Girl Scouts and young women of color in (post)colonial Hawai‘i. Through questionnaires and a semi-structured focus group interview, mothers reflect on their original intentions to create a ‘safe space’ for their daughters to engage with the politics of gender, race, and class and to rethink, review, and rework their identities. Mothers’ reflections reveal success in creating safe spaces for the critical analysis of gender, but comparatively less success in critical analyses of race and class – a phenomenon that the mothers suggest may have been complicated by (1) the enduring myth of Hawai‘i as a multicultural paradise, (2) Girl Scouts’ assimilationist history, and (3) the mothers’ own relatively privileged positions.
AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 2009
This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in progr... more This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in programmes for indigenous education. Drawing from Native Hawaiian early childhood examples, the author relates a series of counter-stories or cautionary tales which demonstrate how even well-intended, non-indigenous newcomers to indigenous education programmes can unwittingly alter these programmes with their dominant styles of interaction and participation. The article calls for careful consideration by non-indigenous individuals who seek inclusion in culturally based programmes for indigenous education, and considers a number of possible roles that could be assumed by non-indigenous participants. Arguing that different indigenous contexts may require different solutions to non-indigenous involvement, the author concludes that truly supportive non-indigenous participants in indigenous educational programmes will understand, and even anticipate, when it is their place to step forward, step ba...
For centuries, Indigenous and historically oppressed communities have been studied by Western res... more For centuries, Indigenous and historically oppressed communities have been studied by Western researchers whose claims have been accepted without question and, in many instances, have led our communities’ continued oppression. With increasing numbers of individuals from historically marginalized communities entering higher education and becoming researchers and teachers of research ourselves, we are challenged to consider whether and how the research stories that we tell will be different from the research that precedes us. In this article, I draw from the Hawaiian concept of ho‘oku‘iku‘i (to stitch or piece together) and the French notion of bricolage to discuss how my graduate course in qualitative data analysis equips researchers from Native Hawaiian and other Indigenous and historically oppressed communities with new analytical tools to challenge oppression and tell both more critical and more empowering stories about the schools and communities in which we work and live.
Alternative an International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, Feb 24, 2011
This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in progr... more This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in programmes for indigenous education. Drawing from Native Hawaiian early childhood examples, the author relates a series of counter-stories or cautionary tales which demonstrate how even well-intended, non-indigenous newcomers to indigenous education programmes can unwittingly alter these programmes with their dominant styles of interaction and participation. The article calls for careful consideration by nonindigenous individuals who seek inclusion in culturally based programmes for indigenous education, and considers a number of possible roles that could be assumed by nonindigenous participants. Arguing that different indigenous contexts may require different solutions to non-indigenous involvement, the author concludes that truly supportive non-indigenous participants in indigenous educational programmes will understand, and even anticipate, when it is their place to step forward, step back, or step out.
Introduction After completing her doctorate, Julie Kaomea is now an Assistant Professor in the De... more Introduction After completing her doctorate, Julie Kaomea is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of Hawaii . She is a Native Hawaiian who focuses her scholarship on misrepresentations of Native people in school curricula. Her article is based on her recent experiences as a doctoral student struggling to complete her dissertation. However, instead of urging her fellow students to rush through the process, she recommends that they work through it slowly and derive from it as much learning as they can. Her metaphor of the tortoise and the hare is apt. As she points out, when it comes to completing the doctorate, "Slow and steady wins the race." This article has been put in the "Student Voice" section because it deals with an issue of great interest to doctoral students and forms a nice complement to ,layne Higgins's article titled "The Art and Science of Avoiding the Dissertation" which was published in the summer 2000 issue of Academic Exchange Quarterly. Dr. Ben Varner, University of Northern Colorado, Academic Exchange Quarterly Senior Editor . In this article, [Author] reflects on her recent experience as a doctoral student. Through a witty analysis of a graduate student joke about a thesis-writing rabbit, she offers valuable suggestions to students embarking on their doctoral journeys. [Author] advises that when progressing through a graduate program, one should emulate the tortoise instead of the hare. Rather than setting one's sights on rapid completion of the degree, graduate students should take the journey slowly, immerse themselves in the experience, and revel in "the getting there." When it comes to graduate study, [Author] concludes, "Slow and steady wins the race." A few months back, in the throes of dissertation writing and desperate for some mindless distraction or comic relief, I logged on to my e-mail to find a jewel of doctoral student humor awaiting me. It was a joke, or, more precisely, a fable, entitled "A Rabbit's Thesis." It was clear from the document's numerous inscriptions that this anonymous piece had been forwarded from doctoral student to doctoral student across the country before arriving at my blurry computer screen in our tiny graduate student office at the University of Hawai'i. The most recent sender was a cyber colleague, a fellow doctoral student in Minnesota whom I've corresponded and commiserated with several times over e-mail, but am yet to meet personally. Her introductory message, cc'd to me and a dozen others, was short but sweet: Dear Friends, I hope your writing is going well. If not, take a tip from this e-mail fable. I got a kick out of it and think you will too! I scrolled down and read with great interest. The fable opens on a fine sunny day in the forest. A rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter. Along comes a fox, out for a walk. FOX: What are you working on? RABBIT: My thesis. FOX: Hmm... What's it about? RABBIT: Oh, I'm writing about how rabbits eat foxes. FOX: (Incredulous pause) That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that rabbits don't eat foxes. RABBIT: Sure they do, and I can prove it. Come with me. They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow. After a few minutes, the rabbit returns, alone, to his typewriter and resumes typing. Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit. WOLF: What's that you're writing? RABBIT: I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves. WOLF: (Loud guffaws) You don't expect to get such rubbish published, do you? RABBIT: No problem. Do you want to see why? The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow, and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing. The scene cuts to inside the rabbit's burrow. In one corner of the burrow, there is a pile of fox bones. …
It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled ou... more It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled out on the classroom floor, twenty Native Hawaiian students are working on their genealogy projects. The children chatter excitedly as they sort through and arrange their family photographs on a large poster board, which each student will fashion into a uniquely themed family tree. As the students glue photos and record the names of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, aunties, uncles, and cousins, they begin to notice family traits that have been passed down through the generations, and they recall family stories, which they share with their classmates. One can sense great pride in who the children are, where they come from, and their relationships to their families and communities.We selected this particular vignette because we believe this classroom is an exemplar of inclusive, culturally based literacy education. While research has been conducted on the benefits of culturally based education for indigenous and culturally diverse students, many educators continue to ponder what a culturally based literacy curriculum looks like in practice. We address this important question by providing examples of culturally based Native Hawaiian literacy instruction and considering how teachers in other diverse classroom settings can build upon and extend these examples.historical ContextBefore the institutionalization of education, Native Hawaiians enjoyed a rich oral tradition characterized by an intense appreciation for and refinement of oratorical practices. Our Hawaiian kuuna (ancestors or elders) had a keen awareness of the many expressive and communicative functions of language. They captured family histories, genealogies, and the ancient wisdom of our people in elaborate legends, proverbs, poetical sayings, and lengthy chants, which were meticulously memorized and passed on from generation to generation (Au & Kaomea, 2009).Once the language was rendered into written form in the 1820s, Hawaiians "enthusiastically took up reading and writing as a national endeavor" (Nogelmeier, 2010, p. xii). Our Hawaiian kupuna "loved to read and eagerly bartered for the pages that came from the press" (Day & Loomis, 1997, p.16). In two generations, nearly the entire population could read and write in Hawaiian. By the late 1800s, the literacy rate surpassed most of the world (Nogelmeier, 2010).As the effects of western contact began to erode our native culture and national sovereignty, Native Hawaiians embraced Hawaiian-language newspapers, which disseminated information of national importance as well as Hawaiian historiography, genealogy, literature, and general cultural preservation. Hawaiian newspaper editorials pleaded for historians, genealogists, storytellers, and cultural specialists to submit material so this cultural knowledge would be available for future generations. The resounding response from Hawaiian authorship was over 100,000 newspaper pages of Hawaiian mo'olelo (stories or histories), mo'okuauhau (genealogies), oli (chants), and mele (songs), all of which were eagerly consumed by a highly literate populace (Nogelmeier, 2010).In stark contrast to this aupuni palapala, or nation of fervent readers and writers, after nearly two centuries of American occupation and the neartotal obliteration of our native language, Native Hawaiian students in Hawai'i schools today, like students from other diverse cultural and linguistic communities, are consistently identified as struggling in the area of literacy. While many suggest a need for more standardized, externally developed literacy programs, we contend that more locally developed, culturally based literacy curricula can reconnect Native Hawaiian students to our rich cultural and literary heritage and increase educational success.The Study: Background and methodologyCultural diversity and Literacy AcquisitionThe politics of high-stakes assessment and the awareness that schools have failed to provide students of color with the literacy skills that society demands have led literacy researchers to increasingly aim their efforts at understanding the relationship between cultural diversity and literacy acquisition (Fairbanks, Cooper, Masterson, & Webb, 2009). …
‘White men are saving brown women from brown men.’ Gayatri Spivak suggests that this phrase is fo... more ‘White men are saving brown women from brown men.’ Gayatri Spivak suggests that this phrase is for her as fundamental for an investigation of colonial dynamics as Freud’s formulation ‘a child is being beaten’ was for his inquiry into sexuality. Through a deconstructive interrogation of elementary Hawaiian history textbooks, Hawaiian studies curricula and Hawaiian studies classroom conversations, this paper examines
It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled ou... more It is a bright, sunny morning in Mrs. Akaka's second-grade classroom in Honolulu. Sprawled out on the classroom floor, twenty Native Hawaiian students are working on their genealogy projects. The children chatter excitedly as they sort through and arrange their family photographs on a large poster board, which each student will fashion into a uniquely themed family tree. As the students glue photos and record the names of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, siblings, aunties, uncles, and cousins, they begin to notice family traits that have been passed down through the generations, and they recall family stories, which they share with their classmates. One can sense great pride in who the children are, where they come from, and their relationships to their families and communities.We selected this particular vignette because we believe this classroom is an exemplar of inclusive, culturally based literacy education. While research has been conducted on the benefits of cult...
A Hawaiian adaptation of Tobin et al.’s (2009; 1989) video‐cued ethnography (VCE) illuminates the... more A Hawaiian adaptation of Tobin et al.’s (2009; 1989) video‐cued ethnography (VCE) illuminates the possibilities and challenges of implementing culturally sustaining and revitalizing Indigenous education in contemporary Hawaiian schools. Findings highlight (1) the successful classroom integration and transmission of Indigenous interactional styles and (2) the potential of VCE as a collaborative professional/curriculum development model to support Indigenous educators who strive to enact sovereign pedagogies while personally contending with the ongoing legacies of settler‐colonial occupation and assimilatory education.
ABSTRACT Girl Scouts aims to foster leadership by encouraging girls to discover themselves, make ... more ABSTRACT Girl Scouts aims to foster leadership by encouraging girls to discover themselves, make connections, and take action to make the world better. This paper chronicles the five-year journey of eight professional mothers of color who sought to provide their daughters with a space to ‘think and live differently’ as Girl Scouts and young women of color in (post)colonial Hawai‘i. Through questionnaires and a semi-structured focus group interview, mothers reflect on their original intentions to create a ‘safe space’ for their daughters to engage with the politics of gender, race, and class and to rethink, review, and rework their identities. Mothers’ reflections reveal success in creating safe spaces for the critical analysis of gender, but comparatively less success in critical analyses of race and class – a phenomenon that the mothers suggest may have been complicated by (1) the enduring myth of Hawai‘i as a multicultural paradise, (2) Girl Scouts’ assimilationist history, and (3) the mothers’ own relatively privileged positions.
AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 2009
This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in progr... more This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in programmes for indigenous education. Drawing from Native Hawaiian early childhood examples, the author relates a series of counter-stories or cautionary tales which demonstrate how even well-intended, non-indigenous newcomers to indigenous education programmes can unwittingly alter these programmes with their dominant styles of interaction and participation. The article calls for careful consideration by non-indigenous individuals who seek inclusion in culturally based programmes for indigenous education, and considers a number of possible roles that could be assumed by non-indigenous participants. Arguing that different indigenous contexts may require different solutions to non-indigenous involvement, the author concludes that truly supportive non-indigenous participants in indigenous educational programmes will understand, and even anticipate, when it is their place to step forward, step ba...
For centuries, Indigenous and historically oppressed communities have been studied by Western res... more For centuries, Indigenous and historically oppressed communities have been studied by Western researchers whose claims have been accepted without question and, in many instances, have led our communities’ continued oppression. With increasing numbers of individuals from historically marginalized communities entering higher education and becoming researchers and teachers of research ourselves, we are challenged to consider whether and how the research stories that we tell will be different from the research that precedes us. In this article, I draw from the Hawaiian concept of ho‘oku‘iku‘i (to stitch or piece together) and the French notion of bricolage to discuss how my graduate course in qualitative data analysis equips researchers from Native Hawaiian and other Indigenous and historically oppressed communities with new analytical tools to challenge oppression and tell both more critical and more empowering stories about the schools and communities in which we work and live.
Alternative an International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, Feb 24, 2011
This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in progr... more This article contemplates the rights and responsibilities of non-indigenous participants in programmes for indigenous education. Drawing from Native Hawaiian early childhood examples, the author relates a series of counter-stories or cautionary tales which demonstrate how even well-intended, non-indigenous newcomers to indigenous education programmes can unwittingly alter these programmes with their dominant styles of interaction and participation. The article calls for careful consideration by nonindigenous individuals who seek inclusion in culturally based programmes for indigenous education, and considers a number of possible roles that could be assumed by nonindigenous participants. Arguing that different indigenous contexts may require different solutions to non-indigenous involvement, the author concludes that truly supportive non-indigenous participants in indigenous educational programmes will understand, and even anticipate, when it is their place to step forward, step back, or step out.
Introduction After completing her doctorate, Julie Kaomea is now an Assistant Professor in the De... more Introduction After completing her doctorate, Julie Kaomea is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of Hawaii . She is a Native Hawaiian who focuses her scholarship on misrepresentations of Native people in school curricula. Her article is based on her recent experiences as a doctoral student struggling to complete her dissertation. However, instead of urging her fellow students to rush through the process, she recommends that they work through it slowly and derive from it as much learning as they can. Her metaphor of the tortoise and the hare is apt. As she points out, when it comes to completing the doctorate, "Slow and steady wins the race." This article has been put in the "Student Voice" section because it deals with an issue of great interest to doctoral students and forms a nice complement to ,layne Higgins's article titled "The Art and Science of Avoiding the Dissertation" which was published in the summer 2000 issue of Academic Exchange Quarterly. Dr. Ben Varner, University of Northern Colorado, Academic Exchange Quarterly Senior Editor . In this article, [Author] reflects on her recent experience as a doctoral student. Through a witty analysis of a graduate student joke about a thesis-writing rabbit, she offers valuable suggestions to students embarking on their doctoral journeys. [Author] advises that when progressing through a graduate program, one should emulate the tortoise instead of the hare. Rather than setting one's sights on rapid completion of the degree, graduate students should take the journey slowly, immerse themselves in the experience, and revel in "the getting there." When it comes to graduate study, [Author] concludes, "Slow and steady wins the race." A few months back, in the throes of dissertation writing and desperate for some mindless distraction or comic relief, I logged on to my e-mail to find a jewel of doctoral student humor awaiting me. It was a joke, or, more precisely, a fable, entitled "A Rabbit's Thesis." It was clear from the document's numerous inscriptions that this anonymous piece had been forwarded from doctoral student to doctoral student across the country before arriving at my blurry computer screen in our tiny graduate student office at the University of Hawai'i. The most recent sender was a cyber colleague, a fellow doctoral student in Minnesota whom I've corresponded and commiserated with several times over e-mail, but am yet to meet personally. Her introductory message, cc'd to me and a dozen others, was short but sweet: Dear Friends, I hope your writing is going well. If not, take a tip from this e-mail fable. I got a kick out of it and think you will too! I scrolled down and read with great interest. The fable opens on a fine sunny day in the forest. A rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter. Along comes a fox, out for a walk. FOX: What are you working on? RABBIT: My thesis. FOX: Hmm... What's it about? RABBIT: Oh, I'm writing about how rabbits eat foxes. FOX: (Incredulous pause) That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that rabbits don't eat foxes. RABBIT: Sure they do, and I can prove it. Come with me. They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow. After a few minutes, the rabbit returns, alone, to his typewriter and resumes typing. Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit. WOLF: What's that you're writing? RABBIT: I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves. WOLF: (Loud guffaws) You don't expect to get such rubbish published, do you? RABBIT: No problem. Do you want to see why? The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow, and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing. The scene cuts to inside the rabbit's burrow. In one corner of the burrow, there is a pile of fox bones. …
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