This Ain't No Paint by Numbers, This is Hānai Pedagogy

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Abstract

On the west side of O’ahu, Hawai'i, is Wai'anae which embodies the largest population of Kanaka 'Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) individuals in the entire state (Hawaii.gov). Statistics map this area as being predominantly impoverished with adults lacking a college education (World Population Review, 2023). School data estimates roughly 10% of the student population at most public elementary schools encompass children experiencing houselessness and food insecurity. These numbers paint a dismal and deficit-based picture of a town and population whose culture, language, and ancestral traditions have been colonized, appropriated, and until recently remained illegal to teach within school spaces. Yet, these children and families continue to thrive despite the color-by-numbers picture that has been pre-printed for them.

Objective and Methods
Ka Lama is a teacher preparation program under the umbrella of INPEACE (Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture), situated in Wai'anae and working with the local community for over thirty years. Recognizing the oppression and statistics that paint this community, Ka Lama’s programming supports teachers to produce acts of resilience, aloha, and ancestral knowledge to pass on to the next generation. They mix their palette of curricula to include mandated standards and textbooks, but they infuse classroom activities with traditional and cultural ties that help students connect their knowledge and attachment to the people and ‘āina (land) of Hawai'i to the forced curriculum. These students can differentiate the content, apply their standardized learning to local folklore and traditions, and continue to embody aloha (Kanehele, 1986) as they move through the schooling system once designed to punish them for exuding their cultural and linguistic identities.
This qualitative case study asked, "How do Ka Lama educators braid together Kanaka 'Ōiwi culture, traditions, and language to teach in state-mandated classrooms?" Using Kanaka methodologies rooted in Goodyear-Ka’ōpua’s (2016) Methodological Ropes for Research and Resurgence to build interview protocols and analysis, this approach honored participants, their lived histories, and the 'āina in understanding how colonization continues to impede educational attainment through standardized tests and texts but also how ancestral methods of learning continue to supersede and dismantle the system to better support students today.

Data Sources, Findings, and Significance
Emerging from the data was a pedagogical framework honoring and upholding Indigenous methods of embracing cultural and traditional ways of teaching and relationship building titled Hānai Pedagogy (Author, 2023). Data includes semi-structured interviews with 22 educators and school leaders, and over 300 hours of site visits and community fieldwork observations. The five pedagogical values elucidated from Hānai Pedagogy include: hands-on classroom activities; the exchange of verbal and physical aloha (love) between students, teachers, community members; navigation and how teachers support their students and families; authenticity of educators; and interrelations between teachers, students, and the community as well as the juxtaposition of ancestral learning and modern technology. Presentation of the scholarly significance of this work highlights how teachers braid these values through the fabric of mandated standards and assessments to support their students’ academic success on paper but ultimately nurture the traditions and values within their ancestral spirit.

Author

• Robin Brandehoff, University of Colorado - Denver