Page 287 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

20 Critical Pedagogy of Place: A Framework for Understanding Relationships 261

connected to the land, with the islands serving as a literal ancestor to their peoples,
Fujikane (2008) says of Asians in Hawaii that they
may not be able to identify with the Asian homelands many of them have never seen, but
it does not change their condition in Hawai’i: in this colonized location, they are settlers in
another’s homeland. (p. 21)

Fujikane contends that by celebrating and claiming their role in the “building” of
the settler colony of Hawaii as laborers on the plantations, industries, road systems,
and shopping centers, Asian settlers seek to legitimate their claim to Hawaii as their
place and, in doing so, become complicit in erasing the history of Native Hawaiians
and their claim to the same lands (2008, p. 4). This argument suggests a need for
educators to recognize that social spaces and places are products of culture, meaning
that the geographical relationship between people and place must become a focus
of critical social analysis. Gruenewald suggests that the pedagogical potential of
place-based education becomes apparent for participants only when they become
conscious of their role in the “sociopolitical process of place making” (2003b, p. 627).
This is especially critical in educational systems where power and resources are not
shared equally.
In her analysis of data collected in 2005 by the Hawaii Department of Education,
Fujikane noted that 13,207 public school teachers characterized themselves as
Japanese (34%), White (27%), Hawaiian (10%), Filipino (6%), Chinese (5%),
Korean (1%), and Mixed/Other (17%). Citing an inequitable representation of
Asian and White settlers in positions of power as legislators and administrators,
Fujikane (2008) and Okamura (2008) raise questions about the role of political
leaders and teachers collectively shaping the ways in which the histories and con-
tributions of different ethnic groups are presented and interpreted in Hawaiian
public schools where 87% of all native Hawaiian children are educated (Kekahio
2007). The majority of native Hawaiian children attend schools that are “failing” to
educate them as measured on federally mandated math and English assessments.
Currently, 16.6% of public schools in Hawaii serve predominantly native Hawaiian
populations, and yet only 23.4% made adequate yearly progress (AYP) as deter-
mined by the No Child Left Behind regulations. Additionally, more than half of
these schools have not met AYP for 5 consecutive years and risk being restructured
through state takeovers. These statistics do raise some questions about the state of
education for native Hawaiian children who, unlike the children in David’s school,
are unlikely to be taught by Native Hawaiian teachers.
By employing native Hawaiian language, cultural practices, such as the hula
halau, and drawing on the natural history of the islands in his science teaching,
David offers a truly transformative learning environment for the native Hawaiian
students that he teaches. This commitment to engage students in culturally relevant
2
curricula experiences set David and the private Kamehameha School system in

2 The Kamehameha School is a private school with three campuses that have a special preference
admission policy to admit only students who can prove Hawaiian ancestry.