INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS 86-649 Puuhulu Road Wai`anae, Hawaii 96792-2723 Tel: 696-5157 Fax: 696-7774 (Via U.S.A.) 16 March 1992 By Poka Laenui INDIGENOUS EDUCATION Among the native Hawaiian people, there is a saying: If you plan for one year, plant Taro (a food crop harvested in a year). If you plan for ten years, plant Koa (a large tree used for canoe building). But if you plan for a hundred years, teach your children. This is a common belief shared far beyond Hawaii, and among many indigenous and tribal peoples. Continuity of consciousness is a pre-requisite to the very existence of a people. Such continuity can not be accomplished by recordings in books, microfilms or computer disks. It can only be preserved in the hearts, minds and souls of the children of that people. But what do we teach our children? We can not leave education in a void, floating without any cultural, social or historical base. The substance of what we teach, the cultural and social context in which we teach, the values and aspirations we instill in our children are of utmost importance. Are we to continue having our children simply resocialized into foreign ways, copying others who have no historical or cultural connections with our peoples, speaking another's language while not knowing our own, adopting a history and tradition inappropriate to our indigenous peoples? Where in that is the continuity of consciousness? These are questions indigenous peoples from many parts of the world are asking themselves - questions which go to the very root of the educational systems our children are thrust into. At the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples: Education, held in June 1987 in Vancouver, Canada, indigenous peoples from various places of the world joined in a resounding call for indigenous control over education of indigenous children. Indigenous children must be taught in an appropriate indigenous environment, giving consideration to their language used, the style of instructions, the subject matter of instructions, the physical surroundings, and perhaps foremost, the needs and aspirations of the peoples for whom the education programs are carried out. Only through the control of education for our children will we be able to preserve the continuity of consciousness of our peoples; only through the control of education for our children will we be able to break the cycle of social, cultural and historical deprivation our peoples have been submerged in for too long; only through the control of education for our children will we be able to build within our children the pride and the dignity they should carry as indigenous peoples, to one day transfer to their children. If there is any substance and meaning to the idea of individual or collective self-determination, it must begin by respecting the rights of people to educate their own children. For Hawaii's indigenous people, as for every other peoples, our children are the only real legacy. To interfere in the transfer of a people's collective memory from one generation to another, to break the continuity of consciousness of that people is tantamount to genocide. What are the prospects for the native Hawaiians to truly educate our own children? Where are the resources to do this, following the theft of our national resources almost a hundred years ago? The responsibility to provide opportunities and resources to the native Hawaiians can not be relegated to one or another Hawaiian estate, or the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, or the Department of Hawaiian Home lands. That responsibility rests upon the shoulders of every individual who has come to Hawaii and has partaken of the booty of the theft of the Hawaiian nation. That responsibility rests squarely upon the United States military who now occupy 25% of Oahu's lands; on everyone who uses Hawaii's airports and harbors; upon every person who has, since the U.S. invasion, made Hawaii their home.