I recently returned from the Pacific Circle Consortium conference at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, where my team shared our culture-based education work with educators from the Pacific Rim and Oceania. I came away with new insights that connect deeply to education challenges here at home. Two stories especially lit up the insight path for me.

The first is the story of the development of the Student Volunteer Army after the earthquakes that devastated Christchurch in 2011. Thousands of students volunteered for the dirty cleanup work, responding to a Facebook call from a fellow student. A university faculty member, Associate Professor Billy O’Steen, seized the opportunity to create a service-learning course for the student volunteers, which has evolved into a full community engagement degree program, the Bachelor of Youth and Community Leadership.

The student action and the university support arose in the context of a society that values volunteerism. Many of the vital civil services in this small country, such as school board membership and firefighting, are provided by volunteers, most of them Maori. In Maori culture, as in Hawaiian, caring reciprocity and equity of give-and-take, malama and kokua, are foundational values. What drove these efforts — for students and teachers — was a real sense of urgency, of need, and of purpose.

The second story is about understanding learning from a native islander perspective. Natalie Nimmer, an associate director of the Pacific Master in Education program at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, shared her work with teacher candidates in the Marshall Islands. She began with her awe of her Marshallese students’ learning capacity evidenced by their successful acquisition of the complex skills needed to produce native crafts and engineering solutions essential to life on those fragile islands over generations. She shared her consternation at their struggles with the academic curriculum of the pre-service education program, which she was determined to overcome.

She mounted an interview survey of many Marshallese experts, inquiring how and from whom they learned their skills. What emerged from this research was the “Marshallese Indigenous Learning Framework: A Tool to Transform Education for Pacific Learners.”

The basics are the same ones I’ve learned to recognize as fundamental to successful culture-based education:

>> Relationships — learners and teachers must care about each other.

>> Motivation for learning — beyond “passing a test,” learners must feel the personal urgency to master new skills and knowledge.

>> Teaching strategies — a continuum of “show me, give me timely, constructive feedback, and give me sheltered time to practice.”

>> Extending networks — connecting learners to communities of support and inspiration.

Here at home, I hear teachers bemoaning students’ disconnection from school learning and their negative attitudes ranging from apathy to aggressive hostility. I hear students bemoaning the irrelevance of siloed academic content. The COVID pandemic brought these challenges to a head. Everyone questioned priorities. For many, this led to a fundamental reevaluation of what we do and why.

We all yearn for meaningful connection between life and work. For our secondary school students (grades 6 to 12 and beyond) a curriculum centered in service learning can provide that critical connection. When students are guided to engage with real problems in the lives of their own communities and when they are helped to respond to those problems with real kokua contributions, their motivation to learn may be reignited.

When educators employ the effective teaching strategies to support the learning, students can experience a new sense of purpose, the thrill of success, and the satisfaction of knowing they have contributed to perpetuating the life of the land and the people they love.

Elly Tepper is a consultant educator and Ulu A‘e Transitions Grant Team member.