Kuahuokalā: Reflections on Space and Transformative Education Conversations

  • Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda University of Hawaii - West Oahu
  • Stephanie Hauki Kamai University of Hawaii - West Oahu
  • Michael Thomas Hayes University of Hawaiʻi @ West Oʻahu

Abstract

How can a place transform a conversation? In this paper the authors discuss how meeting to develop a professional learning community in a hale, a traditional native Hawaiian building, changed the course and direction of the learning community. Too often, departments and divisions of higher education are driven by external standards imposed by state and national accrediting and licensing agencies. The conceptions of education and the way it is implemented then is more focused on meeting the standard rather than coming to a deeper understanding of what can be accomplished for our communities in the name of education and how it can be achieved. Our PLC is intended to address this shortcoming by creating space of sharing, conversation and communal action. What emerged from our work within our relationship to the hale was an expression of the values, commitments and ideals that emerged through the context of our developing relationship. With a political desire for voice, we built a community that found meaning in the process of building something greater than ourselves, yet fundamentally immersed in our everyday lives.

Author Biographies

Cathy Kanoelani Ikeda, University of Hawaii - West Oahu

Cathy K. Ikeda is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Education at the University of Hawaii West O’ahu. She teaches most of the courses in the middle level/secondary education program from Introduction to Teaching to Student Teaching and English/language arts methods. Her scholarship and her life work is around normalizing Hawaiian Ways of Knowing and Hawaiian epistemology to transform teacher education and the spaces where learning takes place

Stephanie Hauki Kamai, University of Hawaii - West Oahu

Stephanie Hauki Kamai is an Associate Specialist and Field Experience Coordinator in the University of Hawai’i - West O’ahu where she teaches Student Teaching Seminar.  She also focuses on developing partnerships with K-12 institutions and the broader communities

Published
2019-12-04
How to Cite
Ikeda, C. K., Kamai, S. H., & Hayes, M. T. (2019). Kuahuokalā: Reflections on Space and Transformative Education Conversations. Ethnographic Edge, 3, 29-37. https://doi.org/10.15663/tee.v3i1.45
Section
Special Section: Indigenous Voices