Hawaiian Hermeneutics and the Triangulation of Meaning: Gross, Subtle, Causal

"IF KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, THEN UNDERSTANDING IS LIBERATION." WHAT DOES that really mean, and how does that relate to indigenous research issues? What is hermeneutics and what do we bring as indigenous people to the dialogue? Can the experience of hermeneutics escort us into Paulo Freire's "Critical Consciousness" phase in his Theory of Conscientization? Will we wake up or stay asleep with regard to how best to research/understand and thus educate our children in this time of homogenization, fear, and standardizing intentions? To start this discussion of interpretation and why this focus aids us as indigenous educators and researchers, I believe we need to begin with the idea of need, or how best to be of service to our community. What are the needs we must address within ourselves, our family, our community, and within our distinct and evolving cultures? What, truly, are the issues we need to understand? That is what hermeneutics teaches me. Research for us is not simply about asking "burning questions" we wish to resolve, but rather, we are answering a call to be of use. We must first develop the correct orientation to ourselves and our place. The very idea of knowledge is now in question across all nations, and as we develop a deeper experience of our own epistemology, do you see where we are heading? We are heading into our own radical remembering of our future. This is where I live now: in a fully lucid present that experiences the "deeper significance of the things seen" (Nityananda, 1997). A practical example of this is allowing your students to write their research into a useful document that helps to secure funding for projects our communities so often are desperate for. I can recall vividly the day that two brilliant Hawaiian educators were in my office and we were discussing topics for their final M.A. paper. We decided that they would research and write on the needs of their Hawaiian communities and include it in a statewide Charter School grant application. They received their M.A. along with the funding and today two creative, innovative, and culturally driven schools exist because of this paradigm change. I remember feeling filled with clarity as we spoke in my office: "Yes, why not make research useful? Why not link what we do in our institutions of higher education with the needs of our communities?" The answer has changed three lives and, now, many more. Did you know that in some Hawaiian communities, 80 to 100% of all teenagers are addicted to ice? We also have rural communities in which Hawaiians make up 100% of their special education population. Some of our very best and brilliant Hawaiian educators are still not licensed as public school teachers because of their inability to pass the Math Praxis Test--a nationally standardized test without any correlation to teaching excellence. This emphasis on one type of mathematical understanding has become a cultural gatekeeper for teachers in many states. The disparity can no longer be kept hidden. The rift between human efficacy and what it means to be smart in today's society is defined via caricature. We are becoming cardboard cutouts of what it truly means to feel, to be alive, to think. We see this disconnect in the lust of public schools for homogeneity and control and in our Hawaiian private schools' preoccupation with capitalism, competition, and national standards. Who knows, perhaps the basic contradiction of education in Hawai'i will now be answered: How best can we educate our unique and diverse children via mass colonial education? You can bet the answer will not be found in typical special education classes. A dialectic focus weaves within our research at this pivotal time in history and it holds the potential to liberate us. The polemic preoccupation--that is, our preoccupation with arguing a point instead of listening to what the point may be--no longer holds sway in my spirit. …