Supporting Hawai&apos;i&apos;s Preservice Science Teachers in Designing Culture and Place-Based Instruction
Author: Mawyer, Kirsten Kamaile Noelani
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teachers,Science Teachers,Place Based Education,Public Schools,Teacher Educators,Secondary Education,Science Education,Teacher Education Programs,Schools of Education,Teacher Certification,Preservice Teacher Education,Culturally Relevant Education

Roughly a quarter of all public school students in the state of Hawai?i identify as Native Hawaiian or part-Native Hawaiian. This is the largest single ethnic group in local public schools and its proportional representation in Hawaiian classrooms has been steadily rising over the last three decades (Kamehameha Schools 2014). Author Kirsten Kamaile Noelani Mawyer writes that as a kanaka ?oiwi (native Hawaiian) teacher educator whose genealogy and personhood is both subtly and profoundly rooted in the islands, she firmly embraces the stance that it is her kuleana (responsibility) to ensure that the preservice secondary science teachers (PSTs) she prepares for licensure to teach science have the training and tools to develop and implement culturally appropriate and place-based science curricula to their students. Because the College of Education (COE) at the University of Hawai?i at Manoa (UHM) produces a significant portion of the Hawai?i State Department of Education's new hires, one readily perceives the intense significance of the stakes for incorporating culture and place in teacher preparation. In the 2016-2017 school year (SY), graduates from teacher preparation programs at UHM's CoE made up roughly 50 percent of Hawai'i-trained K-12 licensed teachers for the state (Hawai?i State Department of Education 2017). The Hawai'i Teacher Standards Board requires that all Hawai'i educator preparation providers--including teacher preparation programs at UHM's CoE--must provide evidence that their candidates are prepared to incorporate Hawaiian language, history, and culture into their practice. As a secondary teacher educator at UHM, the author writes that it has been inspiring and tremendously motivating to see how colleagues and peers have worked and are still working towards this goal. Beyond the fact of the goal is heartening, she also observes that substantial opportunities remain to do more to prepare all preservice teachers, regardless of content area, to create intellectually safe cultural spaces and incorporate culture-based practices, such as pilina kaiaulu (Hawaiian sense of place), ho?ike (performances requiring multilevel demonstrations of knowledge and skills), malama ?aina, and kokua kaiaulu (community responsibility) (Kana?iaupuni and Ledward 2013) with the goal of strengthening positive cultural identity development for kanaka ?oiwi students. Noleani writes that in thinking about how to prepare new science teachers for equity in Hawai?i, where Next Generation Sciencce Standards (NGSS) has recently been adopted, it is essential to recognize that local public education has been profoundly shaped by the Hawaiian people's history of dispossession, loss of language and culture, and subjection to settler colonialism. She maintains that the charge to imagine what science education could and should be requires vigorous movement toward the future with eyes on the past for teacher educators. The challenge also presents an incredible opportunity to prioritize kanaka ?oiwi epistemologies and indigenous ways of knowing in classrooms throughout the state.