Our first conversation in this series is with Kū Kahakalau, a native Hawaiian educator, researcher, cultural practitioner, grassroots activist, song writer, and expert in Hawaiian language, history and culture. Since the mid 90s Ku has led the Hawaiian-focused education movement. Ku shares more with us in this conversation about the Pedagogy of Aloha which promotes the revitalization of Hawaiian values along with language and culture, hands-on learning in the environment, community sustainability, food sovereignty and Hawaiian self-determination in education and beyond. In this conversation Ku describes the origins and principles of Pedagogy of Aloha, and its rootedness in the experience of Native Hawaiians’ defiance of Western imposed educational models and the reconnection with their own values and orientations. Ku also engages with the broader question of the contemporary crisis in education (in schools and universities) and of the specific challenges native Hawaiians and indigenous peoples have faced whilst being at the receiving end of a colonial, western-imposed educational system. The conversation also explores the relevance of the pedagogy of Aloha beyond Hawaii, and what it means to reconnect to indigeneity wherever we are from.
If you are interested in finding out more about the work of Ku Kahakalau you can follow the links bellow:
Pedagogy of Aloha, published in Encyclopedia of Teacher Education https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_296-1
