Hawaiian Language Nest Movement
Hawaiians and others have long fought to save the Hawaiian language from extinction. During the territorial period, Hawaiian was used privately in churches and local laws were passed to promote the teaching of the Hawaiian language in the public schools and the university. Lack of control of the administration of the public schools and University of Hawai‘i resulted in these laws being poorly enforced for many years. In the 1950s, a major dictionary of 30,000 words was completed by the distinguished team of Hawaiian culture authority, Mary Kawena Pukui and linguist, Dr. Samuel Elbert. In the 1970s, a revitalization of interest in the Hawaiian culture resulted in the reestablishment of Hawaiian as an official language of the state of Hawai‘i and in a push to bring elders called kūpuna into the elementary school classrooms. This renewed interest gave rise to the establishment of Hawaiian Studies and Hawaiian Language B. A. degrees. Elementary, high school and even college programs brought better awareness and prestige to Hawaiian but did not produce sufficiently fluent students. Classes where taught through the medium of English and many students rapidly forgot the Hawaiian that they learned in class. During the Hawaiian Renaissance, a small group of students under the leadership of Larry Kimura, then a young teacher of Hawaiian language, began to work closely with Hawaiian elders. They only spoke Hawaiian to each other at all times. This lead to an increased fluency rate for this group of people. Some of these same students began to speak only Hawaiian to their babies. These children became the first new native speakers outside Ni‘ihau in fifty years. Also interacting with these students were a number of Polynesians attending the university in Hawai‘i, including Māori influential in developing the Māori language revival in New Zealand.
In 1982, Tāmati Reedy, one of the Māori students, then head of the New Zealand Office of Māori Affairs, returned to Hawai‘i to inform the group led by Larry Kimura about the establishment of the Kōhanga Reo, language nest movement in New Zealand. These Kōhanga Reo brought preschool-aged children together with fluent speakers of the Māori language in settings where only the indigenous language was used. This contact led to the establishment of the ‘Aha Pūnana Leo in 1983 with Larry Kimura as the first president. When the movement began, there were less than 50 children under the age of 18 fluent in Hawaiian and an estimated 2,000 native speakers of Hawaiian, most of who were over the age of 70.
The Pūnana Leo movement began with great difficulties. In spite of the status of Hawaiian as an official language of the state of Hawai‘i, legal barriers against use of Hawaiian in public and private schools still existed. The Hawaiian entities that might be expected to support the movement did not. The first language nest school opened on Kaua‘i in 1984 with a mixed enrollment of native speaking Ni‘ihau children and other Hawaiian children. At first, teachers could not bring themselves to speak only Hawaiian to the children. Regrettably, the native speaking children began to speak English and the other children did not gain Hawaiian fluency. That school was temporarily closed down for lack of funding while other schools opened in Honolulu and Hilo, where there were more parents able to support the schools through tuition as well as the support of Hawaiian speaking babies of Kimura's student group. Even with the increased resources of these locations, a system of required in-kind service, required parent meetings, and required parent language classes was instituted to strengthen the Pūnana Leo schools. These requirements have remained a major foundation of the Pūnana Leo program. In addition, a strict policy of no English in Pūnana Leo schools resulted in children rapidly learning and regularly using Hawaiian. Excitement grew among Hawaiians after seeing for the first time in more than 50 years, children speaking fluently in Hawaiian with their grandparents and with each other. The movement began to grow explosively and affected enrollments in Hawaiian language courses at the high school and college level dramatically.
The use of Hawaiian language in Pūnana Leo was contrary to Hawai‘i state law as was the use of Hawaiian language in the public school serving the tiny population of native speaking children on isolated Ni‘ihau Island. For three years the Pūnana Leo families and Ilei Beniamina of Ni‘ihau lobbied the state legislature to change the law. Finally in 1987, the legislature made provisions for the use of Hawaiian in the Pūnana Leo schools and in public schools.
In spite of the law allowing for Hawaiian as a medium of education in the public schools, the state Department of Education did not open schools in Hawaiian for Ni‘ihau children or for the children matriculating from the Pūnana Leo schools. In Hilo, Pūnana Leo parents kept their kindergarten aged children at the Pūnana Leo and established a boycott school called Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i or Hawaiian surrounding environment school. In Honolulu, Pūnana Leo children were assigned to a bilingual program taught by a speaker of the Philippine language, Ilocano. In 1987, after assistance from the legislature, a new administration in the Department of Education, and Dorothy Lazore of the Mohawk immersion program in Canada, the state established two experimental schools that they called Hawaiian language immersion schools and which Pūnana Leo families continued to call Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i. These initial schools were actually streams of Hawaiian classes within an English medium school with a staff and administration that knew no Hawaiian. Many Hawaiian language immersion schools continue with this model today.
Over the next decade Pūnana Leo and Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i parents, with the support of ‘Aha Pūnana Leo, struggled to develop and expand Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i and Hawaiian language education in general to the level that had existed prior to it being banned at the turn of the century. We sought full education through Hawaiian from preschool through high school. We sought teaching English as a second language beginning in fifth grade and having English taught through the medium of Hawaiian if the school so chose. We sought a guarantee that any Hawaiian speaking child would be guaranteed the right to education through the Hawaiian medium in the same way that any English speaking child had the right to be educated in English in Hawai‘i. We sought the hiring of teachers who were certified as having fluency in Hawaiian that was equal to the level of English fluency required in the English medium classrooms. We sought text books and other teaching materials in Hawaiian. We sought the right to bus service to Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i for all children attending in the same way that children attending English language schools all have the right to bus transportation to their schools. We sought testing in Hawaiian for our children in the same way that children in English schools had their children tested through the language of the school. Finally we sought to establish total Hawaiian medium schools where the principal, librarian, cooks, and entire staff spoke Hawaiian.
There have been many victories. Pūnana Leo language nests have expanded to eleven sites throughout Hawai‘i. In these same communities, parents fought for a new Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i to be established, often by first holding a boycott school at the local Pūnana Leo. So far, Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i have subsequently opened in these communities. State and federal funds have been appropriated for curriculum development and teacher training. Although much needs to be done in this area, children are being provided with classroom materials. The ‘Aha Pūnana Leo is a major source of such curriculum, including technological support through a statewide Hawaiian language based computer system and printed and non-printed materials in Hawaiian.
The State Board of Education rewarded the resolve of Pūnana Leo and Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i families by allowing the establishment of Hawaiian medium education through grade 12. We have been successful in having the state approve teaching English as a course beginning in grade five and continuing on as a yearly course through high school. The state also agreed to establish two schools taught and administered solely through the Hawaiian language. The state established one such school on its own called Ke Kula Kaiapuni ‘O Ānuenue, but this site has had to continue to battle state policies that treat Hawaiian as secondary to English. Ānuenue has an elementary through high school program in Hawaiian. Other than Ānuenue and Pūnana Leo k-12 model sites described later below, Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i feed into English intermediate and high schools where some courses are taught through Hawaiian and others are taught through English.
Areas that still need attention are a guarantee that Hawaiian speaking children may choose Hawaiian medium education and receive transportation to their schools. The state generally treats Hawaiian language education as if it were enrichment, foreign language education. Because of this perspective, Hawaiian speaking children are seen as having no right to education in Hawaiian. Furthermore, fluency in Hawaiian is not a minimum qualification for employment in Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i. This policy has resulted in some teachers being hired who were less fluent in Hawaiian than incoming Pūnana Leo children. Hawaiian fluency among administrative and support staff is supported even less in any totally state run Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i due to union contracts similar to those that hinder the requirement of Hawaiian fluency for teachers. Testing of students in Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i through Hawaiian has not been provided in spite of federal government recognition that national standardized tests as used in Hawai‘i are biased against minority children even when such children are educated through English in that such tests do not have a distinct minority culture focus. In spite of the lack of tests in Hawaiian focusing on the unique content and approach of Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i, students in these schools appear to be outperforming the average for Hawaiian children in Hawai‘i public schools.
The ‘Aha Pūnana Leo has strived to bring Kula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i to a higher level by forming special sites with model laboratory schools where Hawaiian is the administrative and operational language as well as the classroom language. This has been done in cooperation with the Department of Education and the laboratory school program of Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. These schools were initially developed primarily because the Department of Education has not been able to actuate plans to develop such sites on its own. Presently, three such schools are in operation. One, Ke Kula Ni‘ihau O Kekaha, in Kekaha on the island of Kaua‘i is open to all native speakers of the Ni‘ihau dialect of Hawaiian. It strives to develop a total Ni‘ihau dialect speaking teaching and support staff. Another, Ke Kula ‘o S. M. Kamakau in Kāne‘ohe on the island of O‘ahu, is home to a Pūnana Leo as well as the K-12 program. Ke Kula o Kamakau strives to enroll whole families into the program, providing comprehensive multi-age grouped programming for children and complimentary programming for adults. The third school, Ke Kula ‘O Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u, is also home to a Pūnana Leo and K-1 school. The location of Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u on ‘APL controlled property has allowed for the development of an extensive program of environmental/agriculture science and student involvement with ‘Aha Pūnana Leo curriculum development and outreach programs. A consortium agreement with Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College has allowed for early enrollment in college courses as well. During their senior year, the first graduating class at Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u concurrently enrolled for between nine and eleven college credits each, earning college grade point averages ranging from 2.9 to 3.5. They not only succeeded in these courses taught through English, but they all also passed the English composition placement examination which many Hawaiian students from English medium high schools have difficulty passing.
The first students educated entirely in Hawaiian graduated in 1999. This group of eleven students from Ke Kula ‘O Ānuenue (6) and Ke Kula ‘O Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u (5) were the first to graduate from totally Hawaiian medium schools in over one hundred years. In the 2005-2006 school year, there were approximately 2,000 students enrolled in programs taught through Hawaiian from preschool through high school. In addition, there has been much growth in the teaching of Hawaiian at other levels. Of particular note is the expansion of the ‘Aha Pūnana Leo's consortium partner at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo to become Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language, the first Native American language college in the United States. This college offers an MA in Hawaiian language and literature which is the first MA in a specific Native American language and also a teaching certificate taught through Hawaiian, another first for a Native American language. The successes demonstrated in programs developed by the consortium led to the approval of Doctorate Degree Program to the Hawaiian Language College.