Abstract:
In this paper we share our insights on revisiting education and contributing to the broader general stream designed to mandate re-thinking and transforming education within the Pacific. The conference theme, It takes an island and an ocean: Rethinking Pacific Education for resilient, healthy communities, frames our approach with a focus on “an ocean” by exploring lan as a sub-theme. Lan refers to the sky in the Marshallese language; here we are the star gazers, navigators, the Moana, and the Maui; we dream of a new space, new direction, to go forward. Our innovators, creators, builders, designers, crafters, artists, musicians, poets, orators, dancers, and performers share their aspirations and hopes for our children and our future. The paper that follows presents ideas and concepts through poetry by four emerging Pacific academics, researchers, and educators. Poetry is a means and method to highlight our positionality and concerns. To re-think Pacific education by and for Pacific Peoples is a purposeful and deliberate disruption of what counts as useful knowledge. We argue that Pacific knowledge and world views are useful for us today and for future generations.
