Making Cultural Connections

Pacific CHILD Links School Improvement and Local Tradition

By Rod Mauricio

One of PREL’s challenges in the Pacific Communities with High-performance In Literacy Development (CHILD) project is to integrate assessment and accountability systems into an overall school improvement process focusing on early reading, while also being responsive to local
cultures and traditions. For principals and teachers, this means learning new practices and creating a school culture that focuses on formative assessments and student reading achievement. For this to succeed, PREL and its Co-Development Partner schools must build bridges that connect school improvement to the unique cultures of the Pacific communities in which we live and work.

For its school improvement efforts at Awak Elementary School in Pohnpei, PREL developed a set of guidelines that help build these cultural bridges. These guidelines include:

• Knowing the leadership connections and allowing these to guide operational protocols.
  
• Knowing who arranges meetings with stakeholders and community leaders.
  
• Participating in community activities, such as feasting and giving tribute.
  
• Acknowledging important dignitaries, clans, and families with tributes and involving them in the work.
  
• Ensuring that appropriate dignitaries open meetings.
  
• Beginning meetings, ceremonies, and sharing of food with the proper religious observances.
  
• Using the proper (honorary) language before royalty and those with titles.

Building a network of relationships is also important but must be carried out thoughtfully and respectfully. Key stakeholders include principals, teachers, and project staff who connect with children and their families. The families establish themselves in the kousapw (or small villages) through taking responsibility for and participating in feasts and other community events. In turn, the kousapw’s political leaders honor and follow the direction of the Nahmwaki, or high chief. His support and blessing moved the Pacific CHILD project from its “good idea” status to a community-supported endeavor. It is only by building connections among all these people that the project can succeed. In the words of Lao Tzu, “Go to the people, learn from them. Start with what they know and build with what they have, so that when the task is accomplished, the people will say, ‘We have done it ourselves.’”

By hiring local educators who know the local culture, language, and traditions and understand the importance of following protocol, the Pacific CHILD project has guided and supported the creation of a hybrid school culture that blends local traditions with research-based reading instruction and assessment.

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