Micronesians, schools strive to bridge gap

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jay Jay Jefben reviews his work during class at Ka'ahumanu Elementary School, which has a federally financed program tailored for Micronesian students and their parents. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

One touched the heart of Charity Joel, someone who has experienced similar fears: A young Marshallese girl watched the school bus come and go but couldn't bring herself to get on. Rather than tell her parents that she was too afraid to go to school, she waited out several school days in a park near her home.

Joel, a Marshallese assistant hired to help public schools bridge the gap in these cases of culture shock, felt a pang of empathy. She remembered how, 20 years earlier, she had been thrust into college life in a Pennsylvania town where everybody and everything seemed strange and a little threatening.

Joel was called into the Mililani case two weeks ago.

"The teacher started to ask why she didn't come to school," she said. "The parents said, 'We drop her off at the bus stop.' All this time, she has been in the park where she can hide during school-time.

"I try to talk to the girl and explain, 'It's not like home, you can't do that.' She doesn't really understand English at all. She's scared of getting on the bus and going to school every day."

More Micronesians seen

Before 1997, the Micronesian population was not listed separately in the state Department of Education system. But since then data have shown a growing presence in the public schools, one that's a little hard to predict because the Micronesian compacts with the United States allow them to come and go freely.

What the figures don't show is how much cultural differences add to the challenge of adapting to a Western style of education, and how much help is needed to build the bridge.

Micronesian is a general term that encompasses the Federated States of Micronesia — with its four island groupings — and the two Marshall Islands and Palauan republics. The Marshallese are the largest group among the Micronesians arriving in Hawai'i schools, although figures show the Chuukese and other Federated States peoples have been enrolling in greater numbers in recent years.

Honolulu District schools have the highest concentration of Micronesian students. Evelyn Ruben, a Chuukese mother, remembers her 8-year-old daughter last year adapting to life at Royal Elementary.

"The school is very good," Ruben said, "but because we're from a different culture ... her friends at school, sometimes they didn't treat her so good."

Preparing parents

Lauretta Kaukani entertains Micronesian students with stories at Ka'ahumanu, where about 90 Micronesians are part of a student body of 650. Cultural differences have made adapting to a Western-style education challenging. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Kwock and her staff respond to the challenge by trying to prepare families before they enroll children in kindergarten. Ka'ahumanu secured a federal grant under a broad preschool initiative known as Even Start but tailored its program to Marshallese children and parents.

There are the usual preschool drills of learning colors, numbers, letters and such. But this program also includes time for parental involvement, Kwock said, so that moms and dads begin to understand their part in the process.

More accustomed to a culture in which formal schooling and family life are somewhat more separate, elementary school parents are often surprised at the expectation that they check backpacks for homework, permission slips and the like.

"They see the homework but they don't take it out, because they believe it belongs to the school," she said. "We explain to teachers not to be upset, that this doesn't mean they don't care."

Even Start a good beginning

The Even Start teachers also get across to the parents that Honolulu's urban setting presents some new dangers to people from close-knit island communities where children can wander off more safely, Kwock added.

Hilda Heine is a scholar at Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), a Honolulu-based nonprofit that offers schools assistance with curriculum and other services for the Pacific child. Formerly the education secretary of the Marshall Islands, Heine has worked with DOE professionals in workshops promoting cultural understanding.

"But there is still a lot that needs to be done," she said. "We've recommended that more schools conduct orientations with parents, on school rules and expectations, at the beginning of the year. A lot of schools wait until they get to the spring semester and find out that kids are behind, and then they wonder, 'What are we going to do?' "

Educators are chipping away at the problem. A classroom of future teachers attended a Sept. 24 seminar titled "Understanding Micronesian Students," part of a three-year, federally financed multicultural awareness project in the University of Hawai'i College of Education.

Narrowing cultural divide

The seminar covered some of the shared culture of Micronesia as well as specifics on three select populations: Chuukese, Marshallese and Pohnpeian.

To support those on the educational front lines, the DOE has staffed eight half-time Micronesian-specialty positions such as Charity Joel's, supplementing the resource teachers who help with all students with limited English-language skills.

Joel and her colleagues are temporary "bilingual/bicultural school home assistants." They are not teachers but they help students and parents, providing everything from translation aid to basic counseling aimed at narrowing the cultural divide.

Judy McCoy, administrator for the DOE languages office, said the jobs were created through previously allocated federal money; the worry is that future federal aid earmarked for the Hawai'i Micronesian population will go only to health services.

"We won't be able to continue this if we don't get money," she said. "It should go for education as well as health.

"We need to meet the needs of these kids," McCoy added. "If we do address the education needs, the chance that they'll need health and welfare money will be lessened in the future."

Kwock is afraid that without early intervention, the challenge becomes harder to meet.

"No child left behind, right?" she said, surveying an English as a Second Language classroom dominated by Micronesian children.

"We feel fortunate because they're young and they can learn more easily," she added. "But when they get to middle school, they fall farther behind, and I don't know if you can catch up and leave no child behind."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.