Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 8, 1 August 2013 — Crabbe: Data crucial in education [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Crabbe: Data crucial in education

OHA Ka Pouhana/ CEO Kamana'opono Crabbe urged educators and administrators to embrace data - both quantitatively in numbers and qualitatively in anecdotes - as a means of showing how culture-based education benefits Hawaiian leamers. In a speech at the Hawaiian Education Summit, he dismissed the idea that data is a western concept that has no application to Hawaiian education. Instead, he described data gathering as "translating our experiences at the very community,

grassroots level to the efforts of those in Keaukaha, in Ka'ū, in Hoolehua and Makiki ... to show others that ... through a Hawaiian culture-based

learning environment, we ean achieve success." The Hawaiian Education Summit ran in tandem with the CultureBased Education Conference. In his speech, Crabbe related

a story of his neighbor who was thrilled that her son now had a ehoiee that she never had growing up - attending a charter school, where he gets a quality education in the context of Hawaiian values and traditions. In that environment, her son felt accepted, and his grades, attitude and attendance have improved. "That is a very touching story, because that's a very eommon experience for our people, our keiki to go through that," Crabbe said. "And that happens just at a mother-child level. And that's data." Crabbe also spoke about mana, or power, the force central to the Hawaiian world view. He told the audience of teachers and adnūn-

istrators: "You have the mana to inspire and you have the will to encourage this movement to eontinue forward and it's going to take work. It's going to take everybody to pull their own weight and kuleana, I believe. And I ean tell you, OHA will be there, because we are not only doing this with you in education. We are doing it in health. We are doing it in eeonomie development and this year we are going to try to even do that in culture." "This is a very exciting and good time," he said, because Native Hawaiians are now in positions to hopefully make good, responsible decisions "to benefit our people and our lāhui." — Lisa Asato ■

Crabbe