American Education Through Japanese Eyes 9780824887209

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Colletta American Schools Paper August 1980 1060 $10.00

T H E EAST-WEST CENTER-officially known as the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West—is a national educational institution established in Hawaii by the United States Congress in 1960 to promote better relations and understanding between the United States and the nations of Asia and the Pacific through cooperative study, training, and research. The Center is administered by a public, nonprofit corporation whose international Board of Governors consists of distinguished scholars, business leaders, and public servants. Each year more than 1,500 men and women from many nations and cultures participate in Center programs that seek cooperative solutions to problems of mutual consequence to East and West. Working with the Center's multidisciplinary and multicultural staff, participants include visiting scholars and researchers; leaders and professionals from the academic, government, and business communities; and graduate degree students, most of whom are enrolled at the University of Hawaii. For each Center participant from the United States, two participants are sought from the Asian and Pacific area. Center programs are conducted by institutes addressing problems of communication, culture learning, environment and policy, population, and resource systems. A limited number of " o p e n " grants are available to degree scholars and research fellows whose academic interests are not encompassed by institute programs. The United States Congress provides basic funding for Center programs and a variety of awards to participants. Because of the cooperative nature of Center programs, financial support and cost-sharing are also provided by Asian and Pacific governments, regional agencies, private enterprise and foundations. The Center is on land adjacent to and provided by the University of Hawaii. East-West Center Books are published by The University Press of Hawaii to further the Center's aims and programs. T H E EAST-WEST CULTURE LEARNING INSTITUTE is one of five "problem-oriented" institutes at the East-West Center. The central concern of the Institute is that special set of problems of understanding that arise among peoples of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific when they interact crossculturally. The objective of the Institute is to investigate the nature of crossnational interaction and to suggest ways of solving or dealing with the problems of understanding that accompany it. Verner C. Bickley, Director Editorial Board J. G. Amirthanayagam Jerry Boucher William Feltz

Mark P. Lester, Chairman Robert Snow

AMERICAN SCHOOLS FOR THE NATIVES OF PONAPE

AMERICAN SCHOOLS FOR THE NATIVES OF PONAPE A Study of Education and Culture Change in Micronesia

NAT J. COLLETTA

X An East-West Center Book from The East-West Culture Learning Institute Published for the East-West Center by The University Press of Hawaii

Copyright © 1980 by the East-West Center All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Colletta, Nat J American schools for the natives of Ponape. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Schools, American—Ponape Island. 2. Education— Ponape Island. 3. Ponape Island—Intellectual life. I. Title. LA2270.P66C64 370'.9966 80-14003 ISBN 0-8248-0634-4 (pbk.)

Chapter 2 is revised from "Education without Schools: Learning among the Ponapeans," by Nat J. Colletta, Teachers College Record, volume 76, number 4 (May 1975), pages 625637. Copyright © 1975 by Teachers College, Columbia University. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 3 is revised from "Ponape: Cross-Cultural Contact, Formal Schooling, and Foreign Dominance in Micronesia," by Nat J. Colletta, Topics in Culture Learning, volume 5 (1977), pages 41-50. Copyright © 1977 by the East-West Center. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 4 is revised from "Cross-Cultural Transactions in Ponapean Elementary Classrooms," by Nat J. Colletta, Journal of Research and Development in Education, volume 9, number 4 (Summer 1976), pages 113-123. Copyright © 1976 by the College of Education, University of Georgia. Reprinted by permission. Chapter 5 is revised from "PICS: A Case Study of Bureaucratic Organization and CrossCultural Conflict in a Micronesian High School," by Nat J. Colletta, International Review of Education, volume 20, number 2 (1974), pages 178-199. Reprinted by permission. Figures 1-12 have been selected from materials in the Archives of the Bureau of Education, Library Services, Trust Territory Headquarters, Saipan, Mariana Islands. Reproduced by permission. Maps of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and of the Ponape District have been provided by the Bureau of Resources, Department of Development Services, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Saipan, Mariana Islands. Reproduced by permission. The map of Ponape is reprinted by permission of the Smithsonian Institution from The Native Polity of Ponape, by Saul H. Riesenberg, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, volume 10. Copyright © 1968 by the Smithsonian Institution.

Contents

Illustrations

IX

Foreword

XI

Acknowledgments

XV

Introduction 1.

The Ponapeans of Micronesia Environment, 1 Family Structure, 2 The Ponapean Polity, 4 The Supernatural World, 6 Cultural Character, 11 A People in Transition, 16 Notes, 17 References, 18

2.

Education Without Schools: Informal Learning A m o n g the Ponapeans Education: An Indigenous Perspective, 21 Birth and Infancy, 23 Childhood, 25 Youth, 26 Mechanisms of Social Control, 28 Thought Processes and Methods of Persuasion, 30 Education for Permanence, 32 Note, 33 References, 34

3.

Cross-Cultural Contact and the Evolution of Formal Schooling on P o n a p e The Socio-Historical Process, 35 The Nature and Scope of the Contact Relationship, 47 Notes, 50 References, 51

XVll 1

21

35

vi 4.

5.

6.

Contents

Cross-Cultural Transactions in Ponapean Elementary Classrooms The Setting, 54 Cultural Transference to the Schools, 55 Sex Role Stereotyping, 56 Behavior in the School Environment, 56 Situational Ethics, 59 Competition, 59 Interpersonal Relations, 60 Learning Style and Respect for Authority, 61 Peer Group Formation, 62 Implications of Cross-Cultural Transactions, 65 Notes, 66 References, 66 P o n a p e Islands Central High School: Bureaucratic Organization and Cross-Cultural Conflict in a Micronesian High School Ponape Islands Central High School, 68 The " S t a t e d " Goals of Education in Micronesia, 69 The Bureaucratic Structure of Ponape Islands Central High School, 71 Characteristics of the Coordination System, 71 The Administrator in the Authority System, 72 The Teacher in the Authority System, 74 The Counselor in the Authority System, 75 The Student in the Authority System, 77 Mechanisms of Organizational Control, 78 Environmental Effects upon the Organization, 80 Recapitulation of Ponape Islands Central High School as an Alien Bureaucratic Organization, 81 Role Theory and Cultural Conflict, 82 Notes, 85 References, 86

" G o , But D o n ' t Change'': A Parental View of School Parental Expectations of School Outcomes, 89 Parental Expectations of Student and Teacher Behavior, 92 Conflicting Results: The Initiation of Generational Conflict and Familial Alienation, 94 Historical Dependence, the Abdication of Control, and the Passing of Indigenous Self-Reliance, 98 Education, Freedom, and Alienation, 101 Notes, 102 References, 103

54

68

89

Contents

vii

7.

" M a k e Style": The Y o u n g Schooled Ponapeans Speak Out 104 The Rural Eighth Grade Terminees: A Youth in Cultural Continuity, 104 The Urban Eighth Grade Terminees: Charges of a Larger World, 110 The Rural Seniors: A Force for Cultural Revitalization, 115 The Urban Seniors: There is No Return Home, 121 Schooling, Urbanization, and Cultural Change, 125 Note, 129 References, 130

8.

Education and Cultural Awareness: Toward a N e w Ponapean Culture The Americanization of Ponape, 131 Intersystemic Dissociation: When the American School Faces the Ponapean Family, 132 The Formal School: The Social Environment and the Educative Process, 134 Education and the Actualization of Change: Cultural Awareness, Critical Thought, and Changeability as Goals and Functions of the Education Process, 136 Notes, 138 References, 139

9.

Structural Innovations in Education and the Fusing of Cultures: A Design for the Future Steps Toward an Integration of Education, Culture, and Development, 141 Nonformal and Indigenous Based Educational Strategies, 143 The Reconstructed Community School, 149 A Final Note, 151 Notes, 153 References, 154

10. Epilogue Note, 159 References, 160

131

141

156

Appendix A A Further Methodological N o t e

161

Appendix B Student Interview Schedule

164

Appendix C Parent Interview Schedule Appendix N o n - PD o n a p e a n Educator Interview Schedule

167 169

viii

Contents

Appendix E Ponapean Educator Interview Schedule

170

Appendix F Child Rearing Interview Schedule

171

Glossary of Ponapean Words

173

Index

175

Illustrations

Maps 1. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 2. P o n a p e District, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 3. P o n a p e

X

xviii xix

Figures 1. The Wasahi of Kitti, a Ponapean nobleman (1908) 2. Indigenous education at work: an elderly Ponapean teaches a young girl weaving 3. Micronesian women making a recording of a song for a visiting English anthropologist, 1903 4. Raising the Japanese flag and bowing toward the Emperor before school classes begin, Ponape, 1930s 5. A Japanese classroom (about 1924) 6. Japanese vocationally oriented training (about 1937) 7. Missionary education: introducing crafts to young Ponapean girls 8. A typical American era primary school on P o n a p e 9. P o n a p e Islands Central High School 10. Young Ponapean " m a k i n g style" 11. The Americanization of Ponape: Ponapean boy in front of theater marquee, Kolonia 12. Cultural revitalization at Nett Cultural Center: young Ponapean girls perform the traditional dolkia dance

7 22 36 42 43 44 45 57 69 105 130 146

Diagrams 1. Evolving patterns of youth marginality and cultural transformation on Ponape 2. Learning resource mobilization and management

128

152

Foreword

The United States experience with providing school systems in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands since the end of the second World War in 1945 has been one of increasing disappointment and disillusionment. It began ideologically as a noble experiment in the development of democracy and practically as the use of education as an instrument of national policy for economic and political growth. It has come to be seen as a new form of colonialism, transmitting most of the problems of the dominant society to the colonized peoples, fragmenting indigenous societies by the development of new, competing elites within them, and generating unintended and unwanted dependencies which make the ideals of independence and democracy increasingly unthinkable. Colletta's present study of the nature and results of schooling on Ponape in the 1970s is a welcome contribution to the growing literature of anthropology and education. To me, it is also a significant study in a unique generational sense. It is a second-generation study at a level of sophistication and insight which was unattainable during earlier years because of cultural blinders among donor-nation personnel. In this respect, it represents a transitional period which will probably be followed ultimately by a third generation of studies from islanders themselves. My own experience in the Trust Territory islands was superficially similar to Colletta's. We both entered as young, expatriate teachers; we both had gratifying living and personal experiences; we both found new potentials for our uses of anthropology in relation to education. But there the similarities end. The nature of our experiences is substantively different because my entry was twenty years earlier than Colletta's. Our own basic cultural premises, which provided each of us with definitions and patterns for operation, reflect the rapid changes in the United States during this period. I was among the survivors of a war which had devastated much of the habitable area of the islands, an emissary of the victorious nation which had committed itself to sharing the best it had available with others in the world who wanted to participate in the good life

xii

Foreword

of Western technosociety. The tinted spectacles through which we viewed our environment reflected rosy hues. Colletta was among the survivors of the civil rights movement, of the national reaction to Vietnam, and of the personal rigors of Peace Corps indoctrination. His vision was less colored by culturally tinted spectacles. To this extent, Colletta's work is, at least implicitly, an insight into cultural change in the United States as well as among Ponapeans. Probably never before in history has there been such an optimal set of conditions for the transmission of ideals as existed among the Pacific islands in 1945. During and following the war with Japan, the United States had implemented the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology (CIMA). Data thus derived were part of the highest level of decision making in the occupation and civil administration of the islands. The earliest civil administration officers were trained for occupation and future development of the several jurisdictions at a CIMAbased Stanford University program specifically generated for this purpose. Anthropologists were employed on each district staff and at territorial headquarters to advise at all levels of administration. Not least significant, in connection with schooling, was that there had previously been few public schools in the islands—thus no existing structure of a universal free compulsory school tradition or entrenched bureaucracy which had to be modified. In effect, the slate was clean and only the optimal was to be provided. What little schooling was available before the war was religious training by missionaries and some relatively low-level, selective vocational training designed to serve the Japanese island economy. The concept of schooling as a right for all was completely new. We who were involved in the implementation of those schools were imbued with a kind of Walt Whitman-Carl Sandburg idealism about the potential of literacy and expanded awareness to generate the flowering of a new society as the island nation of Micronesia. Coupled with the nearidyllic material living conditions in the lovely Micronesian islands and the generally eager acceptance of our ideals (for whatever reasons and however understood) by the island peoples themselves, these factors tended to shape our behaviors. The newly formed United Nations and the replacement of the military government with civilians only added to the general euphoria of those early developmental years. Among islanders themselves, reinforcement came in the form of readily available jobs for those who went to school, life-style and social mobility potentials far beyond previous aspirations, and, at least for some, the possibilities of travel and further schooling away from home islands. Organizationally, we were poor; a peripheral operation of the United States Department of the Interior with a minuscule budget which

Foreword

xiii

was expected to diminish—or, at most, go no higher—each year. With the help of anthropologists and island elders, we modified school curricula; "community schools" with an essentially inward orientation were the standard developmental form. "Colonialism" was simply not a part of our lexicon. We considered European powers to be colonialists; we were simply generous donors seeking to transmit shared ideals in such a manner as to reach a climax in our complete withdrawal, leaving behind a set of self-sufficient, "modern" island communities essentially unchanged except in their capabilities to cope within the world community of nations and to realize the potential for enhancement of life style by selective adoption of modern technologies or concepts. Colletta's entry twenty years later came during the latter part of a decade of explosive developmental activity among the islands. National policy had changed during the early 1960s to that of providing students in Trust Territory schools with schools and services equal to those of mainland United States. Already a significant economic factor, schools became the growth industry of the islands. Where earlier, numbers of United States personnel had been dozens and budgets had been thousands, now United States personnel were hundreds and budgets were millions. Where earlier, schools had been localized, indigenous enterprises, now schools were structural models of the United States patterns. Where earlier, the vision had been self-sufficiency and cohesive, stable indigenous societies, now the ideas of cohesion and self-sufficiency were incredible. "Colonialism" is very much a part of the lexicon of Colletta and the islanders. There is almost no possibility for withdrawal of the United States' direct support and continuing influence. The best prognosis is for continuing fragmentation of the indigenous societies into new "acculturated elites," a sizable trapped and bitter mid-level governmental bureaucracy functioning in a cultural limbo, and a large segment of "failures" (in school terms) who by necessity seek personal and cultural reaffirmation in basic subsistence and traditional cultural patterns. The noble experiment in self-sufficient democracy has long since vanished, replaced by near-total dependence on external funding and sources of power. A remote possibility that Japan would replace the United States as donor nation would not significantly alter the situation. I do not mean to imply that the earlier expatriates and policies were qualitatively better; possibly quite the reverse is true. In retrospect, we can see that the seeds of colonialism were sown from the initial occupation and nurtured, albeit blindly, during the early developmental years so that they flowered fully with the nourishing fertilizer of the new developments. The new generation of donor-nation personnel have certainly been better prepared for their experiences, particularly Peace Corps Vol-

xiv

Foreword

unteers who have begun with language competence and cultural awareness far beyond the entry level of the earlier generation. They have a built-in tendency toward Ponapean (or other islander) emic perceptions and interpretations of phenomena. The nature of their experiences has demonstrated an idealistic commitment equaling or surpassing that of the earlier generation. Further, from twenty years of refinement of social science theory and method, they have the capability of examining themselves and the consequences of the total undertaking—as Colletta has done in this work, a fusion of ethnography and pedagogical insights. Broad questions remain unanswered. Is the pattern of fragmentation and dependency in Ponape and elsewhere in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands reversible? Must "modernization" and modern schooling always be accompanied by social traumas and disintegration of cultural patterns? The dilemmas emerging from this study are abundantly replicable throughout the Pacific islands, and indeed, throughout the "developing nations" of the world. In his final chapters, Colletta addresses these questions with some suggestive insights. I remain more skeptical than otherwise, but, if there is any hope for a positive reversal of these patterns, it lies in action resulting from studies such as this—and possibly from the yet-to-come third generation of analyses. A . RICHARD KING

University of Victoria Victoria, British Columbia

Acknowledgments

As in any effort, I have become indebted to far more people than can be acknowledged in a mere page or two. But I would be remiss if I did not thank those whose continued encouragement and assistance stand out in my mind. I am grateful to my early mentors, Cole S. Brembeck and Wilbur B. Brookover, for helping me conceptualize the social science framework for the initial study on Ponape. I am also thankful for the methodological advice given by John and Ruth Useem. The depth of my understanding of Ponapean lifeways is in large part due to William McGarry, who shared the wisdom of his years living among the Ponapeans so that others might come to appreciate cultural differences as strengths, not weaknesses. I wish to thank Emiko Santos, Francisco Marquez, Korapin David, and Alphonso Solomon for their assistance in conducting field interviews; and Fran Hezel, Dirk Ballendorf, and Saul Riesenberg for commenting on various drafts of the manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Nancy Donohue Colletta, for helping conduct the interviews on child rearing and for her endless hours of reviewing and commenting on the manuscript. My field research would have been impossible without a research grant from Michigan State University, Center for International Programs—Ford Foundation. Finally, I remain indebted to the Ponapean people, young and old, whose timeless lessons have repeatedly enriched my life.

Introduction

In the summer of 1968, having joined the Peace Corps, I arrived on the island of Ponape in the Eastern Caroline Islands after spending three nights sleeping on the deck of an ancient flagship of the Micronesian Inter-Ocean Lines. In the summer of 1970, I left that same island on board a Continental 727 jet departing from a man-made coral airstrip. A departure from traditional ways, more commonly referred to as "modernization," was occurring on Ponape at a rate equivalent to, if not surpassing that in most areas of the world. During my two-year stay I witnessed the virtual extinction of the outrigger canoe, the rapid diffusion of the transistor radio, and numerous other transformations. Change was taking place with such regularity that in a sense it had become the only significant norm. In January 1972, I returned to Ponape to take a more structured look at this change process focusing on the cultural impact of the transplanted American school system.' The cumulative results of those first two years living among the Ponapeans and this later six-month investigation are encompassed in this book. The central issue under investigation is that of the role of American schooling in the promotion of cultural change among the Ponapeans. Although there are several island ethnic groups inhabitating Ponape, emphasis in this text is on the Ponapeans because they are the major cultural group on the island and because of my familiarity with their culture and language. The school is the primary change agent under examination, with the impact of familial enculturation and urbanization being included in the study as important interactive forces. The construct of cultural character, or cultural identity, as exhibited in the attitudes and normative behavioral patterns of Ponapean youth, is employed as a key barometer of cultural change throughout the book. Several underlying assumptions concerning culture and education guided the study:

P o n a p e

D i s t r i c t

TERRITORY OF THE Total Population

OROLUK

.PACIFIC 18,956

ISLANDS

ATOLL, Senyavin ÌAO'»t Ctnfti Cinti j f t T ^ POPULATION O « {Sjßf POM/ a t o l l V * ^ ^

«'OU.».. 2,430 POPULATION " 2,354 tì mi toD.»< Gente» by Rood 16 mi lo Dut Center by Water

t y'

PÔPULÂTÏÔN 2,001 34 m, f«Oi»t Center by Rood 29 mt to Out Center by Woter

POPULATION 1.685 7mi to 0>tt Canter by Rood 7 mi to Out Center by Wore

1.674

MOKIL ATOLL 8» POPULATION 40 • 97 mi to Out Center by »

I

Metotoni DOOIK AT POPULATION 2,712 2t5m. foOist Center by Rood 165m» to Oi«t Center by Water NGATIK ATOLL POPULATION 447 88mi toOist Center by Woier

CT PIN8CLAP ATOLL POPULATION 924 162 mi to O'St Center by Woter

NOTES „

NUKUORO ATOLL POPULATION .339 283 mi to Out Cerne/ by W