Pacific Educators Speak : Valuing Our Values

This book helps non-Pacific educators inform their work with Pacific learners and their families.

There are differences in understandings of the values important to many Pacific people between Pacific and non-Pacific heritage educators. Pacific values of Belonging, Family, Love, Service, Spirituality, Reciprocal Relationships, Respect, Leadership, and Inclusion are discussed and explained. Each value is articulated using words from experienced Pacific educators, gathered through an extensive study across early childhood education contexts, primary and secondary schools, and tertiary learning environments.

The focus is on the meanings of the values for Pacific people and how the values can be demonstrated and nurtured in teaching and educational settings.

The values are bound together using a Pacific Values Compass - a metaphor drawn from a traditional navigational tool used for Pacific voyaging. The metaphor uses stones around a circle of coconut palm leaves and banana trunk fibres. Groups of three stones represent the learner, teacher, and parent working together for learning and well-being. Each coconut leaf represents the ways in which a different value is demonstrated and nurtured, and the banana trunk fibres illustrate interrelationships between the values.

This book will be useful for teachers, early childhood and tertiary settings, and schools in enacting the Action Plan for Pacific Education, the Pacific Education Plan and Tapasa. It will help ensure their learning environments and classrooms are suitable for maximising the learning of their Pacific heritage learners.