Haunani-Kay Trask : PRACTICE QUESTION 3 : What kind of responsibilities does a teacher have to her students?

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Transcript

I love teaching because like all nurturing professions it is a great joy to see the mind open, and at a certain point hand those students over to some other thing. It is a form of parenting if you like; it's a form of being a kūpuna(1) and giving actively to the next generation.

My sister has children and I think of my students - especially as they get older - as the place where she would have sent her kids and then they go on. Which is one of the reasons I never go to graduation, because like parents I can't take it. (laughs) But I have to go to this next one, because I promised this student who looked like he was never going to graduate, who is. And I made a deal with him that if he graduated I would go, so I have to go. It's just that I'm a wimp, that's why I don't want to go.

But I decided that I would contribute to the lāhui(2) that way and I have done so. You know, what else can you do with your life? It's such a short span of time. And if we lived for 2,000 years I might be fooling around doing something else.

My nephew watches us on TV, he's about 5 or 6 now. And he watched that, two years ago, the students speaking truth to power at the Board of Regents meeting. And he was so cute. My sister's cooking dinner and he says, "Oh, there's Auntie Mililani!"(3) Because the night before there was a sleep in and Mililani was there, giving - she's such a wonderful speaker - the blessings. And then the next day is the Regents meeting when she was not there, she was back on the big island. And he says, "Oh, it's Auntie Haunani-Kay!" So my sister comes out of the kitchen, she said I went, "Oh my God, I can't believe he's watching this!" And there's all the police beating the students. He's like, "Oh, oh, they're fighting, Mom. There's a big fight..." And I just thought, "Oh, poor thing." Well, you know, welcome to the struggle at age 4 or 5.

So when I look at that, that's all education. What we do goes directly into struggling for the lāhui. That's all education. And education is the living thing. It is the living process. It's not something you just do in the classroom.

My life is an example to my students. My whole life. That's an education. Did somebody struggle, fight, kick ass, and continue to do it? Yes. They need that. Students need to see people who go on. You know, enough already of all these people that die young. We don't need that anymore. We don't need people who are martyrs. We need people who are survivors. And I'm a survivor. You become almost iconic. You become this thing that is separate from who you are as a human being. So people will say, "God, you're so short." Because what they don't realize, apart from how common that is, is how big they think you are. Because you're so scary. Because telling the truth in a colony is the most radical thing you could ever do.

Notes

(1) Kūpuna: an ancestor; an elder.

(2) Lāhui: A nation, people, or race.

(3) Mililani Trask (b. 1951): Lawyer, nationalist, and political leader (founder and first elected Governor of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi) who has worked extensively in the area of human rights for indigenous peoples both in Hawaiʻi and internationally.  Mililani is Haunani-Kay’s younger sister.