"All Read Well": Schooling on Solid Ground in a Solomon Islands Language Movement

Abstract:Education in Oceania tends to orient students to distant shores. Schooling is a path away from home places and often away from home languages. In this article, we discuss a vernacular language movement that has grown over two decades on Ranongga, a mountainous island on the far western edge of Solomon Islands. Named the Kulu Language Institute after the two languages spoken on the island (Kubokota and Luqa), the movement has as its emblem a sprouting nut, a resonant symbol of one of the island's most important foods and trees, and its motto is "All read well." In Ranongga, the English word "read" is translated to "tiro," a word that encompasses many other forms of searching for signs in the environment, including searching for nuts under the forest litter. This metaphor runs through the curriculum materials, encouraging students to look under the surface of words for their deeper meaning. Today, approximately 20 percent of the island's population has studied writing and reading in Kubokota or Luqa, and a growing number of young people have undertaken an intensive series of courses focusing on the grammatical structures of Luqa. Students and teachers at the school speak of how studying their own language has anchored them intellectually. In contrast to the English-language instruction of primary and secondary school, learning in their own language has given them a sense of being firmly connected to the ground, no longer flailing toward an uncertain future.