You are a Physicist: Creating a Gracious University Physics Learning Environment through ‘ike Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian worldviews

Joshua Lelemia Irvine,

Assistant Professor of Physics

Mathematics, Natural and Health Sciences Division

University of Hawai’i at West O’ahu

You are a PHYSICIST.pdf

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In this article, the mana of letter writing is used as a powerful inquiry to examine how art and poetry create a gracious online learning environment in teaching Physics content in a Hawaiian way. The central question I ask myself to consider as an educator is: “What are the most salient features of Physics that I must pass on to the next generation?” This article presents examples of how mele (poetic text), moʻolelo (storytelling), and hana noʻeau (art) are used as Hawaiian teaching tools to reach my undergraduate students taking introductory Physics in an online setting. Through using an online environment due to forced lockdown restrictions by the COVID-19 pandemic, I (de)construct and (re)construct the question: “How am I going to do that?” The abrupt, unexpected shift to teaching online college Physics during my early-career, tenure-track journey, I quickly learned to pivot, adapt, and evolve my teaching praxis. Including art and poetry assignments in a Physics course offers (1) innovative pedagogy for continuing education remotely; (2) an acceptable alternative to assess student mastery of learning goals; and (3) a creative method to open innate senses of the physicists within my students. In totality, mele, moʻolelo, and kiʻi are Indigenous forms of scientific data that are truly transdisciplinary and culturally grounded learning tools that enable well-rounded, critical-thinking perspectives that help students become culturally aware and scientifically informed 21st-century leaders. 

Keywords: Indigenous Physics, Indigenous Teaching Methodologies, Gracious online space, COVID-19, Indigenous Education, Distance Education