Chapter 3: Exploring Pacific Knowledge and Classroom Learning in Micronesia: The Promise of “Cultural Considerations”

So the story goes… late one night a ketch meandered toward the outskirts of a vast lagoon in the chain of slender islands and atolls that make up the Marshall Islands. To assist their travel among neighbor islands between the north Pacific Ocean and the Philippine Sea, the U.S. mainland crew had welcomed aboard a Marshallese, known for his skill as a navigator. Now returning after several days, the Marshallese was asleep on the foredeck, content to have set the best course to avoid the dangerous reefs jutting outside the land areas. The quiet night ended when suddenly the Marshallese jolted from slumber, ran to the captain’s deck and yanked the steering wheel, veering the boat off course. Stunned crew members at first cursed the local. But as they looked back to their former position their eyes bulged with the reflection of a reef—one into which they surely would have slammed had they stayed on course. The now jubilant Americans smothered the Marshallese demanding to know how he knew. The sea was calm! He was asleep!!! “You can feel it,” the Marshallese answered matter of factly. “We were coming to the reef.” As it turned out, someone had inadvertently set a metal coffee cup next to the compass.¹