Ancient Samoan Concept of Teu Le Vā Could Reshape Schools for Pacific Islander Students

A new conceptual framework rooted in an ancient Sāmoan relational philosophy is being proposed as a way to transform how American schools support Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students, a population whose educational struggles have long been tied to cultural disconnection in the classroom. Writing in the journal SSM – Mental Health, a team of researchers led by Koa L. Beck of the University of Washington, together with Santino G. Camacho, Mikyla J. Sakurai, Jenn Nguyễn, Dayton K. Seto-Myers, Jason K. Cheers, Michael S. Spencer and Max A. Halvorson, presents what they call the Wayfinding Academics through Relational Practices framework, or WARP. The framework draws its central metaphor from Pasifika oceanic wayfinding, the ancestral art of navigating thousands of miles of open ocean by reading stars, winds, currents and wildlife, and applies it to the educational journeys of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, or NH/PI, students living in the diaspora in Washington state.

At the heart of WARP lies the Sāmoan concept of vā, a relational epistemology describing the sacred space that exists between people, and teu le vā, the practice of nurturing that space. Teu le vā is embedded in fa’asamoa, the Sāmoan way of life, and is traditionally recognized through how relationships are tended: how people speak to one another, how food is distributed, how seating arrangements and acts of care are organized in relation to self, family, village and chief. Its foundations rest on responsibility to practice respect, reciprocity, love, inclusion, understanding, thoughtfulness, service and compassion in everyday life. The researchers argue that this worldview, far from being a cultural curiosity, is a form of Indigenous technology that educators can deploy to build genuine, healthy relationships with NH/PI students, and that relational wellbeing is the precondition for academic success, mental health and holistic wellness across the life course.

The urgency behind the framework is grounded in stark evidence. NH/PI communities are among the fastest growing in Washington state and include some of the largest Tongan, Native Hawaiian, Sāmoan, Marshallese, Chamorro and Fijian communities in the United States. Yet NH/PI students in the state’s K-12 public schools achieve much lower rates on statewide standards in mathematics, science and English language arts compared with all students. Community leaders have long attributed these gaps to structural racism and settler colonialism, forces that have produced land dispossession, displacement through gentrification, environmental racism and poverty stemming from restrictions on Indigenous political and economic self-determination across Oceania.

The new paper builds on a previously published state report, Stories of Educational Wayfinding: Supporting the Educational Voyages of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Students, which documented how disconnection from teachers and peers shapes students’ daily lives. In interviews, one student described missing class for a family member’s funeral without telling the teacher, feeling no connection to the adults at school and not wanting their attention or sympathy. Another student recalled teachers joking about Sāmoans being big, strong and scary. One educator described a student who quit school after sophomore year because they could not handle the jokes and mockery. The report also documented a Chuukese family that hosted relatives for a month of mourning after a death, during which students missed substantial school, only for a teacher to complain that no one answered emails, an example the researchers cite of students being forced to choose between their identity as students and as members of their communities.

These interpersonal dynamics sit atop a long institutional history. Chamoru and Hawaiian languages were banned in schools in Guåhan and Hawai’i until 1974 and 1986 respectively, and after World War I, Chamorro children suspected of hookworm infection were forcibly institutionalized at schools and separated from their families. The authors argue that such policies, far from being isolated historical incidents, produced a continuing legacy of assimilation, identity erasure and cultural loss that still ripples through the wellbeing of Pacific communities today. Within this system, students who internalize prejudice-based beliefs about themselves face damaged self-efficacy, stereotype threat and social exclusion, all documented barriers to academic motivation and achievement.

The WARP framework translates these challenges and solutions into the imagery of a va’a, an outrigger canoe, voyaging between islands across rough water. The students are the voyagers. The waves and currents pushing against the vessel represent systemic barriers, interpersonal racism and internal struggles rooted in settler colonialism. The wind that helps the canoe move past those waves represents healthy, supportive relationships with educators, relationships characterized as mentorship rather than despotism, which research links to a stronger sense of belonging, greater confidence and lower stress. Guided by the stars and ocean creatures, metaphors for ancestors and families, students remain steadfast against forces threatening to capsize their educational journeys. The authors emphasize that students continue to resist these systems, supported by genealogies of care handed down through their communities.

Concretely, the researchers argue that classrooms contain many vā: the relational spaces between student and teacher, student and peers, and student and the learning environment itself. When teachers and students co-establish mutual understanding of vā and its foundational qualities, classroom relationships begin to resemble the cultural connections that sustain Pasifika communities. The paper offers an example from the senior author’s own middle school experience, in which a Hawaiian studies course designated one day a month as unstructured time for classmates to air grievances and make their relationships right through ho’oponopono, a traditional Hawaiian practice of restoring relationships. Crucially, the authors caution that non-Pasifika educators should let students and their families guide any engagement with these practices, so that relationship building does not slide into appropriation or malpractice of sacred cultural traditions.

The paper also highlights community-led programs in Washington that already embody these principles, though the authors are careful to note that none has yet been evaluated with rigorous experimental or observational designs. UTOPIA Washington, a fa’afafine and transgender-led grassroots organization serving Queer and Transgender Pacific Islanders, runs a Mana Youth Program in partnership with three public schools, providing mentorship, cultural teaching and academic support in which educators act as aunties, uncles and elders. In the report’s interviews, students described this network as family and said the support motivated them to attend class and do well. In Eastern Washington, Marshallese families built a language and culture program that teaches mathematics, biology, ecology and physics through the parts of a canoe, assigns students to write about their jowi, or clan, and their family histories, and has been credited by a paraeducator with improving student engagement, attendance, family relationships and graduation rates. Kamehameha Schools in Hawai’i, founded in 1884 by Ke Aliʻi Pauahi Bishop, is presented as a systemic model, organizing learning outcomes around a tree metaphor that encompasses ancestral knowledge, responsibility, love of the land and learner wellbeing.

The implications extend into policy and school social work. The authors argue that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts often stop at cultural awareness without confronting the systemic racism and settler colonialism embedded in curricula, training and policy, and that teu le vā demands deeper structural change, from teacher education to school mental health services. For school social workers, whose field has been criticized for paternalism and a color-evasive lens, adopting teu le vā offers a roadmap for centering students’ agency, community assets and cultural strengths rather than hyper-independence. The stakes are high: the underlying state report found that one in five NH/PI students reported thoughts of suicide, the highest rate among all racial groups. The authors call for future research to implement and evaluate community-led initiatives, conduct needs assessments with NH/PI youth, integrate Indigenous forms of evidence into evaluation frameworks and continue disaggregating NH/PI data from Asian American data. Their conclusion is unambiguous: educational wellbeing is interpersonal and rooted in connection, and no student should have to debate which parts of themselves to sacrifice on their educational journey. When schools honor the vā between students, educators and communities, they argue, Pasifika youth can stand in their genealogies of care and carry their ancestors’ knowledge into every classroom.

Subject of Research: An Indigenous relational framework, WARP, developed to support the educational wellbeing and mental health of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander K-12 students in Washington state.

Article Title: Wayfinding through teu le vā: Developing an indigenous relational approach to support the success and wellbeing of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students in Washington state

Article References: Beck, K. L., Camacho, S. G., Sakurai, M. J., Nguyễn, J., Seto-Myers, D. K., Cheers, J. K., Spencer, M. S., & Halvorson, M. A. (2026). Wayfinding through teu le vā: Developing an indigenous relational approach to support the success and wellbeing of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students in Washington state. SSM – Mental Health, 10, Article 100700. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2026.100700

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmmh.2026.100700

Keywords: teu le vā, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students, Pasifika education, relational wellbeing, Indigenous knowledge, wayfinding, self-determination, school mental health, settler colonialism, Washington state education, culturally sustaining pedagogy, SSM Mental Health