Documentary film which describes life at the Belau Modekngnei School in Palau, Western Caroline Islands. The school attempts to preserve Palauan traditions and values while developing self-sufficiency in its students.
Watching this From Fiji 🇫🇯 I hope this program is still going. This is very forward-thinking... Great job Palau 🇵🇼 keep your language and traditions.. However, change is inevitable...achange towards social enrichment.
Bula. It is. My mom retired from public school teaching. She taught at Mindszenty High School (a Jesuit school) and retired again after 3 years. Now she’s been teaching math, English, science, sewing, etc at Belau Modekngei School. She loves teaching.
Thank you for the beautiful history of BMS. I graduated in 1976 and after many years traveling, am back working as a school counselor and a full time classroom teacher. The school is hiring so if you wish to learn more of Palau culture/custom, please come to Belau Modekngei School.
The striking difference I noticed is how healthy, slim looking students of that time compared to obese, unhealthy students of today. Similar difference can be seen in the teachers too. Palau needs to return to those healthy wonderful days.
When I left the island in Palau where I grew up and went to school in a different school,...that particular school was closing down due to lack of student, I guess Palau is becoming more modern, and school are becoming more equipped with the teaching of Palau way which that school was intended to, also the location of that school was to remote.
Wow, 4:06 is a radio-taisou (ラジオ体操） which is exercised at the Japanese school beginning of the school time. I wonder why Palauan students exercise Japanese radio-taisou. Is anyone know the reason?
I have a question. Why don’t Japanese people know about their history in the Micronesian islands? A lot of Japanese people today don’t even know about their history with Palau, the FSM, and the Marshall Islands. They used the be Japanese territory. We all got A LOT of influence from Japanese. (Another example: “taiso” in Chuukese means exercise).
The first schools built in Palau were made by the Japanese when they took over during the war, and at which the time, Palau was under their administration. Palauan kids had their own building and were forced to attend under the law. Palau after the war had become a widely mix of Japanese and Palauan breed and culture, they kept the same old customs and musics left behind by the Japanese before many of them evacuated back to Japan after the U.S. won the war, and took over Palau. My grandma is the girl 9:53 singing. Her biological grandpa was a Japanese man, Ono Singeru. But yeah that sums up why at that time they exercised to Japanese music, although they don’t that anymore.
