Fifty years ago in Papua New Guinea, knowledge or save as we call it in Tok Pisin would have meant how well you can foresee the weather, how well you can fish, hunt or gather. How well you could dance and chant and sing those customary rites. 

Our knowledge was practical, there were rules and regulations that kept some semblance of order in the complicated myriad of relationships in our traditional society.

We showed respect to our elders, everyone had their place in society, everyone had their part to play in bringing food to the table, or rather to the fire. Everyone in every community knew where their boundaries were and respected those boundaries. Everyone knew when it was proper to fish, hunt or gather. Our save or knowledge was gained through experience, through trial and error and it was passed on by word of a song, legends, chants, word of mouth and/or actions. 

Yes – even 6000 years ago we had our knowledge! 

Fast forward - the year is 2012 and what do we consider as knowledge? Sitting at a certain place at a certain time, in front of someone that has learnt another person’s views and basically regurgitates ‘alien’ experiences in order to teach numerous individuals that he/she feels no kinship towards in order to gain – money and/or prestige. You now know what caused that cough, what makes your head ache and skin burn up. You now know that there are these tiny plants, animals and things that cause you to burn up, throw up or sh-- continuously, not some evil spirit lurking because you disturbed their home or caught their fancy. 

We now base respect and value knowledge by how far you go in formal education. How well you can articulate in English (no matter that it's an alien tongue!), how fast and accurately you can calculate mathematical problems (how many of us actually use basic algebra in our daily lives?). 

We are impressed by numbers and statistics written on flimsy pieces of paper that say that you were consistent in memorizing facts about things that you probably will never find any use for in life.

Today knowledge is gained through reading and writing, where we look at these symbols and we must remember the message imparted by those symbols. These days it is called intelligence or intellect.

But why have we completely turned our back on ‘our’ knowledge when it obviously worked just fine for thousands of years? Our knowledge gave us a good basis to judge who deserved our respect. Our knowledge taught us to value not just our immediate family but our clansman, our tribesman and those we traded and fought with too. Our knowledge allowed us take what we needed from our land, rivers, seas, forests, swamps and skies without depriving our next generations supplies of these resources. For too long we were enticed, forced and intimidated into accepting that ‘our’ knowledge was incorrect so we eventually bought into the bullsh-- that previously we were completely lost in oblivion with no ‘real’ knowledge. 

But (OH HAPPY DAYS!) times are changing, some of us are now seeing that ‘their’ knowledge is obviously just plain wrong in some aspects (plain stupid in others). Most times their knowledge disadvantages MOST of us and in our own land too! Their knowledge plays a major factor in causing an increasing number of us to be ‘lost in oblivion’ with no real knowledge.

If we are to thrive as a people we must open our ears, nostrils and eyes WIDE so that we can hear the warning while smelling and seeing the sh-- ahead of us!

We must rethink what we consider as knowledge. We should be judging knowledge according to the relevance it has to our society, how useful it is and what impact it has on the future of our society, whether it means negative or positive change.

Building our own ‘knowledge’ should be a merging of the two worlds; our spiritual, cultural, experience knowledge world and their rationale based, abstract thought, rigid world. Those tools called and reading and writing can be utilized in teaching our knowledge, that is relevant to our society with a flavor of their abstract thoughts, numbers and concepts to ensure that our people accomplish, stand out and flourish.