Author Archives: inscho

Module 4 Post 5: Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools, Alaska Native Knowledge Network

Alaska Native Knowledge Network. (1998). Alaska standards for culturally responsive schools. [web document] Retrieved from http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/publications/standards.html

Some may have come across this already, in week 10, but on the Alaska Native Knowledge Network’s website is this document listing the standards for students, educators, curriculum, schools, and communities developed by the Assembly of Alaska Native Educators. It’s a valuable tool in assessing if what is being done in our classes, schools and communities is heading in the right direction to be culturally responsive.

Module 4 Post 4: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing, Ray Barnhardt and Angayuquq Oscar Kawagley

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Barnhardt, R., and Kawagley, A., (2005). Indigensous knowledge systems and Alaska native ways of knowing. Anthropology & Education Quarterly. 36(1). 8-23

In this article, Barnhardt and Kawagley describe some of the programs arising from a gathering of Alaska Native elders and educators challenged with identifying ways in which traditional knowledge and epistemologies can enrich the school curriculum and learning experiences of their students. The article builds on the premises that contemporary Western education systems lack relevance for many aboriginal students and, for those raised with traditional stories and ways of knowing, it alienates their cultural sense of knowing and being through compartmentalization and decontextualization–approaches that are diametrically opposite to many holistic and integrated aboriginal world views. It also recognizes the benefit to all, native and non-native people alike, of the paradigm shift in recognizing the legitimacy and integrity of indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. It is from this same perspective that I will be examining culturally responsive, place-based learning in contemporary education.

Facilitated at least in part by having a greater majority of Aboriginal students in more of their school districts than is common elsewhere such as BC, the University of Alaska fairbanks, under contract with the Alaska Federation of Natives and funded through the National Science Foundation, developed the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative (AKRSI). This initiative has sought and developed numerous “educational reform strategies focussing on integrating local knowledge and pedagogical practices into all aspects of the education system… [that have] provided a fertile, real-world context in which to address the many issues associated with learning and Indigenous knowledge systems.” These strategies can serve as a model for similar reforms elsewhere.

Module 4 Post 3: Teaching History from an Indigenous Perspective: Four Winding Paths up the Mountain, Michael Marker

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Marker, M. (n.d.) Teaching history from an indigenous perspective: Four winding paths up the mountain. [Course Materials] Retrieved from http://connect.ubc.ca

This chapter by Marker gives key insight into the development of a culturally responsive curriculum from the context of teaching history, though its application is in many ways cross curricular. Marker identifies and elaborates on four themes of indigenous historical understanding that do not integrate well into Western world views and pedagogies. These are:

“the circular nature of time and the ways oral tradition is integrated with recurring events…
the central theme of relationships with landscape and non-humans
an emphasis on the local landscapes as containing the meaning of both time and place rather than on analyses of global social and political change; and
indigenous narratives and perspectives on the histories of colonization that have attempted to displace and replace indigenous knowledge.”

Frequent within these themes are colonial dichotomies that minimize and devalue indigenous world views and limit the opportunities for indigenous self-determination and decolonization. These appear to develop from the differing world view in which the dominant culture strives for “progress” in an objective materialistic sense –“bigger, higher, newer, faster being preferred over smaller, lower, older or slower” and the indigenous cultures’ world view of primarily seeking to live better in a holistic sense that honours relationships with place, people and non-humans alike. The resulting values and beliefs (of both the dominant culture and the indigenous) are thus cemented in childhood–long before formal First Nations Studies courses (BC Curriculum) in high school address them. This emphasizes the necessity for culturally responsive curricula much earlier in elementary, both to slow the (sometimes unintentional) colonization progress by the culturally ignorant dominant culture and provide legitimacy to aboriginal students making sense of their traditional world view within the Western hegemony, as colonization is not only a physical, social and economic occurrence, it is a cognitive one as well.

Module 4 Post 2: History, Representation, Globalisation and Indigenous Cultures: A Tasmanian Perspective, Julie Gough

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Gough, J. (2000). History, representation, globalization and indigenous cultures: A Tasmanian perspective in Indigenous cultures in an interconnected world. Smith, C. and Ward, G. (Eds.) Vancouver: UBC Press.

While this chapter is significant for the understanding of globalization as an agent of colonization, and the efforts of Aboriginal peoples to to work toward decolonization through self-representative and self-determinant efforts, it’s application to my research efforts lies in the depiction of the systematic displacement and renaming of the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania. In renaming the lands taken after familiar and/or mythical places, the colonizers were at once removing thousands of years of history and from those places and inserting alternate ones. Rather than create a new history with new locally-significant names, the colonizers legitimized their actions–as any new name with local significance would necessarily include account of the displacement of the indigenous population. At the same time, this is evidence that there is also significance to place, though rarely acknowledged and arguably to a lesser degree, in dominant cultures. This process may not have occurred as dramatically in other places as in Tasmania but it has been a frequent global occurrence nonetheless. By recognizing the significance of place of all cultures, and building that significance together, it may be possible to leverage names as tools in the efforts toward decolonization. Local examples of this include the official creation of the Nunavut Territory, returning the Queen Charlotte Islands to Haida Gwaii (NB. according to Wikipedia this is not their traditional name), and the naming of the Salish Sea to include the Straight of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Straight, Puget Sound and all their interconnecting and adjoining waters (NB. the intent of the naming of the Salish Sea was ecologically motivated, not culturally or politically, though there are cultural and political ramifications). Significant to this discussion, but perhaps off topic from its intent is that with the exception of Nunavut, the other two name changes identified here did not accompany any transfer of actual power or increase in self-determinant ability.

Module 4 Post 1: Education and Place: A Review Essay, Jan Nespor

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Nespor, J. (2008) Education and place: A review essay. Educational Theory. 58(4). 475-489

This article is a review of books published by three prominent theorists in place-based education: Paul theobald’s Teaching the Commons, C.A. Bower’s Revitalizing the Commons, and David Gruenewald and Gregory Smith’s anthology Place-Based Education in the Global Age. It first examines the theorists’ definitions of “place and place-making,” how their theories address differences and dichotomies of gender, class, ethnicity, etc., and problems associated with implementation of place-based education as defined by these theorists and informed by a few others.

While Nespor’s article is informative of perceptions of place, place-based education and many of the difficulties associated with conceptualizing and theorizing such an educational praxis, it is approached from a Western, and presumptively dominant, culture and thus somewhat antithetical to my purpose of theorizing a culturally responsive and responsible place-based educational approach. Included in the article are considerations for shifting the for focus from place-based to “place-conscious” (p.480) in which the intent is to make learners conscious about the place(s) about which their education is based acknowledging that it is often not the place in which they live and learn, and is frequently a larger “commons” than would be considered from an aboriginal perspective; and having an ultimate goal of reducing that commons to a more localized scale.

Module 3 Post 5: Opening Doors to the Future: Applying Local Knowledge in Curriculum Development, Veronica Ingas

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Ignas, V. (2004) Opening doors to the future: Applying local knowledge in curriculum development. Canadian Journal of Native Education. (28)1/2. 49-60.

Ingas begins her article with statistics comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous graduation rates and, like many others, identifies the significantly lower Indigenous graduation rates as evidence of an education system that is failing Indigenous students. The result, she postulates, of the contemporary system’s lack of valuing Indigenous cultural contexts and local level knowledge, and therefore failing to be meaningful to Indigenous students. More typically, the contemporary system has “distanced and denied First Nations [sic] knowledge” (p.49) and left students feeling that “their ways of knowing are inferior or inadequate.” (p.55)

Ingas goes on to describe how successful curricular models must value Indigenous ways of knowing, world view and traditional ecological knowledge, and describes the Forests for the Future science curriculum that she co-developed for the BC high schools through the partnership with community members, parents, Elders and educational professionals. Ingas’ preferred method of instruction is an inquiry based model that requires students to “assume the primary responsibility for planning, conducting and evaluating their investigations” (Moore, Moore, Cunningham & Cunningham, 1998, p. 280) through content that “should address issues, controversies or provocative questions inspired by experiences in the [students’ lives].” Kanevsky, 1999, p. 58)

Kanevsky, L. (1999). The toolkit for for curriculum differentiation. Lanny Kanevsy. October Edition.

Moore, D., Moore S., Cunningham, P., & Cunninghamj., (1998) Developing readers and writers in the content areas (3rd ed.) Don Mills, ON: Longman.

Module 3 Post 4: Curriculum Change in Nunavut: Towards Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, Heather McGregor.

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McGregor, H. (2012). Curriculum change in Nunavut: Towards Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. McGill Journal of Education. (47)3. 285-302

Though part of the required reading for this course, I am including this article in my weblog as it pertains directly to my research paper envisioning respectful and responsible place-based education within the contemporary model. In the article, Heather McGregor briefly outlines the political climate in Nunavut, and history of curriculum change that has brought about the current iterations of educational policy and practise that privilege Inuit language(s) and culture.

Through extensive collaboration with parents, elders, education professionals and policy makers; and coming at an extensive cost in effort and financial resources, the curriculum development initiatives in Nunavut exemplify “the kind of place-based culturally-responsive and Indigenous-knowledge based educational change called for by Indigenous education advocates.” (p.289) Furthermore, the process and product may be seen as successful examples upon which other jurisdictions may look.

McGregor cautiously identifies the significant Inuit population majority as reducing the constraints (p.290) to swift progress that may not be possible in the context of my research for educational change in more multi-cultural settings. However this does not devalue the examples set forth in the article, it simply re-identifies an obvious obstacle to my purpose. Nonetheless, I cam hopeful for a culturally blended and balanced learning experience that is inclusive of traditional environmental knowledge, experiential learning opportunities, Elders as teachers and caring between teacher and learner–all key aspects identified by McGregor (p.209-291)–without the requirement of Indigenous students to “give up or leave behind their rights, language, identities, histories and world views in order to participate” (p.288) and do not let “the formal system or [non-Indigenous] structures change those ways so much that they lose their meaning, and still prepare children to attain a standard level of education.” (p.295)

Of significant note, McGregor identifies that specific values and beliefs must be made explicit when reconceptualizing education, particularly when the majority of teachers are not Indigenous themselves.

Module 3 Post 3: Orality of the Northern Cree Indigenous Worlds, C. Weber-Pillwax.

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Weber-Pillwax, C. (2001) Orality of northern Cree indigenous worlds. Canadian journal of native education (25)2. 149-165

I turned to this article to explore the concept of orality and orality consciousness that I struggled with in the Friedel (2011) referenced in post one for this module. E-mail discussion with Heather McGregor and Dr. Marker helped clarify, and post to was a recommendation by Dr. Marker, but I wanted to deepen my understanding further; this article was selected for that purpose.

Weber-Pillwax’s article connects well to the early modules of ETEC 540 where orality is explored, particularly through Ong’s (1982) work on orality as a (very) complex state of being, or consciousness, including thought patterns, ceremonies, story-telling, dancing and singing. Weber-Pillwax builds on this definition and concurrently critiques Havelock’s (1986) analysis of the transition from primary orality to literacy to build an understanding of the northern Cree world-view and sense of identity rooted in orality, especially the understanding of and participation in traditional society and spiritual events–even if the language is not understood!

A significant portion of this article is dedicated to the English translation of “wihkotowin” and “macisimowin,” which are different ceremonies but both typically translated as “tea dance.” The discussion of the translations is centred around “tea dance” for wihkotowin as an oral translation, because those requiring a translation could not fully understand the meaning held within the word and participation in the ceremony as outsiders, and “tea dance” for macisimowin as a literate translation, because it adequately describes what happens at the ceremony celebrating a special event such a as a birthday. A (better?) literate translation of wihkotowin would be “dance of the ancestors.” This ceremony includes the opening of a bundle to signify the bringing into consciousness and the community, the spirits of those who have gone before, grandmothers, grandfather and ancestral spirits.

Off topic of my immediate reason for reviewing this article, but more directly aligned with my research paper, is the notable absence of a place-based identity, as so eloquently described in Basso’s work (see Module 3 Post 2). Presumably, this is for two reasons. The first is that the intention of the article was to elucidate orality, though I am not satisfied with this as my understanding is that place-based identity is so central to most Indigenous world views that it could not casually be omitted from any sense of identity. The second reason, and one that I am more likely to believe, is hidden in the brief history of the northern Cree with which Weber-Pillwax prefaces the article. In this history, she describes the elders’ fascination with a small turtle that she brought back from the city. Though not native to the area, the turtle is an important part of the collective memory. How did it get there? The northern Cree people are part of a group of Cree that originated in Ontario and Quebec (turtles’ natural habitat) and moved west to Alberta, possibly with the fur trade, to displace the Blackfoot and Dene who inhabited the area first. Because the northern Cree have not inhabited their current region for the 5000+ years that other Indigenous groups have lived in their traditional territories, their oral histories do not reference the land around them in the ways that others do.

Havelock, E. (1986) The muse learns to write: Reflections on orality and literacy from antiquity to the present. New York: Yale University Press

Ong, W. (1982) Orality and literacy. London: Routledge

Module 3 Post 2: Looking for Learning in all the Wrong Places, Tracy Friedel

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Friedel, T. (2011). Looking for learning in all the wrong places: Urban native youth’s cultured response to Western-oriented place-based learning. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 24(5). 531-546.

In this article, Tracy Friedel analyses the response on native youth to an outbound place-based learning experience, which is ment to reconnect them with their ancestral territories. The analysis takes place within the greater context of the youth striving to be both “Aboriginal” and “modern” at the same time, stereotypes of the “Ecological Indian,” Western interpretations of place-based learning and the responsibilities of Indigenous youth to “protect and preserve their traditional lands, resources and sacred sites upon which indigenous cultural heritage and identity is based.”

Friedel finds the youths’ response to be neither apathetic nor rebellious toward hegemonic power, but a subtle and complex cultured response based in orality, kinship and community. Somewhat ironically, she describes the groups’ recognition of the most significant places to not be within nature, but in the van used to transport the youths between sites.

Additional concepts of note described in the article include: Indigenous youths’ sense of urgency in preserving their culture, particularly with respect to traditional languages; the false perception of Western ecological/environmental experiences as synonymous with place-based learning and identity; and the focus of educational research aimed at improving Aboriginal graduation rates juxtaposed with the youths motivations for significant learning

Module 3 Post 1: Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache, Keith Basso.

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Basso, K. (1996). Stalking with stories. In Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

In this chapter of Wisdom Sits in Places, Basso exemplifies the reciprocal relationship of the Western Apache to their land is as it informs their moral being and self-image which then defines their relationship to the physical world, including the land. To do this, Basso elucidates the meaning of a variety of phrases from Western Apache elders that, when interpreted from a Western perspective seem nonsensical. However; Basso demonstrates that when taken in context of the Western Apache world view, which he also asserts is not dissimilar from many other Indigenous world views, these sayings not only make sense, but are deeply rooted in social and cultural belief. In his approach, Basso recollects his teachings under Western Apache elder, Nick Thompson, over a number of summers. In these recollections he describes the significance and subtleties of Indigenous place names, then connects stories to them–noting how Western Apache stories are always rooted in places, and all places have stories. Finally he describes the four main genre of Western Apache stories (distinguished by their temporal locations) and explains how historical tales, short and direct, are used to guide members of their society on “what it is that being an Apache should normally and properly entail.” (p. 52)