Tag Archives: culture

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

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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.

Gateway to Aboriginal Heritage

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Module #4, Post #4

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/ethno/index_e.shtml

This website, provided by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, is a resource that documents the histories and cultures of aboriginal peoples in Canada. The objects page allows you to click on part of the map to find out information for that area and about different ‘objects’ that were used. The photos and papers page takes you to various researchers photo archive of indigenous life.

I found the ‘kids and teachers’ page to be most useful and interesting. There are many games and various learning activities to choose from to learn about aboriginal heritage.

Links:

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/ethno/ety090we.shtml (webquest)

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/ethno/ety0105e.shtml (game)

 

The Story of the Masks

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Module #4, Post #3

http://www.umista.ca/masks_story/en/ht/index.html

This website is about the “story of families with a passion that will not allow their culture to be extinguished.” The website contains information about the potlatch and explains its major role in Kwakwaka’waku society. This page even has a video that you can download and watch in Irene Cook’s native tongue and in English. This is a great example of the language and about the potlatch. The masks page has links to various types of masks as well as an overview of the collection. I believe that this website provide further research into aboriginal culture and their community reality.

 

A Journey into Time Immemorial

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Module #4, Post #1

http://www.sfu.museum/time/en/enter/

Upon clicking on the “FLASH – High Bandwidth” (or HTML version – but the flash is better as it’s much more interactive and everything is embedded) you are led to the coolest virtual museum I have ever found. Once you are in the virtual museum you can scroll your mouse over the people, the items, the buildings, etc. and it brings up information boxes about them. This website also has mini interviews throughout talking about the various items. It really gives you slight glimpse of what aboriginal life was like – an insight to their culture.  I think that this website is definite gold mine and think that it greatly contributes to the research of indigenous cultures and gives an idea for viewers as to what their community was like.

Links:

http://www.sfu.museum/time/en/educatorresources/

http://www.sfu.museum/time/en/games/

http://www.sfu.museum/time/en/videos/

 

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)

Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures

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Module #3, Post #4

http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

I was going through some TED talks when I came across this particular one about the diversity of the world’s indigenous cultures and how they are rapidly disappearing. I found this video to be exceptionally positive and interesting. Wade Davis not only gave an inspiring speech about the endangered cultures of the world, but provide snippets of information to provoke curiosity and hopefully acceptance of other cultures.

He also talked about how when we were born there were over 6000 languages spoken in the world and that only half exist today. He spoke about language as being a crucial part of a culture. He said that “language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. A language is a flash of the human spirit. It’s a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture that comes into the material world. Every language is an old growth forest of the mind…”

In his speech, he also referred to ethnocide… a word I had never heard of before, but understand completely and believe to be sad. One part that really stuck out for me was the fact that he said that change and technology do not threaten a culture; it’s the political power of those that want a monolithic culture as opposed to a pluralistic one.

He states that story telling can change the world and I truly believe that if we continue to tell the stories of our elders, then these endangered cultures will survive.

He concludes his speech by stating that the world deserves to exist in a diverse way and that all the wisdom of all people can contribute to the well-being of the human race. I think that this TED talk can definitely contribute to research on Indigenous knowledge, media, and community reality.

This TED talk led to two others that I thought might be of interest as well:

http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_the_worldwide_web_of_belief_and_ritual.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_borges_on_endangered_cultures.html

Free the Children Aboriginal Programming

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Module # 3, post #1

http://www.freethechildren.com/domestic-programming/school-and-educational-programming/aboriginal-programming/

This week’s readings and discussions really made me think about what is being done to celebrate indigenous/aboriginal culture in our society and schools. As a leadership teacher at the high school where I work, I remembered from attending We Day 2012 that Free the Children has started a new concept called We Stand Together. So, I decided to head back to their website and see what kinds of programming that they had for aboriginal education.

Free the Children is known for its global initiatives and helping out in “third-world” countries. However, they also do support and promote local programs. According to their site, “with the support of Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative, Free The Children is delivering programming that will educate non-Aboriginal Canadian youth and help make Aboriginal issues a priority in Canada.”

Some of the programs that they provide are:

I think that these campaigns and programs are great ways to raise awareness and create positive atmosphere in our schools with tomorrow’s leaders. I think if I had not had so much going on this year, I would have worked with my aboriginal support teachers to make these campaigns/programs a reality. Something to consider when I go back to work!

Native Languages

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Module #2, Post #4

http://www.native-languages.org/halkomelem.htm

This site is specifically about the Halkomelem Language as well. It is a site that leads to many other links and resources about the language and people. It contains a sections on the language, Stolo tribe culture and history, cowichan tribe culture and history, and Halkomelem Legends. Under the language section there are numerous outside links about learning the language from pronunciation and spelling, to dialect differences and orthography.

Some of the outside resources that the site provides are to encyclopedia articles about the language, news articles about the Sto:lo language in the classroom, and many others.

This site is valuable for those interested in learning the language and about the culture of the people who speak it.

Language Revival & Endangered Languages…by Velasquez

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Module 1, Post 1

I enjoy languages (I speak 3-1/2 languages) and will probably be doing my final paper on language revival/dying languages.

Here are some of the website and articles I’ve been looking at:

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

This site covers endangered languages from all over the world. I had no idea my place of birth was home to a few of them! And I had no clue how many languages were on the verge of extinction. I think if I head down this research path I’ll probably focus on Central/South America or the Middle East. While this is a great starting point, that’s all it is. The technology behind reviving a language is a whole other kettle of fish.

Module 1, Post 2

There’s no single cohesive way to record or revive a language:

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/enduring-voices/

http://www.livingtongues.org/talkingdictionaries.html

There’s audio recordings, video recordings, databases, online tools, apps, and written documentation, analogies, deciphering, enciphering, translation, transliteration, and guess work!Here’s a fellow who may point the way to some more ideas…I’ll contact him to see what his thoughts are:

http://challengingtraditions.wordpress.com/2013/04/

One of my concerns (and Coppélie hints to this) is the notion of technology being the silver bullet (didn’t the education world go through this a decade ago?):

Digital is not the savior of dying languages. We may be able to archive the languages, but languages are dead unless people speak them, and to speak them they need to interact with others and withing an environment that’s not hostile to that language. This may be something to explore…the archiving of languages vs. actually reviving them…the technology that exists today is mainly for archival purposes, not for reviving languages.

Module 1, Post 3

I think there’s an inherent problem in trying to revive a language outside of a given culture that is dying or has disappeared. I don’t say this to be mean, but just to point out that things like idiomatic expressions, subtle meanings, and things like double-entendres and jokes are often heavily dependent on context, without an environment or a mind who understands the environmental/social context of a dying or dead language its potency is lost; it would be akin to looking at a game board and not knowing the rules, including the sneaky ones that don’t let you build a hotel!

There’s plenty of fodder for this approach to endangered languages:

Peter Ladefoged  Another View of Endangered Languages Language Vol. 68, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 809-811

Ken Hale, Michael Krauss, Lucille J. Watahomigie, Akira Y. Yamamoto, Colette Craig, LaVerne Masayesva Jeanne and Nora C. England Endangered Lanuages. Language Vol. 68, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 1-42

Nancy C. Dorian  A Response to Ladefoged’s Other View of Endangered Languages Language Vol. 69, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 575-579

Module 1, Post 4

There’s also the political/cultural dimension to language.  Dominant cultures tend to eradicate other cultures, either forcibly or through other means (often economic in nature) that requires them to learn the language of the “empire”

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Language Death by David Crystal Journal of Linguistics Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jul., 2002), pp. 443-445

http://www.worldaffairs.com.au/reviving-endangered-languages/

There’s also the cost involved in reviving a language:

http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/ss17/contributions/abstract.php?paperID=360

This is an interesting and less explored area of reviving a dead language. There’s the financial cost, the political cost, as well as a social cost. I’ll have to do a little more digging around on this topic.

Module 1, Post 5

The topics surrounding language revival/dying languages are many. I think I’m going to start a small web to see which direction I should take my research. Maybe focusing on one particular language instead of theory would be a better approach.

Here are some videos I’ve been watching to get a better idea of what I’m getting into…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rRgoP1nG3c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVWltWfbBA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbE53FKUV5g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB7kLNwKEVU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZAbA3NuEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTk3JL01TZ0

If you have any suggestions or would like to discuss this topic further, I’d love to hear from you!

Aboriginal Arts, Culture, and Heritage

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Module #1, post #3

http://www.canada.gc.ca/aboutcanada-ausujetcanada/arts/aboriginal-autochtone-eng.html

This site, provided by the government of Canada, leads to many other sites that are relevant to this  module’s hot topic of culture. One of the links that was especially appealing to me was the virtual museum of Metis history and culture because of its resources and documentation of actual celebrations and games. I think that this site leads to important concepts that have been discussed this week regarding culture and heritage.