Posts from — September 2011

For Indigenous Peoples (IP) knowledge and place are bound together.  Western educational systems run counter to IPs concept of an “interdependent universe, and the importance of place in their societies.” The authors work from the premise that Westerners could use the Native worldview to promote a sustainable way of living.  Traditional educational processes involve observing natural phenomenon, adapting lifestyle in order to survive, obtaining sustenance from plants and animals, using natural materials to make tools and other implements.  Knowledge is passed down inter-generationally through stories and demonstration.

Westerners test competency through testing; among IPs, competency is determined by survival.  They have their own system for understanding and articulating meteorology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and the sacred.  They have also devised a way of dealing with the flora and fauna of their environment in ways that are sustainable.  They see all of these disciplines as inter-related, while in the Western educational system, disciplines are detached from each other, and learning takes place within four walls.  The practice of deconstruction/reconstruction of Western thought doesn’t hold in traditional worldviews where everything is seamlessly interconnected

The authors advocate teaching subject matter in ways that IP understand it, then explaining it in Western terms.  Their idea is to show IP that Western and traditional knowledge enhance each other.  There is a problem to this, however, for the IP knowledge is an everyday part of life.  When they learn the Western worldview in school, it remains there.  They will not use this worldview in their tribes when they go home in the evening.  Thus, they will see that the Western worldview is best used in school, but the traditional worldview is used in the tribe to survive.  Therefore, the traditional worldview will always take precedence, and be superior in their eyes.

The site includes a chart outlining differences in worldview between IP and West.  The authors illustrate these differences by recounting a meeting between representatives from the State Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, Alaska and the Minto peoples.  The agency wanted to measure sediment in the water supply; the Minto people wanted to know what was being doing about the fires.  Wild fires are left to burn themselves out until they approach man-made structures, at which time agencies mobilize to put out the fires.  The Minto people tried to explain that the issue of sediment in the water supply would be controlled if the fires were put out promptly.  The representatives said the policy regarding fires were handled by a different agency, and because there were no representatives with them that day, they could not address the issue of fires.  This example illustrates the separation and specialization of areas of knowledge and approaches to handling natural phenomenon.

Conclusions:  Native people may need to understand western science, but not at the expense of their own knowledge.  Traditional knowledge must be recognized as credible.

References:

Kawagley, A., and Barnhardt, R. (2007).  Education indigenous to place:  Western science meets native reality.  Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN).  Retrieved from http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/Articles/BarnhardtKawagley/EIP.html

This site outlines ways in which Native Australians learn.  Learning for them isn’t a curriculum, the content of a course, but it is a process.  There are eight involved, one of which involves a sense of place—“land links.”  Teaching takes place away from classrooms and desks, and in the community.  Students construct stories and they share them.  The pedagogy is narrative-driven, and the eight ways are interconnected.  They are:

Use of symbols and images
Land links
Non­-verbal
Non-linear
Deconstructive/Reconstructive (starting with the whole and picking it apart)
Story-sharing
Community Links

There’s a link to a wiki site that discusses these eight ways in greater detail, complete with a discussion forum.  I will write about this site in a later blog post.

References:

Kalantzis, M., and Cope, B. (2011).  Eight Aboriginal ways of Learning.  New Learning:  Transformational designs for pedagogy for assessment.  Retrieved from http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1-literacies-on-a-human-scale/eight-aboriginal-ways-of-learning/

“[a] Sense of place is the set of all meanings and attachments a person or a group invests in a place” (slide no.7)

This site features a series of powerpoint slides by Steven Smeken in School of Earth and Science Education at the Arizona State University, a US state where many Native American tribes live.  The department teaches earth sciences by using students’ prior sense of place as leverage for learning.

Classes begin with advanced organizers:  meeting the students where they are.  Students must pick a place that holds intellectual and cultural significance for them, and describe characteristics of the place, as well as ways in which they interact with the place and come to know it.  Then students are introduced to the Western scientific concepts that explain the place’s natural phenomena.

The department teaches the discipline both in and about these places.  The presenter makes a great point:  “Places populate the cultural landscape, just as landforms and biota make up the physical landscape” (slide no. 4).

Place means different things to different peoples, of whatever culture.  Place can have aesthetic, economic, ceremonial, historical, spiritual, scientific significance.  People even develop emotional attachments to places.

In place-based teaching, place defines the curriculum instead of global standards.   It is local, trans-disciplinary (it takes into account history, art, geography/geology, hydrology, etc), experiential (students work in the actual place or in the community), cross cultural.

Each slide lists ways in which students’ meanings can be incorporated into the learning of earth sciences, including using the names for places that students know and already use.  Slide 24 contains a few points to consider when offering a place-based course for the first time.

The presentation concludes with an extensive bibliography, which will be helpful to researchers interested in place-based education.

Reference:

Smeken, P.  (2010).  Place-based teaching and learning.  Retrieved from http://semken.asu.edu/teaching/cp10place.pdf

Indigenous peoples (IP) hold worldviews that are radically different from Westerners, and these differences play themselves out in educational contexts.  IPs connect to the physical places where they live.  These places define them spiritual, culturally, and historical.   In their drawings depicting researchers, children from these cultures, for instance, will often depict researchers working in the rugged outdoors, while children from a Western culture invariably depict researchers donning white coats and working in a sterile lab (Semken, 2005).

Despite their connections to place, IP are not drawn to environmental and earth sciences degrees in college and universities because too often these courses focus on “global syntheses” (Semken, p. 149).  Course textbooks typically feature natural phenomenon from all over the world and other planets, embedding causal effects and explanations of these phenomenon in abstruse scientific theories.  And when the texts do discuss places that are familiar to IP through their traditions, the presentations are done in ways that are culturally unacceptable to IP.  The students experience cultural discontinuity that places a seeming barrier to what the Westerner’s curriculum tries to teach (Semken, p. 150).

The authors advocate a place-based approach to teaching geosciences at colleges and universities.  They define place-based learning as an approach to teaching and learning where the content of the subject focuses on physical attributes and meaning.  It focuses on the cultural, historic, and socio-economic underpinnings of a place.  In place-based learning, students typically work in the outdoors or in the community in place-based learning.  Place-based learning de-emphasizes “global  standardization, incessant testing, competitiveness, and career training.” (Semken, p. 151), characteristic of Western approaches to education.  It promotes sustainable lifestyles.

Place-based learning is similar to situated learning.  It is only the context that changes; the cognitive requirements remain the same.

References:

Semken, P. (2005).  A sense of place and place-based introductory geosciences teaching for American Indian and Alaska Native undergraduates.  Journal of Geoscience Education, 25(2), 149-157.  Retrieved from

http://www.promiseofplace.org/assets/files/research/SemkenPlacebasedGeoscienceforAmeriIndian.pdf

http://www.ethnosproject.org/site/?p=650

At the recent 2011 Research Conference “Indigenous Education: Pathways to success”, Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney, (Dean of Aboriginal Education, Director of the Wilto Yerlo Centre at Adelaide University) presented a talk on “Indigenous education: Creating classrooms of tomorrow today.”  The presentation highlights:

•  the characteristics of curriculum, policy and pedagogy for future schooling of Indigenous children.

• It uses national and international literature to explore 21st century learning that seeks to revolutionise the way teachers and students are educated.
• It highlights that Indigenous students live in a multi-tasking, multifaceted, technology-driven, diverse, rapidly changing world which is far removed from the world faced by most of their teachers at the time they entered adulthood.

This is an excellent resource for educators as it highlights opportunities that can create and sustain positive educational outcomes for Indigenous students.  The full-text of his presentation can be accessed at:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/RC2011_-_Indigenous_education-_Creating_classrooms_of_tomorrow_today.pdf&chrome=true&pli=1

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~vlibrary/edres/pathfinders/ajohnson/pathfinder.html

This article examines the use of technology in promoting Indigenous culture.  AJ Johnson highlights several links to online resources that will help researchers find information on the Internet about modern technologies and how they are used to preserve and promote Indigenous Peoples way of life for their descendants and for our collective knowledge of human history.  The article is focused mainly on Native Americans, however, examples of other Indigenous groups are included for illustration purposes.  To guide research, answers to the following questions were examined:

•  Where can I find sources that give a general overview of the effect of technology on indigenous peoples?

• What uses of new technology are most beneficial to indigenous groups?
• What are some problems Native Americans have encountered in gaining access to telecommunications technology, and what solutions are being explored?
• How have indigenous people used new technology to preserve, promote and teach their history and culture?
• How has communication between tribe members or members of different indigenous groups changed due technology?
• What are some organizations and other resources that promote utilization of technology in indigenous communities?

http://www.sbwellnessdirectory.com/tierra-sagrada.htm

The Ti Tierra Sagrada foundation is dedicated to preserving the cultures of Indigenous Peoples and their environment as well as educating the public regarding their wisdom.  As a result of destruction of Indigenous environments, through Diasporas and encroachment by western culture, their knowledge is forever lost and this is what has allowed them to “dwell harmoniously within their native regions for thousands of years”.  For this reason, this movement attempts to “bring this ancient wisdom forth to teach living Indigenous peoples in a manner that is not sustainable to walk differently upon Mother Earth, to join in community, to prepare their sanctuaries.”

This is an excellent resource for researchers who are exploring First Nation culture. Through this website, Tierra Sagrada provides links to events that teaches about and practice Indigenous rituals and traditions.  These include:

Ancient Paths to Initiations for Women

This event promises to create a bridge between ancient wisdom and contemporary knowledge.

Mayan Shift of the Ages

Tierra Sagrada is helping with the completion of an incredible film “Shift of the Ages”.  The project serves as a voice for suppressed indigenous perspective.  It’s a calling for tribal unification, and a collective initiation of progressive action.

Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man III

This is an event where Indigenous cultures will be practiced in an attempt to “restore the balance that’s been missing on the earth”.

http://www.nativeplanet.org/

Native Planet is a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the self-empowerment of indigenous peoples and the preservation of world ethnic cultures since indigenous cultures of the world are slowly disappearing.  Against this background, Native Planet strives to protect these cultures, their ways of life and their ancestral homelands from modern infringements.  Through this website entrenched with numerous pictures and cultural documentaries, Native Planet intends to raise global awareness of all traditional cultures as well as the challenges they are facing through the creation of a comprehensive database that stores information on indigenous cultures.

This website is an excellent resource.  It provides comprehensive information on the ancient cultures of Natives and highlights why the preservation of Indigenous traditions is relevant in this globalised world.

http://www2.brandonu.ca/library/cjns/17.2/cjnsv17no2_pg293-314.pdf

Today, the cultural heritages of First Nation are lost which leads to a “digital divide” between Indigenous peoples and mainstream Canadian.  Geographic and social isolation, high costs, and lack of infrastructure are factors that contribute to the digital divide. Recovering the cultural heritage is of utmost importance to First Nation Peoples since it is necessary for them to function effectively and participate in a culturally diverse society. Against this background, the author wants schools to develop an understanding of the historical relationships between First Nations cultures and mainstream educational systems; the nature of culture as dynamic and evolving and the identification of those strategies that are most effective in building upon the cultural identities of First Nations children.

This paper will help me to examine information disparities and assess policies which affect First Nations’ ability to bridge the digital divide.

Topic:  Bridging the gap of culture and education between non-indigenous and Indigenous  groups with technology

Indigenous peoples today have continued poor health and social issues unequal to that of non-indigenous population on the whole.  As a result, educational goals for mainstream and Indigenous peoples are different. Away from the basics of education, the needs and values of Indigenous peoples are different since their existence largely depends on their culture and traditions.  Many studies have shown that Indigenous students have negative experiences in mainstream schools and as a result they are hesitant to engage in traditional curricula.  These experiences have created barriers that affect their educational achievement and consequently lead to unfavourable educational results.

There is potential for technology to address many of these issues.  My weblog will be geared towards documenting information that explores some of the educational challenges facing Indigenous peoples and ways that technology can be used to help First Nation students at all levels to participate in teaching and learning environments that enables them to achieve appropriate and positive educational outcomes.