Decolonization

The focus of my weblogs will be on Indigenous loss of access and connection to their histories, culture and language within the educational system and how technology and educational reform can play a role in decolonizing, democratizing and reforming their educational experiences. In today’s global educational culture of standardized curriculum and educational practices including transmissive and rote styles, learning is often irrelevant and disconnected from local cultures, knowledge, or everyday activities.  Because of this, students become disconnected, alienated and further colonized by the system.  This disconnection is not only seen in Indigenous students, but also presents a problem among all students.  When any knowledge is removed from context, it becomes fragmented and disconnected from the student’s knowledge of the world.  This leaves them with limited ability to integrate the curricular knowledge into their existing experiences, knowledge patterns and previous understandings thereby resulting in the failure to participate and create meaningful learning.  However, for the purposes of this course, I will be focussing on this disconnect among Indigenous youth and the ways that schools might minimize these problems using techniques and technology.

Realistically, we live in the 21^st century of globalization through immigration, internet, multiculturalism, and political power structures.  Because these aspects of our society have made isolation and sheltered communities almost impossible, as educators, we need to look for solutions that exist in a post-colonization world in which we can encourage individual’s open and critical thinking about their own identities, cultural knowledge and understanding of the world. One of the ways that provides promise is the new initiative called constructivist learning in which individuals guide their own learning process and find their own meaning.  With the use of the internet, resources offered by their local communities and a sensitive and integrated educational system, Indigenous students may have a chance to self-determine their own post-colonization cultural identities.

Cheers, Steve MacKenzie