Tag Archives: UNESCO

Module 1 – Post #2 – “Modern” Education vs. Indigenous Knowledge

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Dr. Lee Brown’s video got me thinking about how Indigenous approaches to knowledge and learning could be of great benefit to our planet. As Indigenous knowledge has been sacrificed for the more abstract approaches of “formal” educational systems, our natural environment has paid a price. How can we honour and support a more indigenous style of education for all young learners in the interest of their futures?

Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainability is one module of a UNESCO supported education programme called Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future. The module supports a number of learning objectives including an understanding of the role of ‘modern’ education in undermining indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning. It links out to a number of other sites and resources such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

The module materials include a variety of engaging learning activities, templates and resources, including a helpful table comparing Indigenous Education and Formal Education. Case studies are provided to illustrate the integration of indigenous knowledge into classroom teaching.

This module echoes many of the arguments emerging from our Module 1 readings and provides additional food for thought re: thinking “locally” when identifying learning goals.

Module 1: Post 1: Indigenous Peoples of South East Asia

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I thought about the question posed by Marker (2006) “Can school be a place to be indigenous, a place to be non- homogenized, a place in which all children learn, question, and grow from a position that values and builds upon who they are (487)?”

I think this can only happen if education is geared towards teaching methods and content which is reflective of the culture of children being taught.  I do not think that mainstream education can address all the needs and differences indigenous children have in order to “build upon who they are.”

I currently live in Vietnam, there are millions of indigenous peoples living in the mountain ranges through Southern China, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Burma speaking more than 1,000 languages.  These cultures have suffered a lack of education, health care and social services and have been either marginalized or forced to assimilate to the mainstream cultures.

This website is an article written by UNESCO addressing the problem of education of South East Asia’s indigenous peoples.  It was stated that most education is taught in another language other than the indigenous student’s mother tongue, and most content is usually irrelevant to the students. This has resulted in astonishing rates of illiterate men and women.  Due to this problem, the UN is trying to fight for the rights of indigenous people by encouraging education to be taught “in their own languages” and “in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning”.

In advocating education to be taught in Indigenous languages and incorporating cultural methods, this may help break the cycles of poverty suffered by Indigenous peoples in South East Asia.  It will be a difficult task to change mainstream attitudes towards these cultures through appreciating diversity and accepting different worldviews.

I think it is very important to provide education in a child’s mother tongue and to teach curriculum that is consistent with one’s own culture.  I think that through assimilating all children into a mainstream classroom children are unable to be successful and results in increased poverty rates and marginalization due to lack of cultural understanding.

http://www.unescobkk.org/education/news/article/why-we-should-support-mother-tongue-based-education-for-indigenous-peoples/