Volume 3, Issue 1 | Summer 2014 Langscape

With Guest Editor | Yvonne Vizina

Exploring Biocultural Approaches to Education Langscape Volume 3, issue 1 Exploring Biocultural Approaches to Education

here was a time with no schools—a time when nature and community were our teachers, and they taught us everything we needed to know Tin order to live respectfully and care for one another and for the land. We Langscape is an extension of the voice of Terralingua. It have come a long way from that. With the rise and spread of formal learning institutions, over time our concepts of “knowledge” and “education” have supports our mission by educating the minds and hearts become less and less associated with everyday-life, hands-on, holistic about the importance and value of . experience and more and more with academic study and research—the body of systematic thought and inquiry that we call “science”. We aim to promote a paradigm shift by illustrating Science and its countless applications have permeated all realms of biocultural diversity through scientific and traditional human life. But, enclosed inside the walls of our learning institutions, knowledge, within an elegant sensory context of articles, compartmentalized within the silos of different, specialized disciplines, we have become insular and disconnected. We have lost sight of ourselves as stories and art. a part of—not separate from and dominant over—the natural world, and as inextricably linked with all other peoples and all other species on in a global web of interdependence: the web of life in nature and Langscape is a Terralingua publication that is now known as “biocultural diversity”. Because of this, we think of Editor in Chief: Ortixia Dilts, Terralingua the environment as subordinate to the economy, rather than the other way Guest Editor: Yvonne Vizina around. And we fail to see—or choose not to see—how our activities can and do undermine the health of the planet that sustains us and the rest of life. To receive Langscape please join Terralingua at If we want a viable future for humanity, all that needs to change. And a key www.terralinguaubuntu.org to achieving that change is transforming our approach to education. To reach a higher level of understanding, we need to rebuild integrative knowledge— To enquire about submissions for future issues of Langscape knowledge that transcends disciplines, formal modes of learning, and please contact the editor: [email protected] separations between science and traditional knowledge, between science To learn more about Terralingua please visit and art, between the intellectual and the emotional, sensory, and spiritual our website at: www.terralingua.org aspects of life. Looking back to go forward, we need to recover the essence of what learning was in the time before schools, and to infuse that essence into Cover: © Bartosz Hadyniak learning for the 21st century. That is what we hope will emerge from exploring biocultural approaches to http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/home.htm education. In this issue of Langscape, we take the first steps in that direction. Enjoy the readings, and if they inspire you, let us hear from you! It will take all our perspectives and all our voices to forge this new path. UNITY IN BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY 2 | Langscape summer 2014 Luisa Maffi, Director, Terralingua | 3 . nature . . culture .

Langscape Table of Contents Magazine

Biocultural Education: Métis Life in the 21st Century

LANGSCAPE VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1 Yvonne Vizina ...... 46 Exploring Biocultural Approaches to Education Interactive Learning about Biocultural Diversity: Introduction University Students Engage Tribes Luisa Maffi ...... 3 Jeanine Pfeiffer with Costandinos Bakouros, Craig Cannon, Marina Chislett, Tien Pham, Trevor Raff, Contributors ...... 6 Conrad Sasinski, and Palak Shah ...... 54 Guest Editorial Communities Nurturing Their School: A Biocultural Yvonne Vizina ...... 8 Approach to Education in the Peruvian Andes Biocultural Diversity Education: Toward New Ways of Learning Grimaldo Rengifo, Tirso Gonzales and Karina and Caring About the Diversity of Life in Nature and Culture Costilla ...... 62 Luisa Maffi, Carla Paciotto, and Ortixia Dilts ...... 11 Reawakening Biocultural Heritage through Art What Could Biocultural Upbringing Mean for Societies? Art Corps ...... 72 Robbie Penman ...... 22 Ancient Teachings, Contemporary Learnings: Indigenous Principles Decolonizing Teacher Interviews on Aboriginal Education Education: What We Have Learned Hishinlai’ (Kathy Sikorski), JoAnne Moiese, Kathy Sanford, Lorna Williams, Tim Hopper, Barbara Derrick ...... 78 and Catherine McGregor ...... 28

4 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 5 Hishinlai’ (Kathy Sikorski), Gwich’in Athabascan, Language and Culture Council. Her work focuses received her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction on Aboriginal education, Indigenous language Contributors in 2008 and is currently working on her doctoral revitalization, curriculum development, teacher dissertation. Her research interests are on Indigenous development, effects of colonization on learning, language learning and teaching, second language and Indigenous ways of knowing. She received the Guest Editor acquisition, self-identity, sociocultural theory, and Order of British Columbia in 1992 for her work in activity theory. She has worked extensively with education. Indigenous groups (Athabascan, Haida, Tlingit, Yvonne Vizina is Métis from Saskatchewan, Canada, and is a PhD student at the University Luisa Maffi is co-founder (1996) and Director Alutiiq, and Aleut) throughout Alaska and Canada. of Saskatchewan School of Environment and Sustainability. She was the Associate Director of Terralingua, and spearheads Terralingua’s for the Aboriginal Education Research Centre at the U of S and worked for the Métis Nation Jeanine Pfeiffer has taught the Nature and program of work, including the Biocultural for many years in environmental and intergovernmental policy. World course at San José State University Diversity Education Initiative. She is a linguist and in California for over a decade. Her multi-staged anthropologist (PhD, UC Berkeley), and pioneered Editor-in-Chief project technique earned a university award for the concept of biocultural diversity. Her books on the “Best Practices in Information Literacy” in 2007. In subject (the edited volume On Biocultural Diversity: Ortixia Dilts is a Creative Consultant for non-profit organizations, working on media, the same year she transformed her in-person class Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment, outreach and creative project development. She serves as Editor-in-Chief and designer to a webinar-based class. The seven upper-division Smithsonian, 2001, and the co-authored Biocultural for Terralingua’s Langscape, which she has turned from an internal newsletter to the students contributing to the article in this issue Diversity Conservation: A Global Sourcebook, organization’s flagship magazine. Ortixia aims to educate the minds and hearts of people recently completed the course and have continued Earthscan 2010) are considered foundational of about the importance and value of biocultural diversity. on to graduate or complete their senior year at the biocultural diversity as a field of knowledge and Contributors university. action. She has carried out fieldwork in Somalia, Mexico, China, and Japan, and works with First Art Corps develops the creative capacity of social changemakers and organizations around JoAnne Moiesis School Principal of Yunesit’in ?Esgul as well as a councillor with the Williams Lake Nations in British Columbia, Canada, where she the world to innovatively address the challenges of our time. The article in this issue was resides. written by the ArtCorps team: Aryeh Shell, Education and Training Officer, Jane Martha Indian Band, in British Columbia, Canada. Oslin, Program Manager, and Isabel Carrió, Creative Facilitator. Karina Costilla was born in Cajamarca, Peru, Robbie Penman is taking a Masters in Language and specializes in intercultural education. Since Documentation and Description (part of the Hans Barbara Derrick is a professional Aboriginal Artist from the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation in Rausing Endangered Project), following Nemiah Valley, British Columbia, Canada. 1997 she coordinates teacher training programs in Andean-Amazonian intercultural education and his Bachelors in Chinese Studies. His interest in Carla Paciotto is Associate Professor of Education at Western Illinois University, USA, affirmation in the Peruvian state of Ancash. She endangered languages and cultures is centered on where she teaches about culture, language and education in the contexts of indigenous is founder and member of AMIRA, a network of China and Latin America and immigrant populations. Her research centers on language maintenance and shift and intercultural teachers that promotes and supports Tim Hopper is Associate Professor and faculty language education policy and planning, focusing on the role of native language instruction youth collectives, children groups, teachers, and member in the School of Exercise Science, Physical in the revitalization of endangered and lesser-used languages. Her studies span from Mexico community members in order to strengthen their and Health Education, Faculty of Education, to the USA, Italy and Slovenia. She serves as an advisor and principal collaborator on cultural identity through the practice of wisdom and University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Terralingua’s Biocultural Diversity Education Initiative. ancestral knowledge. Tirso Gonzales is a Peruvian Aymara activist and Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria, represents UVic as a member of the Kathy Sanford is an Associate Professor in the scholar. He holds a Ph.D. in Rural Sociology from newly formed Educational Leadership Network, an initiative of the British Columbia (BC) Faculty of Education at University of Victoria, British the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and carried Deans of Education. She is a member of a number of associations, including the Canadian Columbia, Canada. Her research interests include out postdoctoral Studies at UC-Berkeley and UC- Association of Women in Education, the Canadian Association for the Study of Educational Teacher Education, literacy, assessment, and gender. Davis, all in the USA. Tirso is Assistant Professor Administration and a practicing member of the BC College of Teachers. Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams is Lil’wat from the in Indigenous Studies at the University of British Grimaldo Rengifo holds a degree in Education from the Universidad Nacional del Centro, St’at’yem’c First Nation of British Columbia, Canada. Columbia, Okanagan, Canada. His scholarly work Huancayo, Peru, and an anthropology diploma from the Catholic University of Peru. In She is Associate Professor and Canada Research includes indigenous epistemologies, community- 1986 he founded the Andean Project for Peasant Technologies (PRATEC) and is its present Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Learning in the based participatory research, indigenous education, Coordinator. He previously held various posts in the Peruvian government and coordinated Faculty of Education and Department of indigenous self-determined development, a large international project in the southern Andean region of Peru. He has authored at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, indigenous , traditional medicinal numerous books and essays on Andean culture, agriculture and intercultural education. Canada, and serves as Chair of First Peoples Heritage, and healing, food sufficiency and climate change.

6 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 7 were active in a variety of economic ventures locally or by undertaking dangerous and arduous journeys across the vast undeveloped territories of the Great Plains, woodlands, waterways and mountainous regions of the country. They played an important role in the development of this county while fiercely protecting their Métis identity that included holding to values based on traditional teachings of respect for the lands and waters of GUEST EDITORIAL their Homeland. While using natural resources was necessary for survival, YVONNE VIZINA ! Métis People made harvesting decisions that provided for their needs, but ensured continued abundance for the future. The integration of respectful interaction with Earth’s life systems as the foundation of culture has been a part of Métis worldview for hundreds of years. Maintaining and sharing this tradition has come in many forms over many generations. Personal and intercultural exchanges provided the means of learning new ways of hen I was approached to serve as guest editor for this issue of living within familiar territories. Langscape on the topic of Biocultural Education, I welcomed the Today, global communication means people from diverse cultures can opportunityW to facilitate some insightful commentary by a range of authors exchange information, learn from each other, and collaborate more than on the meaning of Biocultural Education in general, benefits to be gained, any other time in history. Formal education has provided humanity with gaps and how they are being addressed, sites of success, where it has been knowledge and skills that have facilitated remarkable technologies and successfully applied, and linkages to Indigenous education. generated great wealth for some. But, as world governments work through Our lives are filled with a barrage of negativity through television, the United Nations to develop the post-2015 Sustainable Development social media, and day-to-day encounters with life. We often seek it Goals, it is apparent that we have failed in many aspects to use our out, hoping to keep ourselves informed, and in the best cases, use it to considerable knowledge to ensure the health of the natural world, and take some action for positive change. Too often, though, we don’t hear alleviation of human suffering of the poorest people. about successes. Even in academic study, the press for innovation and It is my hope that we can use our collaborative power to improve development of transformative research and praxis is steeped in critical awareness of issues and modify our behavior to reflect the universal analysis that is by its very nature a negative process. It can be very difficult need for a healthy environment. In my article in this issue of Langscape, to maintain a balanced perspective that allows positive elements of other’s I explore the meaning of biocultural education in the 21st century from work to shine through while still being able to note areas for improvement a Métis perspective as a member of the Métis Nation, a professional or adaptability to other contexts. educator, and advocate for traditional cultural knowledge of keeping our Yet, in my experience, guidance from Aboriginal Elders has been land, water, climate, and energy systems healthy and in balance. steadfast in imparting traditional teachings that nurture inner strength In this issue of Langscape, contributing authors explore how and resilience from positive thought and behavior embedded in acts of language, culture, and nature are being integrated in education curricula kindness, sharing, courage and respect. The works shared by the authors and the reasons motivating these adaptations. A challenge for many in this issue of Langscape are welcome examples of how principles of cultural communities has been how to retain the foundations of culture can be woven into teaching and learning resulting in a living traditional knowledges and languages while gaining beneficial elements tapestry of education action. of contemporary education. Linking traditional Indigenous perspectives I am a Métis woman from Saskatchewan, Canada. For those who are with modern education, for example, requires the involvement of Elders unfamiliar with our history, Métis are an Indigenous Nation in Canada. or experienced cultural teachers and land-based activities to provide a Historically, we are biologically and culturally linked to First Nations context for learners to understand concepts within holistic worldviews. and European ancestors from several other Nations but have our own distinct culture and language. From the early times of the fur trade era Communicating successes in biocultural approaches to education is when Britain and France were competing for colonial dominance, Métis important for knowledge exchange among global communities and facilitating advancements in pedagogy. u8 8 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 9 m

m Biocultural Diversity Education: Toward New Ways of Learning and Caring About the Diversity of Life in Nature and Culture

Luisa Maffi, Carla Paciotto, and Ortixia Dilts

Biocultural Diversity: , and linguistic diversity are interrelated and interdependent The True Web of Life manifestations of the diversity of life. ver the past two decades, the idea Biocultural research has shown that, O of biocultural diversity has emerged historically, human cultures and languages as a new, integrative understanding of have developed through an intimate the diversity of life on earth—diversity in relationship and mutual adaptation between nature and culture. This understanding people and the environment—a link has developed through interdisciplinary that is still deeply reflected in the beliefs, research bridging the natural sciences, social knowledge systems, and ways of life of sciences, and humanities, as well as through around the world. It has increasing appreciation of the relevance of become apparent that diversity in nature Indigenous worldviews. and diversity in cultures and languages are mutually supportive, sustaining the The cornerstone of the biocultural vitality and resilience of our living planet; diversity concept is that there is an conversely, a loss of diversity in one domain “inextricable link” between nature and negatively impacts diversity in the others, culture—in fact, that nature and culture are threatening the sustainability of life. one, as people are not separate and distinct Diversity in both nature and culture is the from nature, but rather an intrinsic part expression of earth’s evolutionary potential, of it. From this perspective, biodiversity,

10 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 11 and serves to keep our evolutionary linguistic distinctiveness. These processes among United Nations agencies and major wisdom of Aboriginal ways of teaching and options open. Vice versa, losing diversity are rapidly weakening the ecological and conservation organizations, helping shape learning. The emerging synthesis will likely narrows our options for the future and cultural health of the planet. By destroying more integrative approaches to conservation be an approach not only to learning about greatly increases the risk of damage to the diversity, they are also creating a growing and revitalization of our natural and cultural biocultural diversity, but also, and crucially, world’s eco-cultural health. It’s like losing gap in our awareness that we continue to heritage. Hundreds if not thousands of on- to learning from it. It is by learning from life insurance for the planet. (For more be inescapably interdependent with the the-ground biocultural conservation projects biocultural diversity that we can expect on biocultural diversity, see: Posey 1999; natural world. In turn, this disconnect are underway around the world. And the idea people to learn to care about and for the web Oviedo, Maffi, and Larsen 2000; Maffi 2001; creates a positive feedback loop that further of biocultural diversity is attracting growing of life in nature and culture. Harmon 2002; Stepp, Wyndham, and Zarger threatens the sustainability of life in nature interest and concern in the media and among What Will a Biocultural Approach 2002; Skutnabb-Kangas, Maffi, and Harmon and culture—the less aware we are of the the general public. But the magnitude and 2003; Borrini-Feyerabend, MacDonald “inextricable link”, the more likely we are to urgency of the biocultural extinction crisis to Education Look Like? and Maffi 2004; Carlson and Maffi 2004; act in ways that contribute to destroying that call for more. s this effort is still in its infancy, Maffi 2005, 2007; Haverkort and Rist 2007; link. What we need to meet the challenge is A it is too soon to know exactly what a Braun 2010; Maffi 2010; Maffi and Woodley More than half of humanity now lives in a sweeping change in human values that biocultural approach to education might 2010; Shrumm, 2010; Verschuuren, Wild, cities, largely cut off from direct contact with will make protecting and enhancing the look like. But, placing the idea of diversity McNeely, and Oviedo 2010; Dold and Cocks nature, and in an ever-more homogenized biocultural diversity of life a primary societal of nature and culture at the very core of the 2012; Pungetti, Oviedo, and Hooke 2012; socio-cultural environment. Meanwhile, the goal. It is a tall order, but the hope lies in vision for such an approach, we can aim to Maffi and Dilts 2014.) biocultural resilience of Indigenous Peoples that, just as we humans have been the cause formulate integrative, experiential, engaged If we fully understood and appreciated and ethnic minorities, who represent most of the problem, so can we also be the source educational methods and tools that will how vital biocultural diversity is for our of our linguistic and cultural diversity of solutions. By bringing out the many voices both reflect and stimulate a multiplicity of survival and the survival of all life, wouldn’t and often retain strong connections with of humanity and the lessons that they convey, views of the human condition, and of our we be doing everything possible to protect the natural world, is increasingly under the idea of biocultural diversity reminds us relationships with one another and with the and care for it as a precious, irreplaceable threat. By our own actions, we are rapidly that we have become disconnected from the natural world. treasure? But we are not doing that. compromising the very basis of life on this natural environment and out of balance with A number of existing pedagogical Research tells us that the diversity of life in planet: the biocultural life systems that it, and that there are other ways of being approaches can support this effort—for all its forms is on a steep downward trend sustain us and all other species on earth. The human that are more harmonious and in example, the constructivist learning approach (Harmon and Loh 2010; Braun 2011; Loh implications for human futures, and for the balance with nature. (Jonassen 1999), in which the instructional and Harmon 2014). Biologists agree that future of all life, are enormous. Addressing Achieving this wider societal shift requires plan provides multiple representations of we have entered the sixth mass extinction this crisis to set global society on a more a major effort to educate people—particularly reality, represents the natural complexity of earth’s biodiversity—the first one to be sustainable course is unquestionably one of youth, the citizens and decision-makers of the real world, focuses on knowledge largely caused by human activities. And the greatest challenges that humanity faces of tomorrow—about the vital importance construction, presents authentic tasks, and human action is also causing a rapid loss of today. of biocultural diversity for our lives and provides real-world, case-based learning cultural and linguistic diversity. What we for the sustainability of all life. To have a environments, while fostering students’ are facing, then, is a “converging biocultural The Need for Biocultural lasting, transformative impact, such an reflective practice. Constructivism is at the extinction crisis”—and we are responsible Diversity Education educational effort should aim to reach not center of inquiry-based learning frameworks, for it. ow do we meet this critical just the minds but the hearts, too. It should where teachers are conceived as facilitators The causes are multiple and complex, H challenge? As a field, biocultural appeal not only to our cognitive intelligence, of knowledge construction and awareness but ultimately reside in the impact of diversity has sparked the development but also to our emotional intelligence. building related to complex and real-life global economic, political, and social of academic teaching and research This is a daunting challenge in itself, but problems. Spurred by well-planned themes forces that, in the relentless pursuit of programs in North America, Europe, one that we can seek to meet through the and activities, teachers promote students’ economic profit and unfettered economic and elsewhere. It has also produced development of pedagogical approaches that choice of topics of inquiry based on growth, lead to unsustainable use of natural applications in professional and policy will draw from some of our most innovative individual and group interests and questions resources and to the erosion of cultural and domains internationally, particularly educational theories as well as from the (Friesen 2009).

12 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 13 Biocultural diversity pedagogy also -local and international--that are engaged in embraces the fundamental principles maintaining and strengthening biocultural Taking all these and other relevant perspectives into account, of place-based education (Sobel 2004). diversity or are struggling to maintain it. Case In this approach, biocultural diversity studies exemplify how the biocultural web of we can begin to envision some of the characteristics of a concepts and theories are connected to life manifests itself in different contexts and biocultural approach to education. For instance, we can the reality of the local community and what forces strengthen or weaken it. anticipate that such an approach is likely to: natural environment, with the ultimate This perspective combines well with intent of promoting student involvement in the reality of the present-day classroom. environmental action. Curriculum content A biocultural approach recognizes that • Be multi- and cross-disciplinary, • Be flexible and adaptable and teaching are contextualized locally today’s classroom is diverse and mobile and through students’ direct inquiry about the that children from rural, urban, minority, including , environmental to the local environment and to local natural environment, thus creating indigenous, immigrant, and refugee studies, geography, anthropology, seasonal activities, recognizing in a personal connection with nature. At the background might bring with them diverse language studies, history, particular that in certain regions same time, teachers create opportunities biocultural experiences and a variety of for interaction with adult community political studies, literature, children and youth may have environmental knowledge systems. Following and the arts among others members, conservation agencies, and local a Funds of Knowledge approach (Moll et customary responsibilities that businesses, exposing students to how society should be respected and taken into al.1992), a biocultural approach aims at • Integrate sciences, the arts, interacts with the environment (Sobel 2004). drawing from multi-ethnic and multi-place account in the school calendar Through place-based learning, students knowledge and traditions through student- and hands-on experiential learning, develop a personal relationship with the and family-centered activities, which also including importantly activities • Acknowledge and natural environment, understand how local serve to anchor the study of biocultural outside the classroom walls communities interact with it, and develop accommodate the well-established diversity. finding that learning occurs best in an interest in protecting it and promoting • Recognize and incorporate a healthy relationship between nature and The process of developing a biocultural the student’s own mother tongue community life. approach to education provides an multiple sources of knowledge opportunity to explore how local education and perspectives, both Western/ Similarly to place-based education, • Recognize that there are processes shape and influence who we are scientific and traditional/Aboriginal different types of learners, each with biocultural diversity education subscribes to and the ways we contribute to the knowledge the need for education to encourage children base and behaviors of global society. What their own gift, and that different “to think as well act locally while also • Involve family, elders, and forms and mediums of expression we teach and how we teach it differ among community in the education being aware of global issues” (Hart 1997). education systems and communities, and work better for different learners It also recognizes that “place is connected changes over time as societies evolve and process, helping rebuild not only to and community life incorporate new sources of knowledge. The intergenerational transmission • Identify and nurture each but also to social struggle and resistance” mosaic of traditional Indigenous cultures (Haymes,1995), thus embracing a critical of knowledge and wisdom student’s intrinsic motivation, and languages around the world is a source and make the learning relevant pedagogy of place perspective (Jayanandhan of diverse philosophies that have much to • Be place-based and 2009). If young people are to develop action to the student’s own motivation contribute to the problem-solving skills, adapted to individual regions, aimed at maintaining, strengthening, or spiritual growth, and resilience of humanity. regenerating biocultural diversity locally The lessons of Aboriginal pedagogies, recognizing and respecting the • Foster a constructive (and globally), they need to become aware centered on the teaching of Elders and on local environment and the cultural progression from concept to of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic hands-on, place-based learning, will also be and linguistic diversity that investigation to inspiration to action dynamics that are endangering it. For this crucial to the development of biocultural purpose, a biocultural diversity curriculum exists in place, while at the same education approaches, by providing time opening up to the global aims at bringing into the classroom the learners with a context for more holistic voices of the communities and the cultures- dimension of biocultural diversity m 14 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 15 understandings (Battiste 2002). A multiple- nature of biocultural diversity, which crosses perspectives approach will also foster over many different subject matters and knowledge exchange among communities in brings out novel findings, patterns, and today’s global world. connections, is likely to awaken students’ curiosity and interest, and to involve them Terralingua’s Biocultural in an engaging process of discovery. We Diversity Education Initiative believe that working with students in this otivated by the challenges age group will contribute to creating a new M and opportunities of such an generation of committed people who will educational effort, in 2011 Terralingua embrace the value of biocultural diversity undertook a project, the Biocultural and work to sustain it for the sake of our Diversity Education Initiative (BCDEI), common future. aiming to develop an integrative In the first phase of the BCDEI, we biocultural approach to education, and to produced and tested a 10-lesson pilot spread awareness and knowledge about curriculum module aiming to introduce biocultural diversity in secondary schools the various dimensions (biological, cultural, through innovative curriculum materials. linguistic) of biocultural diversity, the Curriculum materials are meant to: interactions among them at different scales • Apply an integrative approach to (from local to global), the significance of teaching and learning about biocultural biocultural diversity for human futures, the diversity threats it is undergoing, and possible actions to counter the threats. Collectively, the pilot • Introduce students to biocultural module addresses the following leading diversity as a new and vital idea. Highlight questions: WATCH VIDEO PREVIEW AT: https://vimeo.com/100152212 the relevance of biocultural diversity in students’ lives, in their local communities, and 1. What is biocultural diversity? in the global community 2. Why does it matter? One of the curriculum lessons in Terralingua’s Biocultural Diversity Education 3. What is happening to biocultural Initiative (BCDEI) seeks to make the link between language, knowledge, and • Develop students’ critical thinking and diversity worldwide? research skills 4. Why are we losing biocultural diversity? the environment tangible to students through the case of the Xhosa people of • Engage students in multiple areas of 5. What can we do to counter this loss? South Africa. This lesson centers on an original video produced for the BCDEI by Michelle Cocks and Tony Dold, who run the Inkcubeko Nendalo (“Culture academic inquiry and at multiple levels Based on that experience, in the second and Nature”) biocultural education program in the Eastern Cape region of South • Provide the integration of biocultural phase of the project we have developed diversity studies into school curricula in the a broader and more comprehensive Africa. The video features Xhosa high school students enrolled in the Inkcubeko form of standards-based modules that can be vision for the BCDEI. On the one hand, Nendalo program, who explain in their own words Xhosa traditional knowledge suitably included in a variety of curricular we are taking steps to explore more in and relationship with the land and how these are expressed in the Xhosa language contexts depth the nature and characteristics of a through traditional stories, idioms, proverbs, riddles, phrases, and songs. As well, biocultural approach to education, through Our initial focus on high-school-level the video allows the Xhosa students to share their experiences in reconnecting collaboration with academic institutions, education is based on the idea that youth with their cultural and natural heritage, and to talk about the challenges and schools, and Aboriginal communities. On at that stage are in a pivotal phase of their the other hand, we have started working opportunities for protecting and strengthening that heritage, which is intimately development, in which they are evolving with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal experts related to the identity of Xhosa people. The video will also be useful for the critical thinking and inquisitiveness about and partners in Terralingua’s global network purposes of the Inkcubeko Nendalo program, and may originate exchanges the world, and are beginning to question to co-produce original materials (including between Xhosa students and those who will be learning about (and from) them. the “status quo”. The transdisciplinary video) for real-life case studies that are 16 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 17 18 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 19 The goal of the BCDEI curriculum is not Acknowledgments Jayanandhan, S.R. 2009. John Dewey and a pedagogy of only to foster students’ understanding and place. Philosophical Studies in Education 40: 104-112. Loh, J. and Harmon, D. 2014. Biocultural Diversity: awareness of the importance of sustaining In 2011-2014, Terralingua’s Biocultural Threatened Species, Endangered Languages. Zeist, The biocultural diversity for the future of humanity Diversity Education Initiative has been made Netherlands: WWF Netherlands. and of all life, but also to encourage youth possible by grants from the Philip and Muriel Maffi, L. (ed.) 2001. On Biocultural Diversity: Linking to engage in action for biocultural diversity Berman Foundation, whose generous support we Language, Knowledge and the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. conservation from local to global scales. For gratefully acknowledge. Maffi, L. 2005. Linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity. this purpose, within the curriculum we aim Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 599-617. to provide inspiring examples of a multiplicity Further Reading Maffi, L. 2007. Biocultural diversity and sustainability. In: Sage Handbook on Environment and Society, J. Pretty, A. Ball, of real-world careers in biocultural diversity, Battiste, M. 2002. Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy T. Benton, J. Guivant, D. Lee, D. Orr, M. Pfeffer and H. Ward again drawing from Terralingua’s global in First Nations education: A literature review with (eds.). Pp. 267-277. London: Sage Publications. recommendations. Prepared for the National Working Group Maffi, L. 2010. Biocultural diversity: The true web of life. network of colleagues and collaborators. We on Education and the Minister of Indian Affairs. Ottawa, anticipate that, through this comprehensive National Geographic News Watch Online, 29 June 2010. http:// Ontario: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2010/06/29/biocultural_ approach, and by working closely with Borrini-Feyerabend, G., MacDonald, K., and Maffi, L. (eds.) diversity_the_true_web_of_life/ interested teachers, this curriculum will 2004. History, Culture, and Conservation. Policy Matters 13. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Commission on Environmental, Maffi, L. and Woodley, E. 2010. Biocultural Diversity provide life-changing and career-forging Economic and Social Policy. Conservation: A Global Sourcebook. London and Washington, experiences for many of the youth who will be Braun, D. 2010. Restoring human cultures to the web of DC: Earthscan. exposed to it. life. National Geographic News Watch, June 1, 2010. http:// Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., and Gonzalez, N. 1992. newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2010/06/01/restoring_ Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach While we are initially targeting high school human_cultures_to_the_web_of_life/. to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice XXXI students, we also believe that, ideally, biocultural Braun, D. 2011. Language Diversity Index Tracks Global (2): 132-141. Loss of Mother Tongues. National Geographic News Watch, Oviedo, G., Maffi, L. and Larsen, P.B. MacDonald and Maffi education efforts should start earlier, in fact as March 1, 2011. http://newswatch.nationalgeographic. 2000. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and com/2011/03/01/language_diversity_index_tracks_global_ early as possible. To put it simply: you can’t care Ecoregion Conservation: An Integrated Approach to Conserving loss_of_mother_tongues/. the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity, and companion for what you don’t understand, and you can’t Carlson, T. and Maffi, L. (eds.) 2004. Ethnobotany and map Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and the Global 200 Conservation of Biocultural Diversity. Advances in Economic Ecoregions. Gland, Switzerland: WWF-International and easily understand what you don’t already feel Botany Series Vol. 15. Bronx, N.Y.: New York Botanical Terralingua. Onge father with Child. Photo ©Anvita Abbi. emotionally connected to. Certainly, it is never Garden Press. Posey, D.A. (ed.) 1999. Cultural and Spiritual Values of From BCDEI Curriculum, Unit 2, Language, too late to develop deep appreciation and love Dold, T. and Cocks, M. 2012. Voices from the Forest: Biodiversity. London/Nairobi: Intermediate Technology Celebrating Nature and Culture in Xhosaland. Auckland Park, Publications/UN Environment Programme. Knowledge and Environment. for the beauty and diversity of life in nature South Africa: Jacana Media. Pungetti, G., Oviedo, G., and Hooke, D. 2012. Sacred Spaces meant to form the core of curriculum lessons. and culture. And that kind of bond is what Friesen, S. 2009. What did you do in school today? Teaching and Sites: Advances in Biocultural Conservation. Cambridge, we hope to foster among high school students Effectiveness: Framework and Rubric. Toronto: Canadian UK: Cambridge University Press. We believe that case studies developed in this Education Association. Shrumm, H. (ed.) 2010. Exploring the Right to Diversity way will bring a sense of authenticity to the (and perhaps among their teachers and parents, Harmon, D. 2002. In Light of Our Differences: How Diversity in Conservation Law, Policy, and Practice. Policy Matters 17. too). But the sooner that emotional connection in Nature and Culture Makes Us Human. Washington, D.C.: Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Commission on Environmental, curriculum, reflecting the perspectives of Smithsonian Institution Press. Economic and Social Policy. local people on the issues that are the focus is established, the better. So, as the BCDEI Harmon, D. and Loh, J. 2010. The Index of Linguistic Skutnabb-Kangas, T., Maffi, L., and Harmon, D. 2003. of the case studies. That sense of authenticity continues to develop, a key question for us to Diversity: A New Quantitative Measure of Trends in the Sharing a World of Difference: The Earth’s Linguistic, Cultural, Status of the World’s Languages. Language Documentation and Biological Diversity, and companion map The World’s will be a crucial stimulus for students taking address will be how a biocultural approach to and Conservation 4: 97-151. Biocultural Diversity: People, Languages, and . the curriculum to engage with the issues and education might be appropriately tailored to Hart, R.A. 1997. Children’s Participation: The Theory and Paris: UNESCO. become both intellectually and emotionally make it suitable for younger children as well. Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development Sobel, D. 2004. Place-based Education: Connecting involved. Working with real-life cases may and Environmental Care. London: Earthscan. Classrooms & Communities. Orion Society Nature Literacy If, at a formative stage in their lives, childrens’ Series No. 4. also allow for productive exchanges of ideas Haverkort, B. and Rist, S. (eds.) 2007. Endogenous minds and hearts can be fully opened up to Development and Bio-Cultural Diversity: The interplay Stepp, J. R.; Wyndham, F. S.; Zarger, R. K. (eds.) 2002. among youth in different parts of the world. of worldviews, globalisation and locality. Leusden, The and Biocultural Diversity. Athens, GA: Lessons will be complemented by extensive the marvels of the diversity of life in nature Netherlands: COMPAS. International Society of Ethnobiology and University of and culture, then the hope is all the greater Jonassen, D. H. 1999. Designing constructivist learning Georgia Press. materials including readings, charts, graphs environments. In: C. Reigeluth (ed.), Instructional Design Verschuuren, B., Wild, R., McNeely, J.A., and Oviedo, G. and maps, handouts, worksheets, glossaries, that, just as we humans caused the biocultural Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory 2010. Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture. and multimedia resources and links. diversity extinction crisis, we will also be able (pp. 215- 239). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. London and Washington, DC: Earthscan. to find solutions. u8 Haymes, S.N. 1995. Race, Culture, and the City: A Pedagogy 20 | Langscape Summer 2014 for Black Urban Struggle. New York: SUNY Series. Volume 3 Issue 1 | 21 Robbie Penman What Could Biocultural Upbringing Mean for Societies?

n this article I explore what biocultural education I could mean – and what I believe it should mean – in terms of its social functions. If life on Earth is one body, what role should biocultural education play in it? I have chosen to look at functions because we must understand what overall changes in society we are aiming for in order to guide specific measures: the greatest social movements are always backed by grand visions. If we start out from the ultimate change we wish to see – the preservation of biological, cultural and linguistic diversity – thus defining biocultural education broadly as education that helps preserve this diversity, we may go on to explore exactly how it can achieve this. I do so first in terms of the negative model of education in “modern” societies, and then in terms of the positive model provided by education in “traditional” societies (following Jared Diamond’s usage of these two terms (2013)). Beyond this broad definition, rather than defining what I mean by “biocultural” education, I offer this article as a whole as a contribution to the definition of the term. This is one among many equally valid ways of approaching a definition of biocultural education. Readers may form their own judgement by placing this approach alongside other contributions in this issue.

Kogi river crossing in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. For more information on the situation of the Kogi people, see www.tchendukua.com. Photo © Kai Unu Pedraz 22 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 23 Before talking about education, we must of national culture to better incorporate aspects of modern education, such as accepting the economic growth- first consider whom are we talking about marginalised groups, as in Bolivia and literacy, may be crucial. Their survival oriented paradigm – perhaps a educating. Are we talking about education Ecuador. may depend on “interethnic brokers who more feasible approach in the short- in the developed or the developing world, second function of modern can represent their interests in greater term). This approach is perhaps most in cities or the countryside, among A education is that it increases the society”.(Eriksen 2010). familiar as applied to the environment: indigenous or non-indigenous people, productivity of the workforce. This is What about societies that are doing economic growth should take account hunter-gatherers or farmers? Are we linked to the nationalist paradigm above, the threatening, from those at the knife- of environment costs, including loss of talking about formal education through since everyone within a state’s borders is edge in the Vietnamese rainforest to biodiversity. Culturally and linguistically school, usually provided by the state, or seen as a potential contributor to economic those of us holding the handle at a speaking, under this approach we the continuous process by which children growth. It is also closely linked to Marxist comfortable distance, scouring for the can argue that it is a false economy to become initiated into their society? The theories regarding the role of education in cheapest instant coffee in supermarkets? provide all education in a single national social functions that education fulfils perpetuating oppressive social structures. Here, too, education is key to the language and according to the standards depend much on the society in which it Even among those with the best intentions, preservation of biocultural diversity by of national culture, when multilingual takes place. few question that education should be a changing attitudes. At the knife-edge and multicultural education can lead Let us deal with the bad news first: route to economic growth, or indeed that are the farmers expanding into tropical to lower dropout rates and higher the functions of education in modern, economic growth should be a people’s rainforest, who in extreme cases still graduation rates (Nucinkis 2006). Rather urban societies and how they endanger ultimate goal. Since this function of shoot at indigenous inhabitants. Farther than turning threatened peoples into biocultural diversity. The first function education – or the acceptance of this as removed are the politicians making productive members of the national (that concerns us here) is to foster a a function of education – may nowadays decisions about land use, tempted by and global economy, modern education national culture, to ensure obedience to threaten biocultural diversity even more grand investments. At the farthest end of often produces discontented individuals the nation-state: the political function than nationalism, let us look more closely the chain are the consumers of products incapable of living well either traditionally of education. This entails, by definition, at how this threat is carried out. Most made using palm oil or soya grown on or in the modern economy: “Several the suppression of cultural and linguistic directly it is through the education of deforested land, and more generally all years ago when an Innu man went to diversity. The harm it has done to minority traditional peoples by governments, participants in the fossil-fuel (and biofuel) social services or hospital and was asked peoples is so well documented that I NGOs, or religious organisations. This can economy. At every stage in the economic his occupation, he said, ‘Hunter’. Now he will not belabour the point here. I take erode the use of minority languages, as processes leading to the destruction of says, ‘Unemployed’” (Corry 2011). biocultural education to be education the provision of formal education is taken natural habitats and traditional societies, The fundamental problem with the that is free from this political imperative, as an overriding priority, and learning the education has a unique power to influence economic function of education is this: instead allowing learning to happen in dominant language is seen as essential for people’s decision-making. Those at the education should not so much orient the learners’ own language and culture. economic advancement. It can contribute farthest stage may represent a special children to succeed specifically as workers This ideal might seem utopian when to the loss of biodiversity by devaluing potential given that informing consumers in the modern economy, as orient them education is under state control, but there knowledge of, and respect for, the natural is the path of least resistance: wealthy to succeed as living beings generally. are reasons for hope. In some places the world and promoting knowledge directly consumers have relatively little material Education, as a part of culture, fills in the incentive of the state to ensure its citizens’ or indirectly linked to the exploitation of interest in choosing between competing gap in our knowledge left because of the loyalty has faded as international conflicts natural resources. As far as uncontacted products and can be swayed to pay a little high degree to which human behaviour have petered out. In Western Europe, Amazonian tribes are concerned, more for the good of the world, as shown is undetermined by genes. “Between support for languages such as Welsh, education implemented by outsiders by the success of Fair Trade. what our body tells us and what we have Basque and Rumantsch has strengthened is usually a step to further integration ne way for biocultural to know in order to function, there is a over decades of peace. In Chile and into mainstream society, often bringing O education to improve upon this vacuum we must fill ourselves, and we fill Taiwan, democratisation and economic discrimination (sometimes violently), loss problematic function of education it with information (or misinformation) development have had similar effects. of cultural and linguistic self-confidence, is to argue that education sensitive provided by our culture” (Geertz 1973). Even in less wealthy countries changing health problems, and poverty. For other to biocultural diversity makes more Given that education plays such a crucial political trends have led to the redefinition threatened societies, by contrast, some economic sense (although this means role in our survival as a species, a lack 24 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 25 of educational diversity seems a risky ideas about education to apply to other evolutionary strategy for the same reason societies. The first idea is to shift from The first idea is to shift from “education” as the loss of other aspects of culture: it “education” towards “upbringing”. I have jeopardises mankind’s great evolutionary put up with the term “education” so far, towards “upbringing”. ... in reality there is no advantage of creativity and adaptability. A but in reality there is no boundary between monoculture of the mind, propagated in education and everyday life in traditional boundary between education and everyday life our society by relentless advertising and societies: education is the same as the in traditional societies: education is the same homogenous media output, makes us just as child’s acculturation or overall induction vulnerable as reliance on a monoculture of into society. The use of the prestige as the child’s acculturation or overall induction crops. Latinate word “education” (and “student”) into society. A biocultural upbringing should be Let us now turn to a more inspirational versus the Germanic “upbringing” (and model – education in traditional societies, “learner”) corresponds to the separation integrated into everyday life and should happen which are also mostly indigenous, non- between home life and formal, public life through a child’s home language and culture. urban, and found in the developing world. in modern society; education serves the In these contexts education helps preserve interests of the state, upbringing those of cultural and linguistic diversity because the family. A biocultural upbringing should in their own environment, they are more but a change in the way we think and feel. it is provided to children by the family be integrated into everyday life and should likely to value it wherever else they are This is no easy task, but the vision is there and members of a close community, so happen through a child’s home language linked to it through economic or political for us to work towards. u8 language and culture are passed on with and culture. The second idea is that the processes. relatively little change from generation to natural world should play a greater role in upbringing/education. This helps us One may well ask, is there anything generation. It helps preserve biodiversity in common across these modes of because children are brought up to be understand the impacts of our actions and upbringing/education, from the Further Reading the “best conservationists” (Corry 2011), see that environmental destruction is not in our interest. Beyond considering our transmission of knowledge in Corry, Stephen (2011). Tribal Peoples for with a huge knowledge of their natural Tomorrow’s World. Uttoxeter: Freeman Press. ASIN: environment and how to interact with this material interest, we are also more likely traditional societies to raising awareness B005UNKSHM environment so that they use it sustainably. to empathise with what we are familiar among supermarket-goers? If there is a Diamond, J. (2013). The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies? London: As far as the world’s remaining traditional with, and hence care for it. Luckily we “grand vision” to both motivate believers already have important precedents in these Penguin. ASIN: B00AWFEBDK societies are concerned, therefore, our in preserving biocultural diversity and Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (2010). Ethnicity and goal should be simply to enable traditional directions, such as Steiner/Waldorf schools. convince unbelievers, it certainly helps Nationalism. London/New York: Pluto Press modes of education to continue so that In modern (or modernising) societies, Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogia do Oprimido. São Paulo: to have an underlying logic or narrative. Paz e Terra natural world may be passed on. Achieving these ideas can play two roles. Firstly, they in contexts as different as a Pirahã village Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. ASIN: B00DS0CZK2 this is a question of defending threatened can help preserve biocultural diversity and a slum in São Paulo is an appreciation peoples from unsuitable modern education on site through the same functions as in Nucinkis, N. (2006). La EIB en Bolivia. In L. E. of the environment – physical, biological, López & C. Rojas. (eds.), La EIB en América Latina and, more generally, of guaranteeing them traditional societies: they can encourage bajo examen. La Paz: Plural/PROEIB Andes, 25–110 the choice to carry on their way of life by people to transmit their traditional social – and one’s position it. People who protecting their land and other resources. language/dialect, culture, and knowledge of are aware of the environment they inhabit the local . Secondly, these ideas and the role they play within it are more ducation in traditional societies likely to care about that environment. can help preserve biocultural diversity, can help preserve biocultural diversity E As the Transition Network stresses, this not only on site within these communities among other communities: as learners themselves, but also by providing us with become aware of the biocultural diversity means not only a change in our behaviour

26 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 27 Indigenous Principles Decolonizing Teacher Education: What We Have Learned

Kathy Sanford, Lorna Williams, Tim Hopper, and Catherine McGregor

eacher education programs around the T world are continually undergoing change; however, fundamental beliefs underpinning the programs have not significantly shifted. They still reflect hegemonic Euro-American-centric values influenced and shaped by neoliberal discourses of hierarchical models drawing from “expert” knowledge (Battiste, 2002) where competition, individualism, and scientific research have dominated educational thinking. Individual educators have sought to bring alternative processes into their classroom practices that reflect Indigenous principles of living and learning (Little Bear, 2009; Kanu, 2011). Although there are instances of changing conceptions of teacher education programming (e.g., Clarke, Erickson, Collins, & Phelan, 2005; Smits et al., 2005), for the most part there has been little challenge to the European model of education that has existed for over one hundred years.

Welcoming Schelyangang Sweka Thunderbird and Whale: Welcoming and Protection Pole. Photo © C. Marshall

28 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 29 that develops their facility, and adapt offering alternative paths to knowledge and to the rapidly changing demands of the community wisdom. Increasingly, schools need teachers who are able to learn through professional workplace. Rather than seeking In Figure 1, neoliberalism is shown as adaptation and flexibility, engage in meaningful experiences that simplistic solutions to complex problems, a discourse that enables the perception connect to students’ social lives, collaborate and share, and use new educators need to embrace complexity of reality in materialistic terms, leading innovative approaches to develop and share materials. and have the skills and confidence to call to individualistic and competitive values, on their own expertise and the expertise of seeking always to be better than others, others in order to work through challenging seeking dichotomous ways to be right, Essentially, the following four areas make as individuals striving for personal success. problems and situations. Working in implying a singular “truth” that must up initial teacher education: Students re-present colonial content as learning communities (Wenger, 1998), be sought out and learned. Schooling evidence for their transition into the role • foundational knowledge i n these new professionals need to share their influenced and shaped by neoliberalist of teacher, focusing on their individual education-related aspects of philosophy of knowledge with others in order to effectively discourse—valuing linear over cyclical advancement into a career as teacher, and education, history of education, educational address professional responsibilities. progression, competition over collaboration, then teaching students to learn in the same psychology, and sociology of education, We (two white Canadian females, a dualism over complexity, and product over way (Giroux, 2012). • skills in assessing student learning, British white male, and one female member process—is exclusionary and does not supporting English Language learners, The colonizing model of teacher of the Lil’wat First Nation of Mount Currie) accommodate the learning needs of many using technology to improve teaching and education is no longer sufficient for draw on our collective experience as teacher students. It does not take into account learning, and supporting students with providing the education needed by new educators across four academic units the diversity of students in 21st century special needs, generations of learners who will be facing within a Faculty of Education. Attracted society in relation to culture, race, gender, a world with challenges that they will to a course taught by our First Nations’ sexual orientation, economic potential, • content-area and methods for not be able to address with the current colleague on Learning and Teaching in an disability, or beliefs (Giroux, 1988, 2012; teaching a subject area with related approaches to education. Increasingly, Indigenous World, we sought to embrace McLaren, 1988; Asante, 1999). Additionally, knowledge and skills, and schools need teachers who are able to learn the Indigenous pedagogical principles it does not embrace learning in all its • practice at classroom teaching through adaptation and flexibility, engage such as inclusivity, community building, complexity, informed by culture, experience, through practicum experiences. in meaningful experiences that connect to recognition and celebration of individual environment, and the more-than-human students’ social lives, collaborate and share, uniqueness to inform the development of world. In this paper, we will suggest the Conventionally, these areas compete for and use innovative approaches to develop curriculum time in order to pass on expert our respective courses. Lorna Williams importance of embracing alternative and share materials (Trilling & Fadel, 2009). speaks the Lil’wat language, and she ways of conceptualizing education for knowledge to the novice teachers in form of Teachers need to be aware of and able to course lectures, activities, and assignments. was part of a team that documented the all students. Drawing on principles of interrupt the repetitive neoliberal discourses language and created learning resources Indigenous education as highlighted in Knowledge is seen as objects of knowing that cut off students and their families to be retained, repeated back, and applied for use in classrooms. She identified these Figure 1, we believe we can shift the ways through notions of individualism, power, principles over many years of working with we have maintained educational experiences within an array of assignments that serve as and mistrust. In the 21st century, teachers evaluations of understanding. Students are learners in classrooms and discussing the for prospective teachers. In so doing, we need to develop strong personal and ideas of learning and teaching with wisdom are shifting away from a Euro-American rewarded with higher marks than peers for professional identities and self-confidence, showing a better understanding and more keepers in her community. As noted in centrism increasingly being overly and engage in programs that recognize a Williams and Tanaka (2007), humankind is influenced by neoliberal discourses. effective representation of their learning. wide range of student backgrounds, needs, at a historic point that demands a culturally Though not comprehensive, the intents This model of teacher education results in a interests, and abilities based on cultural, combined approach to curriculum reform, in Indigenous teaching indicated in Figure colonizing effect, with neoliberal discourses gendered, physical, and socio-economic rejecting universal truths, which flow from 1 implies that understandings can provide made manifest in public schooling through characteristics. Teacher education programs the colonizer to the colonized. Instead, they a lens for educators to think about different testing, examinations, and projects need to recognize the wide array of skills suggest that we need to open up a “third ways of connecting with learners, valuing evaluated by predetermined standards, and knowledge that exist among their space” in teacher education programs where their knowledge, and helping them to move maintaining students’ belief in the ideology students, create program spaces to develop cultural discourses can weave together, forward successfully into the world. Euro- of competing for the top marks and working professional knowledge and expertise

30 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 31 American conventions are increasingly one that addresses spiritual, emotional, Ways of knowing shaped by neoliberals, whose focus on the physical, and intellectual development in singular truth and the right way has stunted relation to oneself, one’s family, community, Euro-American-Centrism/ Indigenous the growth of not only Aboriginal students, and environment. The holistic model that but of all students. In this paper we will defines Indigenous education implies Neoliberalism (Learner/teacher Collaboration) (Predetermined curriculum) suggest that teacher education can learn multiple and diverse strategies, considering from Aboriginal principles that will improve geographical, cultural, and linguistic Prescribed learning; expected Learning is emergent education of all students. diversity, which adds to the complexity and outcomes pre-determined richness of education, and of society and Teacher to student focused Focus on students and teacher interaction Furthermore, as suggested by the Accord on Indigenous Education, “the time is right should be embraced in Canadian society for a concerted and cooperative effort that (AANDC, 1998). Indigenous education Learning happens in the classroom; Learning happens in many locations, inside and creates transformational education by draws on an organic metaphor for learning classroom is quiet outside the school; classroom can be noisy rejecting the “status quo,” moving beyond that includes diversity as an asset, creating “closing the gap discourse, and contribution spaces to value and nurture multiple forms Knowledge is transmitted Students construct knowledge through gathering to the well-being of Indigenous peoples of knowing and ways of being in the world. and synthesizing information and their communities” (Archibald, Lundy, As such, Indigenous education would Reynolds, & Williams, 2010, p.2). However, embrace Eurocentrism as another form of Students work independently Students work in pairs, groups, or alone depending it is important that the transformation knowing rather than the form of knowing. on the purpose of the activity includes all students and provides Decolonizing Teacher Education opportunities for all to think differently Teacher evaluates student learning Assessment is used in context to promote and about the nature of education, their role as ur question is, then, “how are these diagnose learning learners and teachers, and alternative ways O Indigenous principles and related of creating educational experiences for pedagogies informing and being interpreted Teacher monitors and corrects Learners are guided to find their own solutions and in the practices of existing teacher education students’ responses answer their own questions students. The Accord, although focused on improving educational opportunities and programs?” In the teacher education Teachers evaluate student learning; Students evaluate their own learning; teachers also experiences for Indigenous students, notes program at the University of Victoria, Dr. teaching and assessing are separate evaluate; teaching and assessing are intertwined that “major national studies and government Lorna Williams’ teaching has influenced commissions have called for this type of how we think about teacher education, especially with several faculty taking Lorna’s Students are ranked according to pre- Students have multiple opportunitites for success political and educational involvement” in decision-making and policy development, classes, and we have begun to respond to determined criteria and quiet recognition “and have recommended that Indigenous the ways in which Indigenous education can knowledge systems have a central position provide alternative perspectives and reshape Teacher chooses what is to be learned Students have some choice of learning activities in educational policy, curriculum, and our thinking about how pre-service teachers and topics pedagogy” (Archibald et al., 2010, p.2). The can better prepare themselves for a teaching Focus is on a single discipline Approach is compatible with multi- and inter- Assembly of First Nations cited the Accord career. Using principles such as those listed below, which were realized by Lorna disciplinary investigation signed by the Canadian deans as a sign of the shift to address the under-education of Williams (2008) in her course, Teaching and Culture is competitive and Culture is cooperative, collaborative, and Canadians about the Indigenous peoples Learning in an Indigenous World, we have individualistic supportive of Canada and committing to educational attempted to conceive of a program that change (AFN, 2012, p.15) addresses the goals presented in the Accord and to address the challenges that come In addition, the Accord identifies with shifting our collective and individual Figure 1. Contrasting Euro-American-centrism influenced by neoliberal discourses and common traits of Indigenous education, thinking. These include the need to provide: Indigenous ways of knowing. including a holistic and lifelong framework,

32 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 33 Lil’wat Principle Description now at a critical juncture in educational Lil’wat Principles history—education as we have known and Kamúcwkalha experienced it is serving fewer and fewer n drawing explicitly on these acknowledging the felt energy indicating group attunement and the emergence of a common of our students, including Canadian-born I Lil’wat principles highlighted and group purpose students of diverse descents, students who described in Figure 2 (Williams, 2008) have immigrated to Canada, able/disabled below, we have asked the following Celhcelh questions: How does the adoption of each person being responsible for their own and others learning, always seeking learning populations, and students of all genders (Ralston Saul, 2008). We need alternative these principles shift the ways that teacher opportunities voices informing ways that teacher education programs are offered? How does Kat’il’a education programs can prepare teachers an explicit consideration of the next seven generations to come shape experiences in seeking spaces of stillness and quietness amidst our busyness and quest for knowledge to meet the needs of all 21st century learners. To that end, we have considered the program? How can we honour others’ A7xekcal how teacher education programs might learning before our own, and understand valuing our own expertise and considering how it helps the entire community beyond look if we shape them according to the the importance of recognizing and following ourselves principles introduced by Lorna Williams. our passions? How can these Lil’wat principles come to influence decisions made Cwelelep We have considered small steps to (re)shape the program so that we can become more about teacher education and structures that recognizing the need to sometimes be in a place of dissonance and uncertainty, so as to be contain the program? open to new learning aware of the potentially oppressive nature of the program, recognizing and valuing Figure 2 offers six key Lil’wat principles Emhaka7 experiences and cultures that differ from ( see https://sites.google.com/site/ encouraging each of us to do the best we can at each task given to us current norms and practices, seeking to lulwatprinciples/home for the appropriate reveal or uncover “othering” or exclusionary pronounciation). The ideas introduced Figure 2. Lil’wat principles for learning and teaching. practices of societies and groups whom they through these words offer an alternative way want to subordinate (Levinas, 1969; Said, of thinking about teaching and learning, 1978), and challenging practices accepted as one that resists the colonial notions of • respectful and welcoming learning the role of their students in learning the norm. competition, individualism, and scientific environments; communities, the role of past learning • respectful and inclusive curricula; experiences and the influence of these experiences on their conceptions of learning • culturally responsive pedagogies and teaching. Though the Accord has been to improve the quality of knowledge, critiqued as fitting Aboriginal students into understanding, and pedagogic skills that all a Euro-Canadian schooling system and as educators gain; not going far enough to embed Indigenous • mechanisms for valuing and wisdom in the institution (Rasmussen, promoting Indigeneity in education; and 2011), it does offer signposts for change. Wisdom keepers and institutional leaders • culturally responsive assessment at each site have the opportunity to define (Archibald, Lundy, Reynolds, & Williams, how Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and 2010, pp. 5-8). practice will find a place in each institution, These goals have challenged us all to think thus honouring the diversity of Indigenous about what and how future teachers need to peoples in Canada. consider their role as members of learning For centuries education has been communities, the complexities of learning, structured in similar ways, but we are Story Stick. Photo © Michele Tanaka

34 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 35 discourse that serve to suppress uncertainty Kat’il’a is a principle that suggests and adaptation. In such a system, learning Indigenous ways of knowing would be and difference. Learning to say and use the importance of finding stillness and is based on participants’ openness to ideas, learned through carving a pole was received these words requires hearing the words as quietness amidst our busyness and quest for and on interconnections made in personal with trepidation and doubt. However, pronounced by Lil’wat speakers rather than knowledge. Within the increasing demands contemplation, but also between people when completed, the course changed mediated by English pronunciation; this is and speed in our lives, we need to seek in the system who are drawn together by the ways of thinking for many people, respectful to the Lil’wat. The effort to read out spaces that allow for changed pace, a common goal. Context then creates the including students, faculty, and community. and pronounce the Lil’wat words leads to contemplating deeply our own experiences conditions for persons to form a collective Drawing on all of the Lil’wat principles news ways of embracing and addressing the and the wisdom of others. system, but at the same time, the context identified above, Lorna’s course modeled challenges of a complex world. It is within alternative spaces that the challenges the system to evolve, to exist shared expertise (across multiple teachers, The principle of Kamúcwkalha, principle of A7xekcal can be lived; enabling with an element of uncertainty. Essentially, from within the student body, and from acknowledging the felt energy indicating us to locate the infinite capacity we have learning is seen as organic, emergent, and community members). It also opened up group attunement and the emergence of as learners, to develop our own gifts and adaptive, continuously expanding the spaces for undergraduate and graduate a common group purpose, describes a passions in a holistic, respectful, and realm of possibility as the collective system students, and faculty to learn together in a different relationship between individuals balanced manner. A7xekcal enables us to seeks to thrive within ever changing and common space in respectful and reciprocal in a teacher education program. Creating value our own expertise and consider how it challenging contexts. ways. This course provided spaces for conditions where a group is ready to work helps the entire community, rather than just Implementation of acknowledgement of cultural traditions, for together, to listen to one another, and speak ourselves. Emhaka7 encourages each of us to valuing of multiple sources of wisdom, and without fear suggests a different way of do the best we can at each task given to us, Lil’wat Principles for deep respect for generations of expertise. knowing and coming to learn. Recognizing and to be aware of how we can be helpful to he impact on our teacher All members of the Pole Carving course social community as a vital component of others in our community. Emhaka7 reminds T education program has been both were responsible for their own learning and learning, articulating the responsibility that us to work respectfully and with good subtle and explicit. At first glance, the for the learning of the group, as they assisted each person has for helping the learning thoughts and good hands in all we do. program seems similar to the one that with the carving and the documenting of the learning that occurred during the community to accomplish a task with good However, growth and learning requires was offered one or even two decades ago. will, and understanding that relationships— However, shifts can be seen and felt in course, and after the course was completed. that we continually challenge our established Following iterations of the course (Earth with other students, the teachers and guides, and comfortable ways of knowing and being; the way the program is offered, the ways the tasks, and the community—means in which students’ contributions to the Fibres; Storystick; Canoe Carving; Cwelelep speaks of the need to be sometimes Stewardship) continued to create Cwelelep, that students are relating what they are in a place of dissonance and uncertainty, program have been recognized and valued, experiencing to previous knowledge and to and the ways in which Indigenous ways of but also strong Kamúcwkalha or group in anticipation of new learning. Cwelelep attunement and energy, Celhcelh as learning others. can be described as spinning like a dust knowing have become integral to the overall program. emerged in different ways for all members of Building on this principle, Celhcelh storm, dislodging learners from our places the community, and Emhaka7 as respectful suggests that each person is responsible for of mental, emotional, and physical comfort Learning and Teaching engagement was shown throughout. his or her own learning, for finding and and begin to consider ideas in new ways. taking advantages of all opportunities to When new learning is emerging for us, we in an Indigenous World: As the Learning and Teaching in an learn, and maintaining openness to learning. can be experiencing Cwelelep, feeling as if Transformational Course Indigenous World courses developed, room Each person must find their place in the we are in a dust storm. Experiences was created in the program for another community, and offer what knowledge and course, EI TELNIWT and Indigenous These principles resonate with many ne of the most obvious influences expertise they have to benefit the communal Education, to enable all students to be contemporary learning theories which has come from Lorna Williams’ course work being carried out. Embracing this O introduced to alternative conceptions of highlight focused, situated (Barab & Learning and Teaching in an Indigenous principle requires a watchful listening, learning through Indigenous principles, Plucker, 2002), social (Wertsch, 1985) and World.. The course has had numerous an openness to listening beyond our as well other optional courses such as complex (Davis & Sumara, 2006) insights on iterations, beginning with a course that, own personal thoughts and assumptions, Indigenous Epistemologies, History of First learning. As such, notions of diversity within in 2005, transformed our conceptions of being always aware and conscious of our Nations, Métis, and Inuit Education in a collective system are seen as an asset, with learning and caused multiple dust storms. surroundings as we focus on the task at Canada, and CENENITEL TW TOLNEW: interactions by participants in the collective Lorna’s proposal of a course in which Helping each other to learn. This course hand. promoted to allow system-wide learning 36 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 37 introduces an Indigenous world of learning are developing their own personal gifts and teaching through hands-on practical and expertise in connected and relevant activities integrated with theoretical and ways (A7xekcal), and becoming engaged in academic goals. Experiences are offered in issues of personal and professional interest, the principles of traditional Indigenous ways need, and relevance. Instructors become of teaching and learning such as mentorship more deeply aware of the competence, and apprenticeship. Respectful practice, ability, and passion of each of their students community engagement, and personal about significant issues; they share their responsibility help learners develop insight understandings, develop existing expertise, into Indigenous pedagogy while working and challenge existing theories and practices alongside community knowledge keepers, related to teaching and learning. Through elders, and artists clearly demonstrating the opportunities to select and explore issues infusion of Lil’wat principles. of personal and professional relevance, students in the program have followed their Alternative Practicum passions to create curricular resources, and second shift in the teacher to research. A education program was the In some curriculum courses that have introduction of an alternative practicum traditionally focused on examinable content, experience, recognizing that learning can with students reading, remembering occur in multiple locations and situations, and recalling textbook-based material and that many members of a community in exams and papers, instructors shifted can be teachers. As pre-service teachers their assignments to offer a more contract- seek out alternative sites in which to pursue based grading system. Essentially, if a series their understanding of teaching (from the of mandatory assignments—engaging in land, from elders, or from culturally diverse discussion forums, annotating scholarly locations) they often find themselves in work, completing personal blogs on course uncomfortable places (Cwelelep) where many experiences, and participating in field of their values and beliefs are challenged. experiences—were done to a professional They find themselves needing to exhibit level, the student received a B+ grade. All watchful listening and Emhaka7 as they do assignments had detailed criteria with the best they can in a new and challenging examples available of previous assignments situation. completed by students. To achieve a grade Inquiry Courses of “A,” students were expected to complete a proposal template for an extension third site where Lil’wat principles assignment that would contribute to A have influenced the teacher education their peers and their own learning. This program has been in the inquiry-based shift created an expanding curriculum learning courses. In the spirit of Celhcelh, where students proposed assignments all students are responsible for their and negotiated the parameters for the learning as they select topics of significance assignment with the instructor based on the to their development and seek out ways course materials. Students then worked on to develop further expertise in that area. assignments where they invested in their Through opportunities to make choices own passions (Celhcelh), but also where they Thunderbird and Whale: Welcoming and Protection Pole. Photo © Michele Tanaka about the focus of their learning, students created something that would benefit their

38 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 39 peers (A7xekcal), in their present class but are enabled to demonstrate evidence This shift from being told to taking new locations for new conversations that also in subsequent classes. Extensions ideas of their learning, to take pride in the responsibility for one’s own learning resonates respectfully engaged in the work of becoming drew from a wide set of experiences such as individuality of their work that becomes with the core ideas within both A7xekcal and teachers. curriculum resources, YouTube videos on part of the community’s understanding, Celhcelh principles. course content, assessment strategies piloted and to share their learning with a broader Embedded Teacher in local schools, field trips, inquiry projects, community of learners. The diverse ways Learning From Students Education Practices and workshops. Even when assignments of representing their knowledge connect to he Lil’wat Principles of Teaching n addition to these significant were passed, several students indicated others’ learning artifacts and create a more T and Learning have enabled us to I features, other characteristics of the they intended on editing them based on holistic understanding and demonstration recognize gaps in the teacher education teacher education program resonated with instructor feedback before uploading them (Hopper, Sanford, & Bonsor-Kuki, 2012). program and provide alternative spaces for the Lil’wat principles. In many cases, students to their electronic portfolios. As one student Electronic portfolios also offer an alternative student voices to emerge. The Underground were organized in cohorts, giving them the commented after receiving feedback on her to traditional hierarchical assessment Curriculum, a non-course created and opportunity to develop relationships with extension assignment: practices that often serve to fragment offered by students in the program to a group of colleagues over a year, rather “Thank you for your feedback on my learning and alienate students from their offer opportunities for students to explore than working with different people in each teaching behaviour analysis assignment…I own learning. Through the development of a issues not addressed well enough in course. Students were offered a full day will resubmit an updated version to be used rich array of learning artifacts, students take the program, was supported by teacher in the middle of the week for connecting, as an example for future classes in the new greater responsibility for their learning and education personnel. Recognizing that reconnecting, and reflecting, freeing them year” (Student, personal communication, recognize the relationships between different teacher education programs are located in from formal commitments such as courses. Mar 22, 2012). learning experiences in courses, outside institutional frameworks that do not embrace This day allowed students to breathe deeply, experiences, and practicum experiences, change rapidly, both students and faculty to choose further learning opportunities, Electronic Portfolios (ePortfolios) making connections where none existed sought to create alternative spaces to grow and to connect informally with their peers. ithin our teacher education previously. Electronic portfolios break down and nurture learning. These alternate learning Support was given to the Education Students’ W program an ePortfolio practice has barriers between students, drawing on spaces enabled A7xekcal as students explored Association to create their own professional been implemented that enables students to Kamúcwkalha in order to engage with each issues of personal significance to them and opportunities through invited guest speakers, identify learning that relates to provincial other respectfully, sharing personal insights their peers; they enabled Cwelelep, both participation in professional conferences, standards that they have to address to on theory and practice, but also on their through alternative spaces and challenging or creating informal support groups. A be certified as a teacher. The ePortfolio reforming ideas on learning. These insights topics brought to light. Students who significant learning experience in the teacher enables students to develop and utilize told diverse stories of becoming a teacher. became involved in educational programs education program is the professional technology skills learned in the program The ePortfolios create a place for Celhcelh of Sea Change Marine Conservation Society seminars, developed to provide spaces for as well as create a reflective resource from where students become more attuned experienced learning very differently as they meaning making with elders and peers, which to draw when applying for teaching to their own learning. As one student engaged with children in hands-on learning for connecting collaboratively rather than positions. As noted by Hopper and Sanford commented as she completed her teacher with physical activities such as rowing, competitively, to develop relationships, and to (2010) the ePortfolio has evolved as a education program: explorations on the beach, and learning from engage in Kamúcwkalha. traditions of local First Nations communities. mode of collecting evidence of deep and “I had a conversation with a colleague Many individual instructors created meaningful learning about the teaching about the ePortfolio, and I said, “Here, I think Alternately, students who chose to experience education in a Ugandan orphanage learned learning opportunities that resonated with profession. Students gather a range of it’s beneficial because now it’s my choice, the Lil’wat principles. This was especially artifacts, recollect the meaning behind each like what do I want to share and what do I about cultural traditions and values, about teaching multi-age groups in spaces with the case for instructors who took Lorna’s of these learning artifacts, and reflect on want to think back and reflect on?” That’s course, engaging in the Aboriginal principles their significance to themselves and to the the power of ePortfolio because rather than very few educational resources, and ways to create innovative tools and strategies. as a member of the class. In many cases, the enhancement of their profession. Through telling, it’s like putting the power in the students were offered opportunities to work a wide array of alternative modes showing other person’s hand, in the learner’s hand.” Community among the students, and with a broad range of community organizations, in groups, allowing them to share the work evidence of learning, i.e., photographs, (Student, personal communication, April 5, and their knowledge, and to provide each artwork, physical engagement, voice, or 2010) developed through recognition of others who had the same interests and needs, providing other with support and encouragement. For multimodal representations, students example, one instructor revised his course 40 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 41 outline to focus on three core principles working with others and doing what you can advocated by Lorna Williams (2008) within to support their learning. This is especially the learning and teaching in an Indigenous true for teachers!” (Student, weekly reflection, world course. As he stated: November, 8th 2011) “To encourage students’ collective identity, Use of electronic forums, such as shared learning and co-operation, the rules of MOODLE, (a free, open-source learner engagement in the course were given as: (1) management system for producing modular put the learning of their peers before their own internet-based courses; see http://docs. learning; (2) create work that will benefit seven moodle.org/23/en/About_Moodle) enables generations to come; and (3) find their own shared learning for not only the current passion in course content and use it to energize class but also for future generations of the community.” (Instructor, personal students. Sharing enables students to take communication, Sept. 2011) pride in their work, work more diligently These “rules of engagement” allowed ideas on their projects, and collaborate more of A7xekcal (own expertise helps the entire richly. Students were afforded opportunities community beyond ourselves), Emhaka7 to represent their learning in many diverse (encouraging each to do best we can in a ways, including orally, visually, and through task), and Celhcelh (responsible for own physical enactments, demonstrating the value learning and seeking learning opportunities). of diversity of skills and talents. Artifacts He found that these simple rules resulted in such as button blankets, story sticks, and the students developing a sense of collective canoe paddles have become valued as identity and personal support for each evidence of learning. These types of learning other’s learning. The course used a school- artifacts have also influenced how other integrated approach to learning where some forms have become more accepted, such as lessons were taught in a local school by the video journals, student-developed workshops university instructor in collaboration with for their peers, student-generated websites, the schoolteacher and then gradually with podcasts, and blogs, to name a few. the students (Hopper & Sanford, 2008). In addition, while many of these This experience created the Kamúcwkalha activities were not created with the Lil’wat idea where there was a common felt energy principles in mind, they resonate with each indicating group attunement and the of the principles, suggesting a powerful and emergence of a common group purpose significant connection that needs to be clearly around learning to be a teacher within a articulated throughout the program. It is school. As one student commented within through the clear articulation of Indigenous her personal reflection: principles that we can come to value more “Dr. H. told us on the first day of class, explicitly the learning conditions created in “Focus on the learning of your peers.” At first, classrooms and in programs. The wisdom I was kind of confused by this... learning, I of our Indigenous colleagues can return thought, was something of a personal activity. us to appreciation of spaces that engage in But through peer assessment and teaching, collective and human learning endeavours, I came to recognize just how important it providing culturally responsive teaching Braiding sweetgrass. Photo ©Michele Tanaka is to focus on the learning of your peers - a with intention and purpose. The humanity huge part of personal growth comes from of teacher education can be revitalized

42 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 43 and reconceptualized through Indigenous administrative structures and expectations Schools and teacher education have Inquires into learning, teaching and research. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. principles such as those shared by Lorna requiring compliance with policies created long been tools for colonizing, suppressing, Williams. from Euro-American-centric traditions and Giroux, H. (1988). Schooling and the struggle for public life. oppressing, or objectifying learners, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. values. Giroux, H. (2012). Education and the crisis of public values Providing a Day of Stillness particularly Aboriginal peoples but in some (pp. 1-129). New York: Peter Lang. As we have become aware of the untenable ednesdays provided a departure sense all learners. In this paper, we have Hopper, T., & Sanford, K. (2008). Using poetic limitations of the structures and rules within shared how we have tried to create a new way representation to support the development of teachers’ from days filled with scheduled classes the education system, we have created knowledge. Studying Teacher Education, 4(1), 29-45. W to think about creating learning conditions Hopper, T., & Sanford, K. (2010). Program-wide and seminars—no classes were scheduled, and alternative approaches and descriptions of that appreciate the strengths of all, develop e-portfolios: Creating new spaces for an “inside-out” students were invited to use the day to their student learning activities. However, we have approach to teacher education. Resistance, support and best advantage. Drawing on the principle of confident and strong teachers/leaders who are renewal. Teacher Education Quarterly, Special Online also been challenged to model the principles Edition, 37(1), 1-28. Kat’il’a, we sought to create spaces of stillness that we are espousing, living in tension, aware of context, place, spaces for learning to Hopper, T., Sanford, K., & Bonsor-Kuki, S. (2012). and quietness amidst students’ very hectic ourselves, returning repeatedly to examine emerge and grow. We believe we are moving Stitching together a teacher’s body of knowledge: Frankie N programs and lives. Students were able to get Stein’s ePortfolio. eLearning and Digital Media 9(1), 42-55. what we are doing and what our motivations in the right direction, but also know there are Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An Essay together informally to create networks and are. We have had to resist the desire to return many more steps to take as we deepen our on exteriority. A. Lingis (Trans.). Pittsburgh: Duquesne community, attend workshops of their choice, to the familiar and comfortable—both for understanding of why changes need to be made University Press. go on field trips outside of the scheduled Little Bear, L., (2009). Naturalizing Indigenous knowledge: our students and for ourselves—and have and how Indigenous principles can assist us to Synthesis paper. (ISBN: 978-1-926612-32-4) University time-table, or they were able to use the time persisted in living in Cwelelep that place of walk new paths. u8 of Saskatchewan, Aboriginal Education Research Centre, for quiet reflection and contemplation. Taking uncertainty in which new learning emerges. Saskatoon, Sask. and First Nations and Adult Higher time to breathe deeply, to connect to the Education Consortium, Calgary, Alta. Retrieved from www. Acknowledgements ccl-cca.ca world around them, and to regain a sense of Through these tensions have come visions Originally published online in In Education Vol. Kanu, Y., (2011). Integrating Aboriginal perspectives into balance are important aspects of learning of new possibilities as we create conditions the school curriculum: Purposes, possibilities, and challenges. and teaching, although often disregarded in that support the wisdom of Lil’wat principles. 18 No. 2 (2012), at http://ineducation.ca/index. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. php/ineducation/article/view/61/547. Reprinted McLaren, P. (1988). On ideology and education: Critical conventional teacher education programs. Working with the students to acknowledge the pedagogy and the of education. Social Text, 19-20, Too often we view time not filled up with limitations of previously exalted approaches with authors’ and publisher’s permission under Fall, 153-185. to becoming a teacher, we have challenged Creative Commons. Phelan, A. (2011). Towards a complicated conversation: courses and other work with suspicion, and teacher education and the curriculum turn. Pedagogy, Culture our reaction is to add more—Kat’il’a reminds ourselves to conceptualize alternatives. We Furthur Reading & Society, 19(2), 207-220. us that we need balance in order to act with accept the need for apprehension in our AANDC (1998). Royal commission report on Aboriginal Ralston Saul, J. (2008). A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada. Toronto: Penguin. wisdom and professionalism. Wednesdays learning as we realize the importance of peoples. Ottawa. Retrieved from http://www.aadnc-aandc. disruption if we are going to address the gc.ca/eng/1307458586498 Rasmussen, D. (2011). Some honest talk about non- were one such space, in the middle of busy AFN (2012). Soul of sovereignty: The impact of culturally Indigenous education. In E. Shaker (Ed.), Bright ideas: weeks, that enabled students to find that. needs of our students and their right to learn responsive education on the academic achievement of First Students and educators challenge limits on education (pp. in complex environments. The examples Nations students. Retrieved from http://www.afn.ca/index. 19-33). Toronto: Our Schools/Our Selves. php/en/policy-areas/education/resources-updates/... Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Random House, Conclusion shared above have enabled a shift, but we Archibald, J., Lundy, J., Reynolds, C., Williams, L. (2010). Inc. hrough our work in shaping still all struggle to live in the tensions of Accord on Indigenous education. Retrieved from www.csse. Smits, H., Wang, H.C., Towers, J., Crichton, S., Field, J., Tarr, change as we reshape our practices and shift ca/ACDE P. (2005). Deepending Understanding of Inquiry Taching and T experiences for pre-service teachers, Asante, M. K. (1999). The painful demise of Eurocentrism. Learning with ePortfolios in a Teacher Preparation Program. we have come to realize the effort required our pedagogical realities, embodying the Trenton, NJ: Africa World. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 31(3). http:// www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/98/92 to shift our conceptions and practices. Those transformative potential of struggle. Barab, S. A., & Plucker, J. (2002). Smart people or smart contexts? Cognition, ability, and talent development in an age Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning of us working with Lorna, attempting to Indigenous principles offer new ways to of situated approaches to knowing and learning. Educational for life in our times. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. provide experiences that are more inclusive think about teacher education—embracing Psychologist, 37(3), 165-182. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge: Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy Cambridge University Press. for our students, have had to challenge our alternative spaces, creating moments of in First Nations education: A literature review with Wertsch, J. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of own “tried and true” beliefs and assignments. stillness, creating dust storms to challenge recommendations. Ottawa: National Working Group on mind. London: Harvard Press. We have also had to face challenges from our complacency, generating common purpose, Education. Williams, L. (2008, 5 September). Storysticks: Learning Clarke, A., Erickson, G., Collins, S., & Phelan, A. (2005). and teaching in an Indigenous world. [University course]. students who have not always appreciated recognizing our responsibility for each Complexity science and cohorts in teacher education. Williams, L. and Michele Tanaka. (2007). Schalay’nung the dissonance that has been introduced others’ learning in respect and balance, and Studying Teacher Education, 1(2), 159-177. Sxwey’ga Emerging cross-cultural pedagogy in the academy. into their lives. We have been challenged by employing watchful listening as we can. Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Constructing 21st-century Educational Insights, 11(3). Available at: http://www.ccfi. teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(3), 300- educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v11n03/articles/william. 314. 44 | Langscape Summer 2014 Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and education: Volume 3 Issue 1 | 45 Biocultural Education: Métis Life in the 21st Century Yvonne Vizina

he topic of biocultural education T is particularly salient to me because I have spent many years working to understand how traditional Aboriginal knowledge can become a foundation for teaching and learning in formal education systems. I specialized in Biology as a high school teacher and linked traditional Aboriginal cultural teachings to the concepts and topics within the biological sciences. In Saskatchewan, Canada, provincial education policy has supported the inclusion of First Nations and Métis perspectives in curriculum for decades. Most subject areas have a good variety of resources and experienced educators to share and build Aboriginal content into teaching. In the sciences, however, there were virtually no professional resources to use. So, I drew on my own knowledge, trusting that the traditional knowledge imparted to me over the years by Saulteaux, Cree, Dakota, Nakota, Dene, and Métis Elders would bring my students to a broader understanding in the study of biological sciences. In 2010, I completed a Master’s Degree in Education doing research with Aboriginal communities in NW Saskatchewan on the Métis Holistic Lifelong Learning Model. 46 | Langscape Summer 2014 Credit: University of Saskatchewan Volume 3 Issue 1 | 47 Taking a holistic approach to understanding the natural world can facilitate a greater understanding of the importance of diverse cultures and languages in expressing how people have adapted to life in their particular territory.

networks and periodic participation but advance an examination of how Aboriginal we lack global networks of collaboration post-secondary institutions are integrating that can facilitate professional development sustainability issues and how we might and interfaces with traditional knowledge strengthen national and international holders for education, cultural exchanges collaboration. The Sustainability and and long-term capacity-building within Education Policy Network is an exciting Indigenous communities. new collaboration within Canada that The urgency in addressing global is examining K-12 and post-secondary biodiversity and human well-being is education practices in relation to policy with dependent on advancing education, a view to developing innovative processes meaningful relationships, and the creation and contributing to a more sustainable Graduate Students, University of Saskatchewan School of Environment and Sustainability. of spaces that allow the cultures to future for all of us. Photo © Yvonne Vizina create and integrate new knowledge that Whether one works in formal education illuminates the meaning and purpose of systems or not, it is useful to learn, or topic of Métis Traditional Environmental from South and Central America, Africa, ancestral knowledge. This can happen in remind ourselves, of why enabling diverse Knowledge and Science Education. I Russia, Asia, the Pacific, and other locales. any discipline but is particularly important cultural views in education is important. explored the meaning and application of Globally, Indigenous and local communities within those that can bring scientific and Learners who are alienated from their traditional knowledge in the formation of face many of the same challenges as Indigenous communities together on family and community value systems can what might be understood as a biocultural Aboriginal Peoples in Canada in loss of equitable footing to find mutual successes in face monumental struggles in reconciling approach to science. That is, in exploring land access and associated disruptions overcoming common challenges. what they learn in formal education if it how traditional knowledge based in to traditional livelihoods, languages, My current PhD studies at the has no connection to their lived reality. profound respect for life, and the elements and ability to transmit ancestral culture University of Saskatchewan’s School of Educators who bring learners to understand that facilitate life, could be shared with the intergenerationally through traditional Environment and Sustainability have such things as Indigenous history and academic community. Before embarking means. had me immersed in the examination resilience, traditional and contemporary gender issues, and the importance of critical on further studies, I returned to work for Yet, despite the pressures of such things as of international community-based my Nation on national and international conservation, international conservation thinking skills can greatly enhance the lives industrialization and urbanization, there are of their students. Indigenous students who environmental issues. sites across the world where individuals and and Indigenous decision-making, and traditional knowledge and customary take pride in their identity and develop As part of the UN International small groups of people are doing remarkable leadership skills are preparing to take their Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, things in defense of Indigenous cultures. sustainable use of biological diversity. With my background in education, over the next own place as Elders in the future. What collaborating across cultures and languages Indigenous Nations gain exposure to these students learn during the early years of brought me new experiences and insights activities through some communication year I will be working with Dr. Marcia McKenzie from the College of Education to their lives has a great bearing on the future 48 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 49 health of their families and communities. paying special attention to relationships Over 50% of the world’s population now Acknowledgement of cultural identity among elements of life. Past research lives in urban centres. In some areas of and inclusion in education is not only a carried out with First Nations, Métis, and the world, 80%-100% are urbanites. The responsibility of educators but also a right of Inuit resulted in the development of three increasing human concentrations in cities learners. holistic models reflecting how the respective has many benefits for day to day life, but also A biocultural approach to education groups viewed important aspects of cultural alienates people from learning about the is the inclusion of cultural knowledge life-long learning. In the case of Métis, natural world through intimate and personal about life within pedagogy and curricula. important elements of education include: experiences. Traditional Indigenous Traditional Indigenous language and self, people, land, language and traditions cultures are based on the knowledge and cultures emerged within groups of people as important sources of knowledge and experience of their territories built through from ancestral teachings and experiential knowing. Métis people believe learning intergenerational transmission and personal knowledge needed to thrive in particular has important roots in social, physical, experience. As more people migrate to areas. For Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, economic, and political environments, as cities, educators need to find new and the diversity of First Nations, Métis, and well as in spirituality, health care, the degree innovative ways of helping learners make Inuit cultures means there are also diverse of balance and harmony, and Indigenous connections between their urban lives and solutions to developing educational Knowledge and values. Developing an the natural world. curricula meaningful to those students. understanding of multiple components Although many Indigenous people Coastal and northern peoples have of life helps orient Métis individuals and continue to live in rural and remote different knowledge from those who live communities to ensuring traditions are areas, many now live in urban settings. on the prairies or elsewhere. Inclusion of respected and carried forward through time In developed worlds, including Canada, traditional Aboriginal cultural knowledge for the benefit of future generations, but also Aboriginal people faced with poverty and within education can benefit both so there is an ability to consider challenges sometimes life-threatening living conditions Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners and benefits brought by contemporary life. often migrate to urban centres where there because it encourages developmental Métis, like other Indigenous cultures around is more opportunity to provide for their learning with their own local ecology, social the world, are part of a global community families. Unfortunately, this initiates a issues, and economic processes. Familiarity that is shaped and influenced by local and cultural disconnection from land and with sacred areas, local plant and animal global conditions. traditions that can have long-term negative life, relationships among human and non- Human population has now exceeded implications on identity and well-being. human individuals and communities, seven billion and is expected to reach eight Bringing education to life with cultural cyclical patterns of weather, energy systems, billion by 2024 and over ten billion by knowledge requires having access to water systems, and land vitality are basic the end of this century. As our numbers traditional teachers and natural settings. To insights important to all residents of an area. increase, there is growing pressure on the accomplish this, educators must have the Taking a holistic approach to natural world to provide food, clean water, support of policy-makers and curriculum understanding the natural world can and services that will enable healthy lives. developers that are willing to establish a facilitate a greater understanding of Over 2 billion people on Earth live in foundation for building relationships with the importance of diverse cultures and poverty, without adequate access to basic Aboriginal communities. As education has Métis festival held in Northern Saskatchewan languages in expressing how people have necessities of life such as food and health evolved, we have come to understand the at Palmbere Lake where regional residents adapted to life in their particular territory. care. Their struggle for survival depends not severe damage that results from alienating gather to camp together, share in traditional Holism is often attributed to Aboriginal only on their own ability to live in contexts children from the culture, traditions, and cultural activities, discuss regional issues, cultural perspectives, but in reality often beyond their control but also on languages of their community. Aboriginal and also most importantly celebrate Métis holism is a paradigm inclusive of multiple the choices of lifestyle made in developed communities in Canada, whether Inuit, families, culture and kinship. Photos © perspectives and knowledges. A holistic wealthy areas of the world. First Nation or Métis, hold profound Yvonne Vizina approach in Aboriginal culture means respect for the natural world within their

50 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 51 respective cultural teachings. Harvesting who has little or no regard for the natural practices required extensive knowledge of world is said to exist as a ‘shadow’ driven by Merging traditional and contemporary education plants and animal habitat, behavior, and the desire for material gains. These people does not diminish the importance of learning in purpose to exercise the right amount of use have lost the foundation of their cultural and restraint. Developing skills and wisdom reality. They have faded to live within an depth the roots of traditional culture or in helping reflected in the maturing behavior of learners illusion of external rewards, seeking pleasure learners become accomplished in specific academic requires regular and ongoing experiences and fulfillment by means that are destructive with the natural world. In the same way as and damaging to themselves, other people areas of study. Like ecosystems, learning requires acquiring fluency in language is a building and the Earth. At all stages of life, it is process requiring immersion on a regular possible to return to traditional values and diversity to foster richness and abundance. basis, so too does acquiring an understanding ethics. Learning, or re-learning, basic tenets of Aboriginal cultural traditions. of culture can bring relief to the human spirit have made this possible through working teachers give them more responsibility and The values educators hold about the and life into focus. together on a variety of projects and trust. Corrections are offered if mistakes are purpose of education help determine what is Merging traditional and contemporary holding a common belief that inclusion of made, because the learner is seen as having taught and how it is taught. In formal school education does not diminish the importance Aboriginal perspectives is important for reached an important juncture of growth. settings, meeting curriculum requirements of learning in depth the roots of traditional all students, not just Aboriginal students. Above all, evaluation in traditional culture An exciting new resource of the Saskatoon is a necessary commitment of classroom culture or in helping learners become is based on the need for each individual in a Public School Division made available to educators. Within that context, educators accomplished in specific academic areas of community to become a good human being strive to comply with heavy demands for study. Like ecosystems, learning requires the public in June 2014 is an e-book by Dr. Glen Aikenhead entitled Enhancing School that contributes to the well-being of others. content achievement in standard areas, diversity to foster richness and abundance. u8 preparing learners for their progression Encouraging learners to become active in Science with Indigenous Knowledge: What to adulthood. But as time goes on, it has learning from local community members and We Know from Teachers and Research. Furthur Reading become more apparent that, in our globalized fostering their leadership skills are essential This resource provides both practical and world, there is an urgent need to ensure all for intergenerational transmission of cultural theoretical insights on culturally responsive AERC, University of Saskatchewan and FNAHEC. (2007). science teaching, connecting with Elders and Redefining how success is measured in Aboriginal learning: learners have an understanding of the need knowledge. This requires getting out of the Holistic lifelong learning models. Retrieved June 30, 2014, to ensure ecosystem health and human classrooms and having access to learning cultural teachers, challenges and benefits from Canadian Council on Learning: http://www.ccl-cca. resilience in the face of rapidly changing experiences important to the community. from real teacher experiences, culturally valid ca/CCL/Reports/RedefiningSuccessInAboriginalLearning/ assessment, and a host of other key topics. RedefiningSuccessModels.html climate conditions resulting from human Participation in cultural ceremonies helps Aikenhead, G. (2014). Enhancing School Science with activity. The changing environment is educators and learners alike understand Learning from the practical experiences of Indigenous Knowledge: What We Know from Teachers and out-pacing curriculum revision bringing tradition and the mysteries of the unknown. educators is an important part of incremental Research. Retrieved June 20, 2014, from Amazon: http:// www.amazon.ca/Enhancing-School-Science-Indigenous- a challenge and an opportunity for Building friendships and relationships among growth for policy and praxis. Knowledge-ebook/dp/B00KCUM27C/ educators to link traditional knowledge diverse culture groups is necessary for cross- Evaluation in learning must be also Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied with contemporary knowledge to achieve fertilization of knowledge and problem Research. (n.d.). The Virtual Museum of Métis History and consistent with the form of education Culture. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from Gabriel Dumont outcomes contextualized to local settings. solving. Ultimately, individuals have an provided to students. Formal education Institute: http://www.metismuseum.ca/main.php Education is meant to provide learning opportunity to nourish their own lives and Government of Saskatchewan. (2014). Aboriginal based on established curriculum uses Education Research Network (AERN). Retrieved June 29, opportunities for learners that nurture their learning journeys as they discover their own personal areas of expertise. multiple methods of evaluation. Indicators 2014, from Government of Saskatchewan: http://www. potential within complex relationships and pointing the way to eventual desired education.gov.sk.ca/AERN responsibilities to self, family, community Over the past ten years in Saskatchewan, Sustainability Education Research Institute, University outcomes are available to help measure of Saskatchewan. (2014). Sustainability and Education and Nationhood. Contemporary education the provincial government has made good progress. In a similar way, traditional Policy Network. Retrieved June 30, 2014, from https:// is based in formalized policy whereas progress in revising science curriculum to www.facebook.com/SustEdPolNet/info traditional education is based in cultural include First Nations and Métis perspectives. cultural skill building is evaluated based on Vizina, Y. (2010). Métis Traditional Environmental the learner’s ability to achieve understanding Knowledge and Science Education. University of values and ethics. Saulteaux Elder Danny Committed researchers, educators, Elders Saskatchewan, Educational Foundations. Saskatoon: U of Musqua teaches that an Aboriginal person and other Aboriginal community members and application of traditional knowledge. As S. http://ecommons.usask.ca/handle/10388/etd-09212010- learners demonstrate readiness, traditional 213855 52 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 53 Interactive Learning about Biocultural Diversity: University Students Engage Tribes Jeanine Pfeiffer with Costandinos Bakouros, Craig Cannon, Marina Chislett, Tien Pham, Trevor Raff, Conrad Sasinski, and Palak Shah

Diversifying our approach in By the final exam, students are exposed studying biocultural diversity to over fifty cultural groups via Netflix films, indie documentaries, and YouTube videos; n Dr. Pfeiffer’s San José State instructor podcasts and lectures; prose and I University class Nature and World poetic and scientific readings; and case Cultures, students focus on the evolution, studies from the Terralingua-Earthscan conservation, and revitalization of 2010 text, Biocultural Diversity Conservation biocultural diversity by focusing on two - A Global Sourcebook by Luisa Maffi and key questions: (a) What are the reciprocal Ellen Woodley. and dynamic relationships between cultures Since 2012 students in the class have and the environment? (i.e., how does each partnered with Native Californian tribes influence the other?); and (b) How do socio- and tribal communities to complete cultural and historical factors influence semester-long group projects on and/or change an individual’s or a group’s biocultural diversity. Student projects Tiny pine needle coil basket made by the instructor, as part of her hands-on training to better relationships with their surrounding examine the dynamics of nature-culture environments? understand Northern California biocultural diversity. Photo ©: Jeanine Pfeiffer. connections and issue including sacred During the semester-long course we sites, language revitalization efforts, water conferences, and museum exhibits featuring with students regarding their familiarity examine works representing different rights, endangered culturally significant Northern California tribal history and art. with California biocultural diversity – native viewpoints, professions, socio-economic species, and traditional lifeways. Students species and Native cultures. The students’ classes, spiritual traditions, educational have produced tribally-approved micro- Investigating real-life examples responses inspired her to completely backgrounds, and geographical regions. We documentaries, published articles in the of biocultural diversity restructure the syllabus. read and hear the words of anthropologists, national newsmagazine Indian Country ack in the Dark Ages of the Nature As student Costandinos Bakouros relates: ecologists, journalists, naturalists, Native Today, and completed applied projects of and World Cultures class (i.e. pre 2007), “Professor Pfeiffer actually said, on the first scholars, historians, indigenous peoples, B cultural relevance. Students also receive students completed standard term papers day of class, ‘Who here knows someone, or poets, activists, museum curators, extra credit for attending tribal events, on cultures randomly picked from around has talked to someone of Native American immigrants, prisoners, filmmakers, and the American Indian Film Festival (in the world. Students completed papers on descent?’ Of the forty students in the class, conservation organizations, comparing San Francisco), public protests organized their own, and the papers had no life or only about two students said they had. the authors’ narratives with our own by tribes advocating for environmental usefulness beyond the class. That was until It shocked the whole class. It was very experiences and insights. and cultural justice, Californian Indian the day the instructor began checking in apparent that day that [our group projects] 54 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 55 symbolized something more than words. According to Costandinos: “The great • Agreeing to a work plan and balancing Yet a collaborative approach also has They inspired cultural awareness and part about this class is that the professor the effort amongst all the group members its advantages. Student Conrad Sasinski overcoming the ignorance we have towards lets the groups turn in three versions of • Conducting 100% of their notes: “An individual approach to this people who resided in California way before the project. Version one is the roughest of communications virtually (the class is web- project would be completely overwhelming. any of us did.” all: she gives her full attention and input based) This way, it enables each student to lead, to this version in order to help make any contribute, and grow in their own way – In the current incarnation of the class, • Keeping on task and on deadline students form groups of 3 to 5 people during major changes and/or [address] problems but also together. Two heads are always the first week of the class and define a group in the research. In the second version, the • Making positive contact with a cultural better than one, and five are better than project topic that links a Native California project information should look a little representative willing to work with them two. In a real-life situation, you would not bit clearer, and if any input is needed, the be working on a project like this by yourself. tribe or tribal community with a specific • Completing a high-quality, culturally- aspect of nature. Group topics explore professor suggests specific changes. After This class empowers you to learn how to this the peer-review process of the project approved product before the semester runs interact with people and include their California biocultural diversity: culturally out significant species, habitats, or ecosystems, starts. Each person is asked to pair up with ideas in your own psyche. The structure Native languages, and cultural traditions. someone, either in their group or out of Students agree it takes a lot of self- and design [of the project] are geared to The projects investigate the cultural their group, in order to get others’ revisions commitment to do a group project, enable students to dig deep and use their evolution of a Native Californian group in or helpful remarks on one’s writing, especially within an online course critical thinking, communication, writing, relation to a specific aspect of nature, from grammar, and ideas. Once this is done, the where students never meet one other. reading, researching, planning, teamwork, centuries ago to the present. Projects have groups should have a well-developed idea With 3 to 5 members in the group and leadership skills. These factors are what studied the Pomo and traditional basketry, of what the project is going to look like. But communicating primarily by email (instead make it such an invaluable project. The way the Hoopa and the Klamath River, the Yurok before this happens, like any respectable of face-to-face meetings), it is easy to have in which it was synthesized chronologically and the salmon, and Winnemem Wintu and person would do, the draft narrative must miscommunications or misinterpretations from initial ideas, to developing theses and Ohlone sacred sites. be sent to a cultural representative of the of ideas. As one student confessed, “We had conclusions, to formatting and rendering California tribe the group chose to focus on. to call out each other several times during articles for upload onto the World Wide To increase the relevance and positive Once approved the final piece is turned into the project, or push each other to meet the Web not only teaches students the work impact of the students’ work beyond the the professor and the micro-documentaries deadlines. Sometimes I felt pretty nervous involved in publishing online, but also that university, each group project culminates in get posted to YouTube, the Wikipedia when the deadline was getting close and we collectively, they can make a difference in a format accessible to the general public: a entries get updated, and the articles sent didn’t have our final draft yet.” the world.” YouTube video, a Wikipedia entry, an online out to publishers. It is a long process, but a (Open Access) article with a newsmagazine, Inevitably, tensions emerged between According to student Craig Cannon: “A rewarding one in the end. This structure is “leaders” and “slackers” in the group, collaborative approach allows all members or a public event – all subject to approval what makes this class so unique and great.” by a tribal representative. Students have with some students using their relative of the group to bounce ideas between each thirteen weeks to meet this relatively Collaborative projects – unfamiliarity with different technologies other, and then produce the best possible ambitious goal. Each stage of the project challenges and rewards as excuses to avoid doing the work or solution. We are able to brainstorm and is broken down into a separate phase, with for being late in meeting deadlines. One form stronger ideas before breaking off to deadlines carefully timed throughout the inishing a multi-stage, complex student recommended a more participatory create our individual portions.” Students semester. During the first weeks of the F project in coordination with other approach to all project activities: “I would also agreed that the group project helps semester, each group submits abstracts and students and in consultation with a cultural have much appreciated it if every aspect prepare one for the real world outside of outlines that are reviewed by the entire representative within one semester is of the work – i.e., writing the narrative, academia. no easy task. In completing their group contacting cultural representatives, class in real time during the course’s weekly Interfacing with cultural webinars. In subsequent weeks, collaborative projects, students face a series of real-world publishing the article, uploading the video, literature reviews are completed before the challenges including: or editing a Wikipedia page – was spread representatives group pulls together the first drafts of their • Defining a feasible topic and finding among the members as evenly as possible. ultural approval of the group’s project narrative. sufficient resources to research the topic By doing so we could possibly turn a C final version of the project is required ‘technologically challenged’ person into a by the instructor. Although students are ‘technologically able’ person.” encouraged to begin contacting cultural 56 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 57 representatives as soon as they have chosen of such high caliber the tribal staff person their project topics, some groups inevitably recommended their work be included with have more success than others. Following the tribe’s archival entry to the Smithsonian guidelines spelled out in the course syllabus Institution. by previous classes, students are encouraged In the worst-case scenarios, students to act as cultural ambassadors, treat all are candidly informed by the cultural communications professionally, loop the representative that their work contains instructor into their email exchanges, and too many errors – despite being directly WATCH THESE VIDEOS AT: http://youtu.be/LZOEKMHitsg?list=PL1Stmqz-WdIO8TP2QAbvSvy3qglgjtwZR try not to get frustrated if it takes multiple based on primary sources in the literature tries to get a response back. In the case of – and is denied approval. In this instance, Winnemem Wintu and the Salmon (9:48 minutes, 2012): one group, the students attempted to contact the students are given a powerful lesson in eight representatives over a period of several the unending frustrations Native groups weeks and only received a response from a face with inaccurate, stereotypical, and single person. Tribal staff readily admit to misleading representation. being overwhelmed with work, and many Marina comments: “While anyone Winnemem Wintu Video (8:44 minutes, 2012): Group Project on tribes are still developing their institutional Winnemem Wintu and raising of the Shasta Dam capacity. can gather information online, the requirement of validating the information Student Marina Chislett shares: “I think with a tribal representative ensures that one of the most difficult challenges one may all our information is factual and that face in executing this project is working with their culture is being portrayed accurately. The Cultural Revival of the Ohlone: Transformation of the Ohlone’s cultural representatives. This was one thing Religious Beliefs (36:47 minutes, 2012) This is something our group actually Professor Pfeiffer discussed with us from the experienced firsthand with the Yurok Tribe. beginning of this course and was something In our original version of our narrative, we we continued to learn throughout it. In mentioned that the Klamath Salmon Festival AmahMutsun (9:46 minutes, 2012): In this Microdocumentary, we are many cases and class discussions, we came was a Yurok tradition that held cultural introduced to the Amah Mutsun and given a brief history of their culture to learn how indigenous people worked and people. The primary focus is on their efforts to revive their traditions, importance. Our representative informed us with many researchers sharing their history, that was untrue: although the Yurok host the culture, and to shed light on their partnership with UCSC in creating the knowledge, practices, and beliefs – where “Relearning Garden”. This partnership is key to introducing their historical event, it is actually aimed at tourists and had the end result was far from pleasant for less significance than we initially thought.” their people. In some cases this meant Ohlone Revival of the Wetlands Crafts (2:55 minutes, 2012): The project overtaking [their] land after discovery of Improving our approach seeks to reiterate the importance of the wetlands and marshes as a cultural valuable resources; in other cases it led to ccording to student Conrad and ecological keystone to the present and past generations of the Ohlone. amazing medical discoveries, but with no We wish to showcase the efforts being made to revive the various arts A Sasinski: “The class is well thought- accreditation to the knowledgeable tribal out, chronologically and ideologically. members. Experiencing reluctance from a Help the Wintu Save Their Home (12:52 minutes, 2012): As the class progresses, you learn more tribe isn’t uncommon given their history of about biocultural diversity, and as you gain previous outcomes.” knowledge you are able to include that in In the best-case scenarios, students your project.” To succeed with the assigned became scholar-apprentices to a tribal staff project, students must be able to draw clear Pomo 2 (4:04 minutes, 2012): Pomo Indians and current basket weaving person and managed to complete a project connections between culture and nature, trends. of direct use to a tribe or tribal community. something many of them hadn’t consciously This was the case for a 2013 student group done prior to taking the class. As implied by whose joint work with a Chumash tribe was the course title, nature and culture are often

58 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 59 seen as separate entities. When we embrace with the tribe members and see what they Further Reading the term biocultural diversity, however, we are working on – this would not only inspire see that the two are inextricably linked, and the students, but help them write.” Another Dr. Pfeiffer’s YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/DrPfeiffer the loss (or conservation) of one is directly student, Trevor Raff, appreciated the virtual Indian Country Today news articles by San José State University students: Tule River Tribe Knows Basket-Weaving Is Interwoven With Cultural Identity linked to the loss (or conservation) of the effort of seeking knowledge firsthand outside https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/07/tule-river-tribe-knows-basket-weaving-interwoven-cultural- other. In the words of student Tien Pham, of the classroom: “Because a book can only identity-150779 “When more people appreciate biodiversity tell one so much I feel it’s hard to really How Archie Thompson Saved the Yurok Language and the variety of cultural groups, appreciate something for what it is unless http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/16/how-archie-thompson-saved-yurok-language-150910 biodiversity will have a better chance of you observe it with your own eyes. I also was surviving and tribal groups will have a better taught at a young age to question authority chance of preserving their cultures.” and go out and seek the truth for myself. Overall, students agreed that the group I feel it’s crucial for all to learn about the project is definitely a challenge, one that Native Americans and all of the knowledge pushes students to go explore and deepen they have to offer that you really literally can’t their understanding about the world. As find in books.” one student testifies, “Going outside of the Direct, one-on-one interactions with university walls allows students to gain Native Californian tribes and tribal cultural knowledge of cultures other than his communities requires instructors and or her own. The process of learning from an students to make an extra, and in some cases, outside source not only influences a student extraordinary effort. Most tribal reservations academically, it ultimately changes the and Rancherias are geographically isolated: student’s perspective of culture and his or her the average San José student would have own way of living.” to drive at least four hours (round-trip) to More importantly, for students attending reach the closest land-based tribal group. To a California State University, gaining deeper overcome this distance, the instructor relies familiarity with the First Nations who heavily on films, video clips, podcasts, and occupied the land- and seascape provides online guest speakers; yet when students are students with a new set of eyes to interpret able to make the trip – oftentimes a group of the world around them. The instructor students will carpool to an event – they are encourages her students to constantly ask the delighted to have made the effort. question “Who was here first?” when visiting Biocultural diversity is best understood State and National Parks, driving along State through lived experience: by hearing personal highways, and commuting through urban testimony, by participating in a hands-on areas. In another student’s words: “Students event, or by getting to know a practitioner. In need to develop an understanding of their this Nature and World Cultures class, students country’s history and the people that lived here before it was even a country. They need are given every opportunity to do so, on all to realize that higher education is a tool, but counts. In most cases, according to post-class it’s not the end-all cure-all explanation of the student evaluations, it is a life-changing event. Pomo Basket- Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History By Daderot (Daderot), via Wikimedia u8 universe.” Commons According to one student: “It would be much more beneficial to meet in person

60 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 61 Ancestral campesino ways of teaching- learning are based on respecting and harmonizing with their landscape and deities. Their values and knowledge have allowed the regeneration of their cosmovision. Evaristo Lliuya’s family hilling potato furrows. Evaristo Lliuya’s family. Sector Atocpampa, Comunidad Campesina Túpac Yupanqui, San Miguel de Acco District, Huaraz Province, Ancash Region, Peru. Photo © PRATEC 2010 Communities Nurturing Their School: A Biocultural Approach to Education in the Peruvian Andes Grimaldo Rengifo, Tirso Gonzales and Karina Costilla

62 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 63 Asociacion de Maestros Interculturales de la Region Ancash (Association of Intercultural Teachers, Ancash Region, Peru). Native Seed Exchange among Primary Schools, Baños La Merced, Carhuaz, Ancash, Peru. 2013. Teachers: Nancy Bojorquez Rojas, Ana Chavez Fortuna, Abila Romero, Wenceslao Rosario, Eyda Tarazona Vilchez, Miriam Vitorio, Marcela Isla Berrospi, Enma Bojorquez Rojas, Sisy Loli Fortuna, Antonio Caushi Alvarado, Martin León, Soledad Cuizano, Grimaldo Gomero, Doris Osorio, Edda Colonia, Yovana Salazar, Willmer Mallqui, Karina Costilla. Photo © PRATEC 2010 Seed Exchange among primary schools. Primary school kids, peasant community members, Baños La Merced, Carhuaz, Ancash, Peru. Photo © PRATEC 2013 Introduction The story on Rigoberto Ticona Jiménez – a peasant farmer from the community of D Chachacumani, Juli, Puno, Peru – untied his ritual bundle containing a diversity he C&B program did not aim at school reform. It could not, since its experience as of seeds from his family’s latest harvest and uttered: “This is my Paya Yatiwi [two kinds of T an NGO consisted in a six-year program (1995-2000) on agrobiodiversity conservation knowledge].” Along with a rich variety of native potatoes, his bundle also included some with farmer communities, built on a previous (and continuing) effort based on the production hybrid potatoes and non-native grain crops. of a wealth of booklets documenting indigenous agricultural practices. Realizing that such practices could only be understood within the cosmovision of the culture in which they That was at the opening ritual for the final workshop of Phase One of the Children and were hosted – one of the centers of origin of agriculture, possessing the highest cultivated Biodiversity Educational Program (C&B) that Proyecto Andino de Tecnologías Campesinas biodiversity in the planet – PRATEC, invited by a local university interested in incorporating (PRATEC, or Andean Project for Peasant Technologies) conducted in the period 2002- Andean agriculture in its teaching, undertook the task of unveiling the theoretical bases that 2007. The workshop took place in Lamas, in the Upper Amazon region of San Martín, and underpin those practices. This initiative led to an annual postgraduate course, oriented to was attended by some fifty people including rural teachers, parents, community elders, university teachers, on Andean peasant agriculture and culture (1990-1999). participating members of the seven Nuclei for Andean Amazonian Cultural Affirmation (NACAs), and PRATEC. While the course did not achieve its aim in the university, it had the unexpected effect of stimulating a number of its graduates to follow the lead of the two community-based

64 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 65 There had been a remarkable change in the perception of the Andean rural families regarding the role of the school and the value of their own knowledge. The communities were not demanding the elimination of the school, but its transformation – cooperating with the teachers in order to meet three urgent tasks: 1) restoring respect in community life; 2) learning to read and write in Spanish; and 3) restoring the “oficios” (or campesino skills like pottery making, weaving, healing, native cooking, music, dance, agriculture and husbandry, etc.) – that is, the traditional know-how that enables a community member to “pass life”, to live well.

was the readiness of the experienced facilitators of the community groups that formed the NACAs to explore the uncharted territory of knowledge transmission. Given this background, the program was undertaken by the community to nuture the school, and our initial explicit aim was to contribute to the incorporation of local knowledge into the school curriculum, involving parents and community elders in school activities. The activities of the first phase (2002-2004) led to the recognition that the official Bilingual Teaching writing and reading departs from strengthening the native language orality. Readings Intercultural Education Program (Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, EIB) made use of native are culture-context related. Narratives are based on their reality within a loving environment languages for the transmission of modernist contents, and that rural teachers had not been and intercultural trust. Children in reading area. Instituto de Educacion Inicial, District of trained to incorporate local knowledge in the school curriculum. Losing the role that the Quinranca, Comunidad Campesina Tupac Yupanqui, District of San Miguel de Acco, Huaraz communities had accorded them as authorities for cultural mediation, they had become the Province, Ancash Region, Peru. Photo © PRATEC 2011 transmission belt of an urban-based top-down process of cultural assimilation. The parents’ association controlling teachers’ attendance was the telling indicator of a relationship gone organizations that, along with PRATEC, nurtured the NACA family in the late 1990s. Starting sour. with the first group of six NACAs, they carried out a program on the revitalization of Andean peasant agriculture with the objective of improving productivity based on the regeneration The program components regarding food sufficiency were instrumental in making evident of traditional practices. PRATEC’s initial findings led to recovery of the following: 1) that there persists in agrocentric Andean communities an educational culture oriented to biodiversity (seed vitality through exchange); 2) mutual aid through ancestral communal the life-long formation of a community member – imparted through his/her participation work modalities like ayni (cooperation among families) and minka (community labor); and from early childhood in family, communiy activities, and in the exercise of positions of 3) rituals and festivals to invigorate the relationship with deities – especially with Pachamama authority. At the same time, the program revealed the reasons behind the community-school (Mother Earth). divide: schooling was part of the ongoing rural development process initiated by the 1969 agrarian reform that profoundly transformed the Peruvian countryside. We understood that Thus, when PRATEC’S rural educational program started in 2002 with the support of as the educational system aligned itself with the state’s push for agricultural modernization TDH-Germany and funds from the German Ministry of Cooperation and Development brought by the reform, it was complicit in producing the visible obstacles to Sumaq Kawsay (BMZ), PRATEC could count on a sizable sample of indigenous know-how (over 2,500 in Quechua and Suma Jakaña or Qamaña in Aymara (living well, good living): loss of native technological booklets). This was the result of PRATEC’s initial effort in documenting seed diversity in their fields; the pollution of soil and water caused by chemical fertilizers knowledge formation in the Andean communities, as well as the collective reflection in and pesticides; the erosion of inter-generational respect and knowledge transmission; the successive versions of the annual course. But for the task at hand, the most important asset

66 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 67 In the first semester of 2004 there was consultation with the participating communities asking them about the kind of knowledge they felt their children should learn – the community’s or the school’s? “Both!” was the unanimous answer. Doña Agripina Morel, a Quechua from the community of Cotahuacho, Andahuaylas, Apurímac explained why: “Our children leave school and do not know how to read and write and their respect has been lost. They leave with University certificates and there are no jobs.” There had been a remarkable change in the perception of the Andean rural families regarding the role of the school and the value of their own knowledge. The communities were not demanding the elimination of the school, but its transformation – cooperating with the teachers in order to meet three urgent tasks: 1) restoring respect in community life; 2) learning to read and write in Spanish; and 3) restoring the “oficios” (or campesino skills like pottery making, weaving, healing, native cooking, music, dance, agriculture and husbandry, etc.) – that is, the traditional know-how that enables a community member to “pass life”, to live well. Iskay Yachay / Paya Yatiwi he program’s second phase (2005-2008) sought ways to attend to what we T understood was the communities’ demand for Iskay Yachay (in the Quechua language) / Paya Yatiwi (in Aymara), “two kinds of knowledge”. The NACAs incorporated new lines of activities with the communities and teachers who volunteered to explore the multiple challenges of nurturing biocultural diversity. A first line of activities involved linking the nurturance of agrobiodiversity with the food Elaboration of the agrofestive and ritual calendar to incorporate local andean knowledge in the eaten by children in their homes and the school. A state program aimed at rural schools curricula. Teachers working on agrofestive and ritual calendar. Location: Urpichallay, Marcara, had substituted the school lunch that students traditionally shared with the individual Carhuaz, Ancash, Peru. Teachers: Soledad Cuizano, Zoila Suarez, Jose M Rosales, Alejandra consumption of industrial snacks. Olivera, Margarita Mellisho. Photo © PRATEC 2012 The increased participation of parents in fostering the inclusion of local knowledge in school curriculum led to dialogue with the local state educational establishment presently dissemination of religious fundamentalism; and thus, the weakening of community bonds. implementing a national policy for bilingual intercultural education. Teachers were now officers of a state intent on industrial development based on food produced with the Green Revolution package: knowledge generated outside the community, The main emphasis in this phase was to form teachers as cultural mediators in the credit that bought “improved” seeds, chemicals, and agricultural machinery. regeneration of the Andean Amazonian communities’ educational culture. The challenge was to gather a contingent of teachers committed to basing their teaching on local knowledge and The conversations with teachers during the program’s first phase proved crucial to bridge making the school complement and enhance the community’s educational culture through the divide with their schools’ communities. Most of them had a vivid recollection of the with the contributions of scientific and technical knowledge to Sumaq Kawsay / Suma Jakaña community education received in their early years from their grandparents and elders; thus or Qamaña. the majority were willing to start making chacra (agricultural field) with the students, with help from their parents, as part of the school program. The elaboration of the communities’ By cultural mediation we understand the nurturance of the cultural diversity existing in agrofestive calendar became a popular and useful tool to build a common ground for our places. This implies respect for the multiple and changing ways in which different peoples collaboration, valuing the meaning of the Andean tradition of Sumaq Kawsay / Suma Jakaña live the world they dwell in. It is the teacher’s privilege to promote, in the classroom and or Qamaña. elsewhere, the dialogue among diverse cognitive traditions. Her/his challenge is doing it in

68 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 69 the midst of colonization, expressed through an official education system aiming at the local application of standard global methods, instead of being locally pertinent. Pertinence in who is just learning, reads haltingly, the others listening and looking at the lines where education, in our view, is at hand: it is local and has all to do with Sumaq Kawsay / Suma the tiny index walks. ‘I did not know how to read, but I learned looking at my son reading’.” Jakaña or Qamaña. Campesinos learn to read as they learn to nurture plants: looking at how it is done in the To mediate means not to place oneself in the middle of diverse traditions to arbitrate proper moment. Learning to read and write along with science seems to require a willing among them, but to start nurturing one’s own tradition in order to attain the capability of vital community that values its oral and literate life worlds. nurturing others and letting oneself be nurtured by them. This implies a basic knowledge of What next? the cosmovisions at play in the classroom without attempting to accommodate one tradition within the other. n our view, don Rigoberto’s Iskay Yachay / Paya Yatiwi “two forms of knowledge” can be taken as a global call for radical cultural plurality from our central Andes, in which the Mediation is a daily challenge for the teacher since, regardless of her/his awareness, I the reasoning in the curriculum s/he develops leads her/him to assume that the goal for communities’ biocultural approach to education should be considered a modest but certain the students to attain is the abstract apprehension of their life world. Even if s/he speaks foundation for Sumaq Kawsay / Suma Jakaña or Qamaña in our only planet, Earth. u8 Quechua, Aymara or another native language, her/his training has made her/him privilege abstract reasoning as the means and end of even bilingual intercultural education. Further Reading Esteva, Gustavo; Salvatore Babones & Phillip Babcicky. 2013. The Future of Development: A Radical Manifesto.Bristol: The Teacher Formation Diploma course that PRATEC organized with a local university, Policy Press combined workshops for reflection on subjects related to the Andean and the modern Marcos, Sylvia. 2006. Taken from the Lips: Gender and Eros in Mesoamerican Religions. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Western cosmovisions, with fieldwork on the communities’ educational culture consisting of Rengifo, Grimaldo. 2005. The educational culture of the Andean-Amazonian community”, InterCulture148.Montréal: the collection of knowledge and practices and the elaboration of the agrofestive calendars. Intercultural Institute of Montreal. Over six months there were three workshops with a duration of ten days each. Teachers were presented with some twenty different topics on Iskay Yachay for reflection and debate, exploring the application of their conclusions to their activity. This program demanded the elaboration of a curriculum to facilitate the creation of a shared discourse of the Andean life world and the cosmovisions underlying modern science and technology. The fieldwork was In its original Quechua meaning, sumak refers to aimed at making the teacher adept in listening attentively to the community. What is the science behind the assertion “You have your science and we have ours” as one expression of the ideal and beautiful unfolding of the planet, the equivalence of all kinds of knowledge? while kawsay means “life”, a life with dignity Most of the participating NACAs promoted the formation of autonomous teacher networks, capable of formulating proposals at different levels of the educational and plenitude. The ancestral sumak kawsay establishment. sees people as an element of Pachamama, or On orality / literacy he reflection and debates within the ongoing decentralized program revealed a Mother Earth. As such, unlike other paradigms, T major stumbling block in the literacy/orality divide. This divide has led us astray, we the contemporary “right living”, inspired by feel, in our explorations of how to deal with teaching reading and writing as practical skills. Our idea was that literacy has as prerequisite the affirmation of the child in orality, that if his/ indigenous tradition, seeks a balance with nature her oral skills are respected and strengthened, then literacy can proceed. Orality expresses the educational culture of the community, and our exploration of the forms in which literate in the fulfillment of [human] needs (“taking only culture could be incremental, adding to instead of replacing it were still based on bridging the divide of oral/literate mentalities. The experience of the rural libraries in Cajamarca is what is needed”, with an aim to endure), over an inspiration for alternatives because, according to coordinator Alfredo Mires Ortiz, “[It] has taught us a literacy…, born of the capacity for nurturance of the campesinos. Around and above mere economic growth. the stove, once dinner is over, all huddled together, and by the candlelight a child reads. The parents, grandparents and elder brothers scarcely know that the “o” is round. The child 70 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 71 Reawakening Biocultural Heritage through Art Art Corps

n the remote highlands of jeopardized by land disputes. Grandparents I Guatemala, teachers and community barely speak Spanish and their members are learning new ways to recover grandchildren don’t speak K’iché. Teens ancient Maya K’iché knowledge. Art often look steadily to a country in the north, “The gets sidelined in education and development States” as they call it, where many of their approaches and is regarded as a luxury that fathers have been for years. only an elite few can pursue, especially As Totonicapán’s Maya K’iché elders when daily survival is a struggle. ArtCorps, continue to age, they fear collective memory a nonprofit based in Ipswich, Mass., USA, loss. There is no systematized version of how has discovered that reawakening our innate and why to manage the forest in a state of creativity promotes human development, ecological equilibrium, and the rich tapestry plays a critical role in reclaiming indigenous of stories and practices that have protected wisdom, and supports communities to the world’s largest remaining stand of respond more effectively to the complex endangered Guatemalan fir trees are neither social and environmental challenges we face. collected nor recorded. Extreme levels of poverty, immigration, Over a two-year period, ArtCorps and deforestation are some of the factors partnered with EcoLogic Development that threaten the continuation of the Fund and 48 Cantons of Totonicapán to Maya K’iché language and harmonious collaboratively design and implement coexistence with nature. These threats an arts-based approach to conserve the are exacerbated by a generational breach biocultural heritage of the Maya K’iché across language, technology, geography, and cultivate the leadership of their youth. and consumer culture – making the need EcoLogic works to empower rural and for the conservation of ancestral knowledge indigenous peoples to restore and protect Artisan potter Juan Agapito Våzquez and his mother María Våzquez with bas-reliefs and practices more important than ever. tropical ecosystems in Central America and fresh from the kiln, Xolsacmalja, Photo © Art Corps 2013 The communal forest is at risk and further Mexico. Partner organization, 48 Cantons, 72 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 73 and utilizing diverse illustration and wisdom, the project also resulted in techniques. increased confidence, imagination, and The stories were collected by critical thinking among the children; in attending the weekly Pixab or turn, their teachers learned innovative Council of Elders and interviewing processes that can be used to creatively the grandparents of the children engage their students. involved in the project. The stories Recycled Art Murals told were about the ways of the Maya K’iché people, called Ajaw Reclaim Public Space or Creators of the mountain nother arts-based project set and water, including traditional A out to transform the abandoned customs to care for the forest and town plaza of Totonicapán through the teachings about the nature of creation and installation of giant mosaics Mosaic murals from recycled plastic bottle caps interdependence between human made out of recycled plastic bottle caps. depict the dreams of youth leaders from recycled beings and the earth. Twenty-two young Maya K’iché women and plastic bottle caps, La Union Park, Totonicapan, The young people researched twenty young Maya K’iché men from the Photo © Art Corps 2013 CDRO staff, community leaders and teachers make topics at the intersection of Xolsacmaljá high school ArtCorps group Purpose Masks in ArtCorps’ Creative Leadership led this revitalization effort. They began by of trees where many birds lived. I remember community development and how the birds used to sing at dusk. This training, Totonicapán, Photo © Art Corps 2014 natural resource management studying traditional weaving patterns as an inspiration for the design of the murals. park no longer exists and now all we see is a centuries-old Maya-Quiché governing such as reforestation, indigenous are ugly panels and a lot of dust. Our efforts conservation practices, recycling and At the same time that they examined their body responsible for managing the natural cultural values in creative workshops, they are aimed at raising awareness about this resources of the villages surrounding waste management, natural disasters, situation, as a call for those in charge of and community engagement. For the also generated collective visions for their the Los Altos de San Miguel Forest. Our community. By representing their ideal urban development to prioritize green collaborative project, “Awakening a Culture illustrations, the children experimented spaces and recreation areas for the well- with a variety of techniques and visual futures in the murals with the discarded of Conservation,” set out to document bottle caps they collected from their streets being of residents.” indigenous knowledge and revitalize mediums such as sketching in the woods, shadow drawing, collage, stamp-making, and neighbors, they transformed garbage The giant 80 by 90 foot mosaics were put traditional conservation practices by into eye-catching and inspiring messages of in place, covering the rusty tin panels and developing the biocultural stewardship and photo montages. They spent time in the San Miguel Forest to listen to the sound of hope. This process allowed the youth to put filling the plaza with color and beauty. Upon skills in youth, harnessing their creativity to their dreams on public display and recover a seeing the installations, passersby showed educate and engage their communities. the firs and pines – smell them, touch them, and draw them. This experience allowed the sense of place in the urban streets and local their curiosity and stopped to congratulate Wisdom of the Rocky Hillsides children to develop a deep connection to biosphere they call home. the youth and collaborators. One could hear the forest ecosystem in which they live and As a part of the mural unveiling, the exclamations of “Look how you made use of his collaboration was informed by express that feeling through their artwork. youth also performed a play that led the garbage!” “Look how you took advantage of a community research project, designed T audience to reflect on the causes and effects what we throw out!” and “How beautiful—I and implemented by ArtCorps artist Wisdom of the Rocky Hillsides was of pollution and littering. Through theater, was tired of seeing those ugly panels.” Isabel Carrió, which documented the oral published and launched during Green Week the murals, and public dialogue they histories of the elders and their relationship 2013 to celebrate the achievement of the The admiration and comments from the motivated the community to think of ways to the land. Wisdom of the Rocky Hillsides, children, teachers, and collaborators. Copies people confirmed that beyond transforming to creatively solve this problem. One teen a bilingual (Spanish-Maya K’iché) book of the book were distributed to local schools the main street of Totonicapán, this explained the main reason for these public was written and illustrated by students and libraries and exhibited internationally. initiative raised awareness about the activities: “In the main plaza of Totonicapán, who documented Mayan environmental In addition to the preservation and importance of environmental conservation, there was a very old and beautiful park full stories by interviewing their grandparents dissemination of ancestral language renewed appreciation for the role young 74 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 75 people can play as leaders, and reawakened not to immigrate to the North in search of council as well as a group of 25 Totonicapán elders. The shared vision generated by an the spirit and pride of a community. a better life, and instead plan to create the teachers and 10 community leaders of an artistic representation helps a group establish futures they dreamed of at home in the indigenous-led environmental stewardship a collective purpose, along with a sense of Clay Sculptures Revive highlands of Guatemala. organization. belonging and responsibility to one another. History of Public Baths ArtCorps’ Integral and ArtCorps’ trainings in Creative Leadership On the systemic level, participants use rtCorps also facilitated a Arts-Based Approach for Social Change provide community drawings, songs and skits to critically analyze A sculpture mural project in which 12 leaders and educators around the world the structural conditions and root causes of women artisans and 25 children designed he role art played in with new ways of engaging individuals their problems and explore how to have more and created bas-reliefs from clay which were T strengthening the relationship and groups through a variety of creative meaningful impact in the systems in which installed on the outside wall of the historic between generations, honoring historical facilitation methods that cultivate multiple they live–social, economic, political and public baths in Totonicapán. The project was sites, valuing natural resources, and intelligences, critical thinking, and ecological. They learn how to strategically informed by the group’s research about the preserving cultural identity was collaboration. ArtCorps has developed a apply arts-based tactics to leverage systems thermal baths, which date back to 1855, and unprecedented in Totonicapán. Research in holistic methodology that nurtures creativity change by strengthening campaigns, incorporated traditional pottery techniques the realm of biocultural neuroscience (see and impacts the four key development areas generating more empowering narratives, from the region to emphasize their cultural http://embodiedecologies.moonfruit.com/ necessary for long-term change to take root: and implementing sustainable alternatives to heritage. home2/4579673629) supports this finding psychology, culture, behavior, and systems. existing systems. by demonstrating that learning experiences Based on integral theory, ArtCorps equips Stepping into the thermal baths takes ArtCorps has discovered that arts-based you hundreds of years into the past. This which combine sensory, linguistic, cultural, leaders and educators with arts-based tools and ecological approaches can result in and strategies that build creative capacity integral pedagogy empowers local groups iconic spot represents a source of strength and communities to blend traditional and for the community, where families have improved ecological literacy and natural by folding these four key areas into three resource management. dimensions of the human experience: contemporary perspectives as a means to soaked together, babies have received their safeguard ancient wisdom as well as foster first bath, and the elderly have soothed Numerous studies and reports indicate Individual Empowerment (psychology innovation. As the Guatemala Maya K’iché their aches and pains in the sulfur-infused that creativity is emerging as a key and behaviors), Community Development waters for generations. The participants leadership characteristic in the 21st century (relationships and culture), and Systemic in Totonicapán test and model these new used the clay sculptures to represent ancient due to the need to generate innovative Change (social, political, economic and creative approaches, they are seeding the customs for bathing that are still in use solutions and adapt quickly to the multiple ecological systems). conditions for a thriving ecosystem where today including the symbol of a boat which crises we face. Research reveals that highly On the individual level, arts-based everyone is encouraged to participate in its signifies the men’s designated bathing area; creative individuals exhibit leadership by processes allow participants to reflect care. They have truly exemplified the power the pashte, a natural sponge; and the wacal, challenging the status quo, taking risks, on their life journeys and validate their of art to harvest the wisdom of tradition in a small container used to hold water. experimenting with new approaches, and struggles and dreams through metaphor. order to shape a new path forward. u8 Through these community art projects examining alternative ways of solving Creative expression provides a powerful and installations, community members problems. Highly creative people also focus vehicle for participants to deepen their core Further Reading values, think in new ways, affirm their social Hochachka, G. (2005). Developing Sustainability, experienced how creative methods can be on future possibilities, think in terms of Developing the Self. An Integral Approach to International used to build leadership, explore different what if or what might be, and are adept at identities, identify strategies to overcome and Community Development. www.drishti.ca perspectives, reclaim traditional memory, inspiring others to participate and take fears, and access their deepest sense of life Maffi, L. & Woodley, E. (2010).Biocultural diversity action. purpose in order to move more boldly in the conservation: A global sourcebook. London: Earthscan. and create a shared vision. Thousands of Sternberg, R.J. ed. (1998). Handbook of Creativity. residents and visitors have viewed the public In order for community leaders and world. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. exhibits, raising awareness about the value teachers to continue cultivating creative On the community level, creative Sternberg, R.J. & Lubart, T.I.(1993). Investing in of their biocultural heritage. Passersby often leadership within the Totonicapán region, methods create a space for participants Creativity. Psychological Inquiry. 4(3), 229-232 Van Boeckel, J. (2013). At the Heart of Art and Earth: stop to observe and touch the sculptures, ArtCorps was asked to train the 38 newly to play together, share stories, take risks, An Exploration of Practices in Arts-Based Environmental taking in their textures and teachings in elected community representatives at resolve conflicts, and collaborate in ways Education. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Aalto multiple ways. After participating in the the start of their one-year term on the 48 that strengthen relationships and trust. University publication series. (73). Wilber, Ken (2000). A Theory of Everything: An Integral mural project, some of the youth resolved Cantons natural resource management Versatile processes also help to promote Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality. Boston: diversity, equality, and the inclusion of all Shambhala Publications. 76 | Langscape Summer 2014 voices in the community from children to Volume 3 Issue 1 | 77 Hishinlai’ (Kathy Sikorski): Elders grew JoAnne Moiese: Traditional learning was up on the land, and from a young age boys not a step-by-step learning process. It was and girls played with and/or made, as a learning through experience. The young form of practice, miniature versions of tools people would sit with the elders or resource needed for gender-appropriate roles, such as people to help with whatever task needed to hunting, fishing, taking care of animals, etc. be done. The elder/resource person would They also observed these activities from the then just start doing the task. The helper time of childhood, and then when they had would be given a task to do. As the work observed and practiced their skills over some went on, the student would listen to stories time, they replicated what had been observed that the elder/ resource person had to share. Ancient Teachings, Contemporary Learnings: with guidance from the experts of tools These stories in a roundabout way would be necessary for survival or everyday living. connected to the work that was being done. Interviews on Aboriginal Education Once the boys or girls had sufficient skills to The student would have to listen carefully use the real tools, then they were old enough to see the connection. The connection might to partake in subsistence activities. It is out happen that day, or it might be realized on the land that the young men and women at a later date. The elder/ resource person ow did teaching and learning take place in traditional communities, learn how to respect and care for the land, would not clearly say: “The meaning is… or H in the days before the imposition of the Western model of education—a model just as it had been for thousands of years. the protocol is...”. They would use different that encloses children and youth within the four walls of the institution called “school”, Lessons and wisdom that the elders everyday phrases. Questioning of the elder/ separating them out from nature and community, closing them off from cultural identity possessed about how to live respectfully resource person was usually not done. If and intergenerational flows, suppressing mother tongues, denigrating traditional with one another and with the natural there had to be questions asked, then they knowledge and values, and pushing students into the homogenized no man’s land of world were imparted through learning to would be short and not too many. It was Euro-Anglo-centric, urban-centric acculturation and biocultural disconnection? respect the social norms of the culture, and more practical hands-on learning with one- Several articles in this issue of Langscape have a great deal to say about this. But we also understanding how to behave and treat on-one instruction or demonstration. also wanted to ask a few Aboriginal wise persons some specific questions, zeroing in nature through songs and prayers. These Barbara Derrick: Every lesson a child on this topic. Our Tsilhqot’in (British Columbia, Canada) friend and collaborator Linda were learned from our ancestors, and were learns comes from the role-modeling of the Smith kindly circulated our questions to her network, and three Aboriginal women subsequently passed from one generation parents and grandparents: “see how I’m doing generously took time to respond: Hishinlai’ (Kathy Sikorski), Gwich’in Athabascan, to the next. Traditional knowledge, values, this, watch, now you try”. Although I wasn’t Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks (Alaska, USA); JoAnne beliefs, and practices are all-encompassing brought up on reserve, my mother took my Moiese, Williams Lake Indian Band, Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation (British Columbia, traits, and are transmitted throughout late brother and me during the summer Canada); and Barbara Derrick, Professional Artist, Xeni Gwet’in (Nemiah Valley) one’s daily life. They are transmitted to Xeni. My Atsoo (grandmother) was so Tsilhqot’in. We are very grateful to all three for their insights. intergenerationally through hard work ethics, patient! Her patience rubbed off on me. In Our leading questions were: 1. What were the traditional ways of teaching and which is a necessary part of surviving in one’s my teen years, if I wasn’t hanging around learning in First Nations societies (before the influence of western society in general and environment. with older adults, you could find me with of western schooling in particular)? 2. How did Elders impart lessons and wisdom about Stories, songs, dances, and ceremonies all the elders learning. (I also learned from non- how to live respectfully with one another and with the natural world? 3. How did Elders had a purpose that contributed to meaning native Elders. I sought their peaceful and teach about being connected with and caring for the land? 4. How did Elders transmit in life, lessons, giving thanks, and knowledge knowledgeable souls out to help ground me traditional knowledge, values, beliefs, and practices? 5. What was the role of stories, songs, of values and beliefs about appropriate and keep me focused.) There wasn’t such a dance, ceremonies, apprenticeship, learning by doing, moving through the landscape, behaviors. Place-based learning is rooted thing as completing something fast! In my etc., in imparting those lessons and wisdom? Our respondents variously chose to either in Indigenous cultures; it encompasses all own life I have lost our ancestor’s meditated answer each question in turn, or address the gist of the questions in a single answer. For facets of a community—their culture, values, pace of the morning hours, which have consistency, in the following we provide the answers without repeating the questions. beliefs, etc., which are then imparted to all changed into a lifetime “rush hour”. I was (Luisa Maffi) those whose identity evolves from that type told I couldn’t learn anything in a rush, that of learning. I needed to stop and look, listen and smell 78 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 79 what is going on in life. (Practicing their running around playing tag with my cousins. it like this… tap… tap… tap… Good luck, esteemed by the men because they were the teachings has saved my life on more than one She and all the elders I have learned from you’ll do great!” He left me standing there to only ones who could give life besides the occasion!) My grandmother’s and my mom’s take only what they need from the land… no go up in front of 200 people. I remember my Creator. Both men and women were able answers to my questions frequently started more, no less. legs shaking so badly, but he was right, I did to respect each other through the separate with, “They say…”, and a story about someone I heard my grandfather Jimmy used to great! circles. I used to think the old teachings were would be told. In today’s classrooms, transport fish from one creek to a dying lake. Through my own experience of about segregation but really the distinction “teaching outside of the box” is a fad. Yet, I A year or so later, the lake was filled with fish. apprenticeship, stories, songs, dance, and see our elders don’t have expensive rooms, between male and female had to be there first Another elder said to me, “Raise your nose learning by doing/moving through the to teach “respect of ourselves.” Today, men are furniture or documents for the transfer to the wind, you can smell the medicines landscape were essential. I learned the of knowledge. Just the earth, seasons and running women’s water circles, and women and identify them.” He was right, raising my differences between ceremony songs, as running sun ceremonies. The elders told whatever item is closest to them at the time. nose upwards enabled my eyes to note the to berry songs. As to hunting etc., each me one needs to know the difference in the I’ve helped clean fish and pack wood—it’s all clouds…if the clouds were hugging the tree of the songs had a rhythm, remember my part of what is next. line it was going to rain. Elders knew when, talking about energy? The elders taught me “energies” before a person can switch roles. Past Western society has programmed where and how to harvest from the earth that I needed to be able to distinguish the Lessons like these were taught in ceremonies. our children to be judgmental, deceptive for their homes and comfort. There was differences. The Prairies people have round A woman learned about water, the songs, the and perfect according to the academic rules. traditional knowledge, for example wood was dances in the winter, and powwows in the medicines etc., as the men learned about their Our cultural morals and values have been placed six feet away from the house because summer. Elders reminded me that they didn’t roles in their ceremonies. The most important replaced with a model that doesn’t work of mice. It was our responsibility as humans want to be noted as perfect! I was confused teaching is “correction.” My generation has with most learners in a school system! I am to respect animals and insects. Lastly, when when I started out 25 years ago. I didn’t know learned to fear “punishment” from “force” intrigued by the term “experiential learning”. we are canning in August, flies would swoop Elders have been teaching in this fashion for in from outside and pile up on the ceiling. An thousands of years! Western society’s school elder said to me: “Do you know why they do “I was told I couldn’t learn anything in a rush, that I needed systems have long been led by the “talking this?” I thought about it for quite some time to stop and look, listen and smell what is going on in life.” heads”, or professors/ teachers giving long and shrugged. “The protein from the food is lectures about something. The system appears transported to the ceiling through the steam to be relearning how to connect with its and the fly is doing its job by collecting it what an elder was! I assumed they were 65 because of residential school effects. The students in the world of academia. with its feet.” I was so impressed! Common +. In the Ojibwa community 56 is eldership male’s power is “discipline” not “force”. When the teachings are “forceful” they condemn and My first teacher was my Atsoo. I remember sense isn’t common—it has to be taught because it is aligned with the four principles failing grade one because if someone in through the old ones. of life. The elders told me, “Ceremony is life hurt loved ones. Discipline doesn’t chastise or my class coughed, I got it. I spent huge The elders I have learned from were and learning”. I listened to the stories because hurt the one learning, it is an honest critique amounts of time in bed from tonsillitis. I always, always doing something. If I came within each was a lesson and my answers. to help one change their course at that given can remember a couple of times visiting for a visit, I helped them finish their chores. While an elder told a story we could be moment. Women have the gift of “life” and my Atsoo and family in Onion Lake when Elders love to visit and chat up a storm. Some moving through muskeg. I would not only “nurturing”. My elder says too much woman I got tonsillitis so bad my throat felt like were quiet, and shared their knowledge by have to listen to the story but keep my focus power means too much nurturing and no on the medicines picked, or how the elder it was swelling shut. The second time my getting you to help them. When I wanted to one wants to do anything. If we learned to moved through different terrain. grandmother told me to wait for her while hear stories I brought a translator with me (I work together, respect male/female energy she went into the bush. When she came back don’t know my language) and loved hearing We have lost our traditional male and within ourselves first, our relationship to she had a couple of pine branches in her about what they learned. They were always female circles. The elders were able to impart the opposite sex and life, we would have a hand. She set out to make a tea while I went insightful, and wise about their life’s dealings. their wisdom in “traditional law” through connection to the earth again. The elders also to lie down again. When she gave me a cup All the elders that taught me how to do a these circles. Expectations of how we carried of this tea it was so ebony black and gross! I task then left me to do the rest on my own. I taught through clans. Everyone had a gift, ourselves were shared through different pinched my nose and drank it quickly! Next remember 95% of my experiences were more everyone had a choice. There was no such day, swelling and fever gone and I was up and like this example: “Here’s the drum… tap community functions. Women, the Sioux thing as “perfection”, we were all perfect with elders called Wiyan, or “little Creator”, were a job or gift on our journey. u8 80 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 81 . nature . language . culture . Langscape Terralingua Magazine UNITY IN BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY

langscape volume 3, issue 2 Winter 2014 Guest Editor | Gleb Raygorodetsky Share your voice for biocultural diversity! Biocultural Diversity and www.terralinguaubuntu.org Climate Change Adaptation

Terralingua Ubuntu: a space for Terralingua members and friends to come together as a community, connect, and work together to sustain the Call for Expressions of Interest biocultural diversity of life. ¶ From the word ubuntu in the isiXhosa and Coming Soon isiZulu languages of South Africa: 1. humanity or personhood, achieved through interconnectedness with other people and community; 2. an African We welcome articles, interviews, case studies, philosophy of humanism, grounded in the notion that human identity and poetry, expressions of art and photographs. dignity arise out of respect, concern, compassion, generosity, and reciprocity toward others--family, neighbors, ancestors, community, and the human race at large. http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/home.htm Become a Terralingua member, and join a vibrant worldwide network of biocultural diversity supporters and champions. Our new membership system Contact the Editor: offers several options, so that all can join and share their voice. Members receive our news, can enjoy our elegant magazine Langscape, participate in Ortixia Dilts, [email protected] our discussion forum, receive discounts on our publications, and more.

82 | Langscape Summer 2014 Volume 3 Issue 1 | 83 he process of developing a biocultural approach to education will provide an opportunity to T explore how local education processes shape and influence who we are and the ways we contribute to the knowledge base and behaviors of global society. What we teach and how we teach it differ among education systems and communities, and changes over time as societies evolve and incorporate new sources of knowledge. The mosaic of traditional Indigenous cultures and languages around the world is a source of diverse philosophies that have much to contribute to the problem-solving skills, spiritual growth, and resilience of humanity. The lessons of Aboriginal pedagogies, centered on the teaching of Elders and on hands-on, place-based learning, will also be crucial to the development of biocultural education approaches, by providing learners with a context for more holistic understandings. A multiple-perspectives approach will also foster knowledge exchange among communities in today’s global world.