By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Old Ways Are the New Way Forward: How Indigenous pedagogy can benefit everyone
Jean-Paul Restoule, Chaw-win-is, Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, 2020/01/22
I ran across this article (18 page PDF) searching for related materials and find it well worth sharing. As the summary says, the article "argues that traditional Indigenous ways of teaching and learning are relevant not only for Indigenous people, but for the education of all people.' A good portion of the article is devoted to defining indigenous ways of teaching and learning, and many of the tenets will feel familiar to readers of this newsletter. Related: Cindy Peltier on two-eyed seeing "as a guiding approach for researchers offering Indigenous voices and ways of knowing as a means to shift existing qualitative research paradigms". More...
Old Ways Are the New Way Forward: How Indigenous pedagogy can benefit everyone
Collective strength and Indigenous solidarity (Advocate 26 03)
Hui-?-Motu is the annual national conference of Maori NZ Tertiary Education Union (TEU) members. This year the NTEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee continued our long standing exchange of knowledge with the TEU by having Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer (Deputy Chair A&TSI Policy Committee) and Frank Gafa (Branch Organiser, Monash University) attend Hui-?-Motu which was held in the Marae at Victoria University in Wellington. More...
NTEU National Executive passes condolence motion in recognition of Sam Watson
Earlier this week, the NTEU heard the sad news about the passing of Wangerriburra and Birri Gubba man Sam Watson at age 67. A former member of the NTEU, Sam Watson was a staunch Indigenous activist who inspired generations of other activists, not just in QLD but across the entire country. More...
Media Release: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student and staff numbers at universities hit by Coalition cuts
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) today responded to media releases from the Minister for Education, the Hon. Dan Tehan MP, which detailed the growth in the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students applying for and participating in tertiary education courses.
While welcoming the reported growth from the 2018 higher education full-year student data, the Union is greatly concerned that the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff employed in both secure and in fixed-term (contract) jobs has decreased under the Coalition Government, from 2014 to 2018, when compared to the previous governments in 2009 to 2013. More...
An online app for indigenous language users: Lakota
Press Pool (2019) Breakthrough app to allow for online learning of Lakota Indian Country Today November 21
I was intrigued by this announcement, for a number of reasons.
- many indigenous languages are disappearing as elders die; this mobile app or online tool is one way to preserve a language and teach it to new generations,
- ‘Owóksape also focuses on being culturally representative of the language. Not only are the visuals culturally appropriate, but the app includes cultural information such as the protocols that are required for speaking with elders, the use of kinship terminology, and the nuances of male and female speech within the Lakota language.’
- the app features strong integration to social media platforms and classrooms to create collaborative environments and meet specific language-learning needs for Indigenous communities
- ‘this particular program is best suited for true language revitalization needs because we’re trying to build real speakers of the language, not just hobbyist learners who do it on the side’.
The Language Conservancy plans on using the same breakthrough technology to replicate the app in other Indigenous languages. More...
Nature stories: Children experience the seasons with Indigenous knowledge keepers
On the winding trails the ground is covered with red and yellow maple tree leaves. These are ininaatigobagaa, the children and adults in our forest nature program have learned, in the Ojibwe language.
In the Humber Valley in the northwest end of Toronto, children examine and learn about the red oak acorns (mitigomin) that are not buried by the eastern grey squirrels (misagidamoo) and will grow into trees and feed future generations of squirrels. They are learning about the language of nature of that area. More...
Teaching truth and reconciliation in Canada: The perfect place to begin is right where a teacher stands
As researchers, teachers and administrators — one of whom is of Anishinaabe, German, and French heritage and one of whom is a longstanding non-Indigenous ally of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry — we have dedicated our careers to education for and about Indigenous people, and to Indigenous-led ally-building in education. More...
Universities don’t control the labour market: we shouldn’t fund them like they do
From 2020, universities will receive a certain amount of government funding based on four performance measures: student drop-out rates; participation of Indigenous, lower socioeconomic status and regional and remote students; student satisfaction with the university experience; and employment outcomes. More...
Bungled NZ census highlights need for multiple voting options to raise Māori participation
New Zealand’s government statistician resigned last week, following the release of an independent review of the 2018 census.The census was the first to be carried out online, but its 83% response rate fell short of the 94% target and was 9% lower than the previous census. Māori responses dropped 20% on the previous census. More...
Land occupation at Ihumātao: why the New Zealand government needs to act cautiously but quickly
When TJ Perenara took the field for the All Blacks against Australia, in the critical final match of the Bledisloe Cup series last month, he wore a band around his wrist with the word Ihumātao. Perenara is one of a growing number of people drawn to support the protest against a housing development of the Ōtuataua Stonefields on the Manukau Harbour, near Auckland’s international airport. More...
