Epistemological Diversity

Epistemology refers to the theory of knowledge. In a previous blog I spoke on what is worth knowing and I ended by questioning “what is not worth knowing?” When examining what constitutes as knowledge, we often times need to look at the various ways we acquire it. As humans our individual makeup is unique. We each have different intelligences and learn best when our educator provides various learning opportunities. I hope to work in a bilingual setting where the majority of my student’s accommodations will require me to differentiate my instruction according to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. No one person holds a particular intelligence but instead have a few that help with their general makeup. Some students are visual, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, logic learners. As teachers it is important that we realize each student has potential and the ability to learn. We learn in-school and out-of-school. Often times, we limit them and allow for fewer opportunities where they practice what they learn and engage them.

In the chapter “The Strengths of Indigenous Education” by Lomawaima and McCarty they express how detrimental stereotypes about Indian students being silent and stoic feed into them being looked as one-dimensional learners. As a result, they reduce Native learners to culturally distinct rooted practices that limit them to single learning dimensions. Lomawaima and McCarty hope to overturn misconceptions and provide readers with a different outlook on Native people. They strive to highlight Native epistemologies and the need for change in American schooling system.

Indigenous epistemologies differ from mainstream US epistemologies in that they are complex philosophical instruments. Native epistemologies view intellects as a property that is up for a person to solve and discover on their own. At the core is the learner/listener’s responsibility to put what is learned into practice and solve the mystery at hand. In US epistemologies the teacher feed students answers and provides for few inquiry activities which they make their own conclusions.

In American education we have a narrow standard view of education. Everything learned in schools is considered formal education while out-school education are considered informal. Indigenous people have been considered primitive people with no form of education. But, Indigenous education systems are in fact formalized to achieve educational goals where everyone is an educator. It is systematic in a sense where no two individual’s education is identical hence everyone’s intellectual makeup is different. Each person’s educational system consists of instruction in strength, according to gender, according to age, for leadership and according to clan or rank. As a test following all formal education, a person’s survival is considered the ultimate test.

Native caregivers provide multiple ways to instruct students to provide support and inquiry learning. Through the use songs, stories, speeches, oral teachings, as well as providing lecture, directions to shape their thought and behaviors. In addition, these pedagogies “have contributed to the language-rich life surrounding and nurturing Native people” which is why language and culture go hand in hand (p.36). Contrary to Indigenous-educational systems, current schooling practices provide less hands-on learning by doing and interaction with life forms. For many Native people, learning like this provides an emotional identity. Learning by doing in this type of system (US) is exclusive and is not the medium of instruction like in Indigenous educational systems. Another thing that is lacking in the educational system is the lack of responsibility placed on the children. Through responsibility and independence we create strong citizens capable of doing and thinking for themselves.

Throughout the years, Native individuals have been affected with the narrow perspective of how they learn that we disconnect them from their history and their roots. From reading this article, I began to see how a broader understanding of strengths of Indigenous educational systems need to be reexamined and how essential it is for current school practices need to incorporate and see the importance of home-based education. Home-based education for Native peoples was designed to draw connections and power from the cycles of life within the world. When we view them as capable learns and provide instruction from their home-based education with differentiating instruction according to each individual child, we no longer see them as one-dimensional learners.