It is Time for Indian People to Define Indigenous Education on our Own Terms

DR. GREGORY CAJETE: Deep understanding of relationships and the significance of participation in all aspects of life are key to traditional American Indian education. Photo: Courtesy of Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, NM

Human societies have evolved a multitude of educational forms to survive and to express their unique cultural mythos. This cultural mythos also forms the foundation for each culture’s “guiding vision” (a culture’s story of itself and its perceived relationship to the world).

Societies use their guiding vision to set forth a set of “ideals” to guide and form the learning processes of their educational systems. The ideals reflect the culture’s most important qualities, behaviors, and value structures.  These values have generally been  predicated on things the society  considers central to its survival.

Deep understanding of relationships and the significance of participation in all aspects of life are key to traditional American Indian education. “Mitakuye Oyasin” (we are all related), a Lakota phrase, means that our lives are truly and profoundly connected to other people and the physical world.

Likewise, in tribal education, knowledge is gained from first-hand experience and then transmitted or explored through ritual, ceremony, art, and appropriate technology. Knowledge gained through these vehicles is then used in everyday living. Tribal education, in this context, becomes education for “life’s sake.”

American Indians have historically struggled to adapt to a modern educational process with its inherent social, political, and cultural baggage. Yet, American Indian cultural forms of education contain seeds for new models of educating that can enliven education as a whole. From these models, contemporary education tied to cultural roots can also evolve.

Tribal colleges were, in part, created to introduce a new “circle” to Indian education founded on the roots of tribal education and reflecting Indian needs, values, and socio/political issues.

The new circle was designed to encompass important ancestral traditions; emphasize respect for individual uniqueness in diverse spiritual expressions; facilitate understanding of history and culture; develop a strong sense of place and service to community; and forge a commitment to educational and social transformation. (Hampton, Eber, 1989. Toward a Re-definition of American Indian/Alaska Native Education.)

These thoughts regarding the “indigenous” perspective in the tribal college curriculum give rise to questions of how traditional knowledge should be conveyed and evaluated. Tribal colleges must continue to exploit all avenues of communication open to them.

The colleges must converse with communities, elders, indigenous scholars, and students about how to forge a contemporary “theory” for Indian education and how to develop curricula that reflect their educational processes and experiences. This is the collective effort that many tribal colleges are undertaking.

In the past, Indian education has been defined largely by non-Indian educators, politicians, and institutions. A huge volume of state and federal laws have entangled Indian leaders, educators, and whole communities in the federal bureaucracy for decades.

In fact, no single contemporary theory of Indian education exists to guide the implementation or direction of Indian educational curriculum development. Instead, according to the late Vine Deloria, Jr., what is called “Indian education” today is really a “compendium of models, methodologies, and techniques gleaned from various sources in mainstream American education and adapted to American Indian circumstances, usually with the underlying aim of cultural assimilation” (Deloria, 1992, The Perpetual Indian Message.)

It is time for Indian people to define Indian education in our own voice and in our own terms. It is time for Indian people to allow ourselves to explore and express the richness of our collective history in education. Among American Indians, education has always included a visionary expression of life. Tribal colleges should play a leading role in evolving the new expressions of indigenous education for a 21^st century world.

Gregory Cajete is Tewa from Santa Clara Pueblo and based in Rio Rancho, NM. He is director of Native American Studies and an associate professor in the Division of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. from the International College-Los Angeles New Philosophy Program in Social Science Education with an emphasis in Native American Studies.