Centuries of Language Centered Learning: Indigenous Cultures and Vygotsky.
Centuries of Language Centered Learning.
The primary finding of the Keresan concept of giftedness is that the special or unique talents, abilities, traits, and characteristic are reflections of a complex society which views the physical universe quite differently from mainstream society. --Mary E. Romero (1994).
The quest for a mono-linguistic culture and a pan-American Indian as a solution to the assimilation of the American Indian undermines the unique and sophisticated diversity of Tribes in the United States. The diversity of the original nations, the American Indians, was mined by the Endo-Europeans for the most visible resources, land and food. Now as we struggle to revitalize our language, we must justify scientific reasons for supporting our methods of instruction, curriculum, language revitalization and historical references. Vygotsky is scientific in his analysis of cognitive development which support language centered learning. Language centered learning is crucial in the cognitive development of the child/learner. Indigenous cultures, nations, and tribes have struggled to keep their traditions and people alive. The greatest threat has been language dominance and assimilation into the dominant culture. As sovereign nations, we need to balance the two cultures of existence but that does not mean we have to choose one over the other. I believe that through tolerance and community awareness, our national and tribal nation, will gain strength through cooperative relations in solving problems seen and unseen. Vygotsky’s theories parallel teachings contain experienced, witnessed, and researched in Indigenous Nations and cultures. He provides a theoretical framework from which we can employ in expanding our sophisticated and complex culture into the present state of educational policies that enrich all our lives.
Introduction
The Setting
I am going to give you a brief introduction of the six critical elements of Culturally Based Education (CBE) that emerged from the literature review in which Demmert and Towner analyze (2003). The sixth element will lead into my topic, “Centuries of Language Centered Learning: Indigenous Cultures and Vygotsky.” The sixth element of Culture Based Education is “Knowledge and use of the social and political mores of the community” (Demmert and Towner, 2003, p10). This examination of Culture Based Education (CBE) begins by comparing the inherited and established practices of Indian education with Vygotskian theories and how learners are educated in indigenous communities today. Vygotsky has “turn(ed) Western tradition on its head,” as Dr. Jim Lantolf stated in his introduction to social cultural theory on October, 2003 at the LRC Brown bag series. Vygotsky’s approach to education supports what many indigenous nations have been saying for centuries: Western tradition has been in direct opposition to Indian tradition. Researchers such as Mary E. Romero, Jerome Bruner, Teresa McCarty, and many others have focused on “theorizing from practice” as an approach to valuing indigenous education. Luis Moll calls these approaches “trends in action” (2001) which incorporate the Vygotskian educational model. These teaching methods and pedagogies were part of indigenous cultures centuries before the United States decided to assimilate American Indians into the American culture instead of annihilating them. Part of that assimilation included the eradication of native or what I will call heritage languages. Today, many indigenous learning models incorporate heritage languages for the powerful reason that language is the foundational structure that links us to our past and ancestry. Language is a crucial element of our social and psychological being (Reyhner, 1995).
Lev Vygotsky and Indigenous Cultures
Lev Vygotsky theorized that language forms the cognitive tools by which education, formal or informal, is developed. Languages are the social cultural tools which incorporate the acquisition of knowledge across the dynamic domains of human development: phylogenesis, ontogenesis, and social-historical theory. As seen in the figure 2, Phylogenesis refers to the evolution of the human species. Ontogensis is dependent on the genealogy of the parents. The social cultural domain is dependent on the era a child is born into and the culture that has developed in that time and place. Without language we could not analyze or explore the ideas, experiences or the history of being human. We could not bring the ancient knowledge of our ancestors into our contemporary experiences. The CBE approach to education incorporates and acknowledges individuals’ unique dynamic cognitive development within society and ancestry.