Indigenous Learning-A new way to teach the masses

Enhancing the curriculum through indigenous knowledge

Today there is a growing recognition of the value of indigenous knowledge for sustainable development. It would, therefore, be wise to sustain indigenous knowledge in traditional communities and integrate it into the school curriculum where culturally and educationally appropriate.

Five ways indigenous knowledge could help enhance the curriculum include:

Learning Attitudes and Values for a Sustainable Future

Indigenous communities have lived in harmony with the environment and have utilised resources without impairing nature’s capacity to regenerate them. Their ways of living were sustainable. Indigenous knowledge shaped their values and attitudes towards environment, and it is these attitudes and values, which have guided their actions and made then sustainable. Therefore, indigenous knowledge can help to develop sensitive and caring values and attitudes and, thereby, promote a vision of a sustainable future.

Learning Through Culture

Indigenous knowledge is stored in culture in various forms, such as traditions, customs, folk stories, folk songs, folk dramas, legends, proverbs, myths, etc. Use of these cultural items as resources in schools can be very effective in bringing indigenous knowledge alive for the students. It would allow them to conceptualise places and issues not only in the local area but also beyond their immediate experience. Students will already be familiar with some aspects of indigenous culture and, therefore, may find it interesting to learn more about it through these cultural forms. It would also enable active participation as teachers could involve students in collecting folk stories, folk songs, legends, proverbs, etc., that are retold in their community.

Learning Across Generations

In view of its potential value for sustainable development, it is necessary to preserve indigenous knowledge for the benefit of future generations. Perhaps the best way to preserve indigenous knowledge would be the integration of indigenous knowledge into the school curriculum. This would encourage students to learn from their parents, grandparents and other adults in the community, and to appreciate and respect their knowledge. Such a relationship between young and older generations could help to mitigate the generation gap and help develop intergenerational harmony. Indigenous people, for the first time perhaps, would also get an opportunity to participate in curriculum development. The integration of indigenous knowledge into school curriculum would thus enable schools to act as agencies for transferring the culture of the society from one generation to the next.

Starting Locally: From the ‘Known’ to the ‘Unknown’

The philosophy of ‘from the known to the unknown’ should be adopted if education is to be effective. Therefore, it is wise to start with the knowledge about the local area which students are familiar with, and then gradually move to the knowledge about regional, national and global environments. Indigenous knowledge can play a significant role in education about the local area. In most societies, indigenous people have developed enormous volumes of knowledge over the centuries by directly interacting with the environment: knowledge about the soil, climate, water, forest, wildlife, minerals etc. in the locality. This ready-made knowledge system could easily be used in education if appropriate measures are taken to tap the indigenous knowledge, which remains in the memory of local elderly people.

Learning Outside the Classroom

Students can learn much from fieldwork in the local area. This calls for some prior knowledge and understanding. For instance, to be able to understand the relationship between indigenous people, soils and plants, students need to identify the plants and soil types in the local area. One way to get a preliminary knowledge of plants and soil types in the local environment is to consult indigenous people and invite them to teach your students in the field.

Indigenous people may also be willing to show students collections of artifacts and certain ceremonies and explain their significance and, where appropriate, share with them particular sites of special significance.