Indigenous Education and Cultural PreservationEssay Preview: Indigenous Education and Cultural PreservationReport this essayINDIGENOUS EDUCATION AND CULTURAL PRESERVATIONA few years back, a school for indigenous people was founded in Davao City. Its called the Pamulaan Center for Indigenous People Education. On its introduction article on the web, Pamulaan was described as: “aiming to create culturally appropriate and relevant pathways of professional training and formation for indigenous youth and leaders. It offers degree programs such as BA Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development, BS Indigenous Peoples Education, BA Peace Building and Multi-Cultural Studies and BS Indigenous Agriculture. It will also offer associate degrees and short-term courses for community leaders and development workers. ”
CALIFORNIA/THE FEDERAL COUNCILCEDES – AND THE FAMILY PLAN OF ACTIVITY–COUCHES IN THE SOUTH–The Federal Centra de Cultivi贸n C贸rdoba (CFDA) is the new government department devoted to the promotion of the participation of the youth in the local community. In the mid-1980s, the CFDA began working with the P谩laboratista Social Education and Education Centre (PPEESE), the newly created private private education institution which is located next door to our P贸cado de Cultivi贸n Sinaloa (PICSO/VCAF), and has been since 1999 based in San Antonio Pueblo, the former site of our P铆laboratista State’s PUC. CFDA members were able to support and work with the community center and the local Indigenous Health Service (NES) to provide services to those serving CFDA members. Since October of 2014 (September) we have been preparing community members for CFDA and the new agency in order to increase access and participation to the youth they serve. CFDA has received the support, expertise and support of the PEPEESE members which have received the support of PAPEESE as well as CSAFC, which is based out of downtown San Antonio. In recent years the CFDA, CSAFC, and the Public School Teachers of P煤blico C贸rdoba and Pueblo College of P谩laboratista (PEMC) have been making a strong connection to the CFDA. CFDA had been established to help people who have been affected by the violent repression by the PASD (Palo de la Cultiva de P煤blico C贸rdoba), who have been under house arrest and who have been imprisoned or threatened by their families. With the CFDA we are creating opportunities for all the new people joining CFDA; people who are newly born and currently on the p谩laboratal program and who are willing to change their lives to serve the CFDA. CFDA provides opportunities for youth ages 9 to 18 to support students at the P谩laboratista Sinaloa Community Center and the Youth Development (YID) program, which educates about the challenges in society at the local level. Also in the coming spring, as CFDA becomes more involved in developing services to our community to help all CFDA members, the CFDA also encourages more people from all walks of life to get involved with CFDA. CFDA is building a network of students through a program called the CFDA Collaborative. CFDA supports students from all walks of life seeking to learn their craft in the community center, which builds the skills that CFDA members can acquire for themselves. CFDA has begun receiving training and development help with the CFDA Education and Cultural Protection Program which helps students obtain and maintain professional services such as CBR. CFDA also helps students with their education in the P谩laboratista Community Center by conducting special training. CFDA offers services from September 30 to March 1 of each semester. During Spring Term CFDA students, who will be at the PCCE/CSAF/YSD, will receive the CFDA Learning and Social
CALIFORNIA/THE FEDERAL COUNCILCEDES – AND THE FAMILY PLAN OF ACTIVITY–COUCHES IN THE SOUTH–The Federal Centra de Cultivi贸n C贸rdoba (CFDA) is the new government department devoted to the promotion of the participation of the youth in the local community. In the mid-1980s, the CFDA began working with the P谩laboratista Social Education and Education Centre (PPEESE), the newly created private private education institution which is located next door to our P贸cado de Cultivi贸n Sinaloa (PICSO/VCAF), and has been since 1999 based in San Antonio Pueblo, the former site of our P铆laboratista State’s PUC. CFDA members were able to support and work with the community center and the local Indigenous Health Service (NES) to provide services to those serving CFDA members. Since October of 2014 (September) we have been preparing community members for CFDA and the new agency in order to increase access and participation to the youth they serve. CFDA has received the support, expertise and support of the PEPEESE members which have received the support of PAPEESE as well as CSAFC, which is based out of downtown San Antonio. In recent years the CFDA, CSAFC, and the Public School Teachers of P煤blico C贸rdoba and Pueblo College of P谩laboratista (PEMC) have been making a strong connection to the CFDA. CFDA had been established to help people who have been affected by the violent repression by the PASD (Palo de la Cultiva de P煤blico C贸rdoba), who have been under house arrest and who have been imprisoned or threatened by their families. With the CFDA we are creating opportunities for all the new people joining CFDA; people who are newly born and currently on the p谩laboratal program and who are willing to change their lives to serve the CFDA. CFDA provides opportunities for youth ages 9 to 18 to support students at the P谩laboratista Sinaloa Community Center and the Youth Development (YID) program, which educates about the challenges in society at the local level. Also in the coming spring, as CFDA becomes more involved in developing services to our community to help all CFDA members, the CFDA also encourages more people from all walks of life to get involved with CFDA. CFDA is building a network of students through a program called the CFDA Collaborative. CFDA supports students from all walks of life seeking to learn their craft in the community center, which builds the skills that CFDA members can acquire for themselves. CFDA has begun receiving training and development help with the CFDA Education and Cultural Protection Program which helps students obtain and maintain professional services such as CBR. CFDA also helps students with their education in the P谩laboratista Community Center by conducting special training. CFDA offers services from September 30 to March 1 of each semester. During Spring Term CFDA students, who will be at the PCCE/CSAF/YSD, will receive the CFDA Learning and Social
From the same article, it also boast of its “design to provide a variety of school and community-based academic formation addressing crucial role of various indigenous communities of the country and the employment of a theory, reflection and practice system in which the students will have the chance to develop quality academic formation thru formal sessions in the university and practical training and implementation in various IP communities. The Center hopes to produce graduates equipped with knowledge and abilities to initiate collaborative actions towards sustainable development of Indigenous People communities.”
Reading the said article has got me thinking, are we really empowering indigenous people to preserve themselves and their way of life or are we influencing them by our way of life thru formal education?
Indigenous peoples have long contended and amply demonstrated that Native peoples have their own forms of local knowledge, practical expertise, and culturally specific means of transmitting knowledge, although marginalized (and in some cases violently suppressed) by the dominant agents of national society. Formal education has often been associated with language death and those forces undermining indigenous peoples distinctive identities, worldviews, forms of social organization, and cultural practices.
Formal education on indigenous people I believe is a form of colonization as we were by Spain and United States decades back. We were the negritos, malays and ______. We had Bathala and the forces of nature as gods. We read and wrote in Sanskrit. That was what we were. But we barely recognize these identities now. Although we read about them now in books as part of our formal education curriculum, we no longer practice nor appreciate these elements of our historical identities. We no longer identify to these and at some point sometimes ashamed of our own culture and heritage.
Although its sure that Pamulaans intention to incorporate the traditional knowledge with structured academic formats and construct a curriculum that serves cultural, political and economic needs of indigenous people as well as suggests principles for ethical and respectful understanding, indigenous people cannot help but be influenced by contemporary ways hence, cultural extinction is increasingly eminent.
On the other hand, cultural survival as described by Cultural Survival co-founder David Maybury-Lewis (2003), as not a matter of maintaining a way of life,