Page 437 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

412 D. Sutherland and D. Henning

I agree with you that some specific examples from Lutiel and Taylor’s program
would have brought some insight for me as well. From my perspective, locality,
identity and contexts are vital when we have to consider something that was con-
structed in a very different time and place and has taken on some sort of generalisable
impact. I sometimes wonder, “have educators even thought to question that?”
I believe this is an important role that non-eurowestern approaches to education
bring to this discussion. I think Luitel and Taylor missed this point in their writing.
I think that we should stop and question eurowestern approaches to education and
consider the local for its own sake because there are all these other ways of thinking
about teaching and learning, especially with mathematics and science.
I believe that in order to grasp issues that are imperative to our understanding
of local Indigenous knowledge in North America today, it is vital to have informa-
tion about and reflection upon the past in order to breach the cultural borders and
educate about the relevance of intercultural acceptance in our contemporary world.
Indigenous scholars like Waziyatawin and Yellow Bird (2005) reflect upon how
“the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised [which] is so deeply
entrenched in the United States and Canada, most of us have never learned how to
actively challenge the status quo” (p. 1). According to these Indigenous scholars
and other Indigenous research on colonisation, almost every system (government,
school, university, church, corporation, etc.) has been and is currently estab-
lished to continue the oppression of “difference” and maintain the privilege of the
colonisers.
In regards to your perspectives on transformative education, it’s so very clear for
me, as an educator trained and “brought up” so to speak from a foundational view-
point of eurowestern approaches and concepts, the decolonising experiences I have
been embracing as an Aboriginal scholar and researcher has transformed my life
and worldview. These decolonising experiences challenge our current knowledge
and understanding of education, which is based on a view of colonisation where
White is considered “normal” and others [or non-White] are considered “different,”
and which is more often than not, considered “lesser.”
My thoughts on the idea of glocalisation obviously come from a very real lived
approach for the most part. The eurowestern tradition and current knowledge of
global education is seen as the “foundational” approach to math and science. This
approach, many educators suggest, must be firmly planted in elementary students
in order for there to be sustainable success in the middle and secondary years of
schooling. However, when crossing from that space of European or “normal” into
that space of “difference” or Indigenous, we must assess whose foundations is
being referred to in relation to educational success. Truly, the eurowestern approaches
continuously have not worked in providing a sustainable and positive educational
experience for indigenous learners. From this vantage point, Luitel and Taylor and
I are in agreement. I have been empowered by going back to more pre-contact
traditional approaches and presenting them for the value they bring to learning and
teaching. In line with your thoughts on “the traps that the authors and the supervi-
sors have fallen into,” I believe that this chapter has crossed cultures as I discussed
above; however, these scholars, in trying to give name to their discoveries, reinstate