Indigenous People and Learning Procedure - Desklib

The report explores the indigenous culture, language, learning procedure and its presentation over mainstream media. It discusses the misrepresentation of aboriginal people on media platforms, the importance of reconciliation, indigenous ways of learning, and application of indigenous teaching methodologies in contemporary classroom. The report also highlights the significance of aboriginal language and its survival theory.

Running head: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AND LEARNING PROCEDURE
Indigenous People and Learning Procedure
Name of the university
Name of the student
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Part 1..........................................................................................................................................2
Representation of Aboriginal people on media platforms.....................................................2
Part 2..........................................................................................................................................4
Reconciliation........................................................................................................................4
Importance reconciliation for developing the healthier relationship.....................................5
Necessity of reconciliation.....................................................................................................5
Personal contribution to reconciliation..................................................................................6
Part 3..........................................................................................................................................6
a) Indigenous ways of learning...........................................................................................6
b) Lecture on native knowing..............................................................................................7
c) Application of indigenous teaching methodologies in contemporary classroom...........8
d) The reason behind transformation of teaching practices.................................................9
Part 4..........................................................................................................................................9
Significance of Aboriginal language and its survival theory.................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The entire report will revolve around the theme of aboriginal culture, language,
learning procedure and its presentation over mainstream media. The report is divided into
four separate parts concerning various indigenous activities and culture. The first part deals
with the procedure portraying aboriginal community through mainstream media platforms. It
has been observed that it is quite different from the way it actually is. Therefore, media has
been considered as the misleading medium as far as gaining knowledge about aboriginal
community is concerned. The next part deals with reconciliation with the reference of Dakota
38 and the process of promoting healthy relationship between nations. The third part states
variety of procedures related indigenous learning and how culture can be a source of learning
too. The final part deals with aboriginal languages and its usage over various platforms. .
Part 1
Representation of Aboriginal people on media platforms
Canadian society is continuously being developed as multicultural, which has brought
the issues of diverse communities in forefront. Analyzing the relationship between the
aboriginal people and media, as supported by Fleras (2015), it has been identified that by
introducing the multiculturalism policy through the media the Canadian government has tried
to remove the discriminatory barriers. By contributing in improving the quality and quantity
of minority representation, social media platforms, governing bodies are trying to shed light
on the principle of negativity and conflict. It cannot be denied that in case of making the
misrepresentation of aboriginals, media has played an influential role. By highlighting the
crisis, conflict and crime the problems among the aboriginal people have been highlighted.
On the other hand, it has been analyzed by me that the film industry has also major
contribution in showing the revolution in living status of aboriginal people. The media has

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played an important role for driving the political control of aboriginal people by ensuring
their ownership and speaking abilities. However, despite the growing relationship between
aboriginal culture and media; analyzing the media impact on the aboriginal people the current
observation records that in most of the areas such relations, issues of civilians irrespective of
gender and age are being ignored and viewed through stereotypes. It escalated the matter to
wrong presentation of aboriginal culture. Such media presentation has led to a threat to
Canada’s communal integrity and national matters. The social structure of Canada along with
social harmony got highly affected by such ill media presentation. These kind of presentation
creating tension and leading towards occurrence of crime incidents.
Apart from some negative examples, with the advancement of technology indigenous
people have been using media in favor of their interest and to empower them overcoming the
past stereotypes associated to their culture. Being educated, they have started to perceive
various modes of media technology along with contemporary social media platforms as tools
to represents their grievances regarding culture and socio-economic position. However, this
process is much unlike to the mainstream media and their representation of their community.
This has been recognized as ethic or aboriginal media which targets ethic communities and
people who used to believe mainstream media which used to shape public opinion about
them. Therefore, it can be stated that, instead of telling stories and giving references to
aboriginal stereotypes; aboriginal media have started to represent political, social and
economic issues along with delivering perspectives to audiences. Media norms were modified
by ethnic journalists in order to restrict Euro-Canadian unrest, demolish stereotypes and
ensure to present aboriginal perspectives and true incidents.
Even in Films too, Canadian values have been consistently misjudged and
misinterpreted too. Reportedly, 575 films were made specifically addressing Canadian
culture, society and fragmentary images. Improvements will come when mainstream media is

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going to consider the aboriginal community as the separate one and starts showing the reality
and their socio-economic issues. Unlike mainstream media platforms, ethic media represents
aboriginality under one national boundary just trying to execute traditions with different
culture and ideology.
Part 2
Reconciliation
The term Reconciliation is being considered as the accounting process in which the
agreement between different group of people and culture are being developed. In the other
words, it can be said that Reconciliation can be considered as the powerful action that
indicates the restoration of the friendly relations. As per the documentary called Dakota 38,
featured in Wilderutopia.com. (2019), reconciliation is being considered as the tool for
healing. The term Dakota means walking together in peace. One hundred and fifty years ago,
soldiers of United Nations made 38 Dakota men march towards the hanging platform in
Minnesota which has been marked as the most massive execution in history of US.
Jim Miller, being a native spiritual leader had a vision of conducting an inspirational
journey towards Minnesota for witnessing the slaughter. After analyzing the dream, he felt
the urge to conduct a trek to the place as a sign of showing respect. After the long tiring
journey to witness the place assassination, their prayer was the gesture of collective healing
and reconciliation. With the reference of Dakota 38, Youtube.com. (2019), the documentary
it can be stated rightfully that Jim’s ride brings hope to unprivileged, ethic communities who
are consistently suffering from communal resentfulness, frustration and perceives anger
against the governing body. Through Dakota 38, Jim tried to inspire the new generation to
eliminate the discrimination or at least appeals to the native community for strengthening
interpersonal bond by forgiveness and love.

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Importance reconciliation for developing the healthier relationship
Reconciliation is being considered as the process in which the role of forgiveness. In
this process by reestablishing thee healthy relation between different group of people the
health and wealth ness can be provided. In the film Dakota 38, the healing journey of the
Dakota people has been highlighted. By highlighting the healing journey of riders on the 330
mile across Dakota to Minnesota has been discussed. At the end of the Dakota War in the
year 1862, the largest mass execution has been highlighted. In the Dakota 38 film, traditional
believe of Dakota people has been identified. In the chapter 8, it has been identified that by
understanding the perspectives of individuals, the aboriginal people have developed the
relationship. It cannot be denied that reconciliation can play an important role for helping
individuals to understand the perspectives, respective challenges and interests of others.
Necessity of reconciliation
Analyzing the importance of the forgiveness, the most asked question is how people
can forgive someone and at the same time is not ready to welcome the offender back in their
life? From this question the journey of reconciliation starts just because the concept of
forgiveness is faulty. Forgiving does not always mean reconciling. While forgiveness is
process of self-realization and building a sense of self protection; on the other hand,
reconciliation is expressing the areas of dissatisfaction, mismatch and offense with the
offender himself. Whether forgiveness is a one man process, reconciliation is joint effort of
both the party. Jim wanted to present a gesture of peace by conducting the march to
Minnesota for making aware the multi-cultural society and gave them a message of healing
together whether from the sin or from a status of victim.
Personal contribution to reconciliation
Personally, to contribute in the process of reconciliation it takes to master the art of
acceptance. The attitude must be to love people whole heartedly yet be liberal enough to let

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them go as per their life decisions. Accepting change as the only constant of life people must
adapt continually with the transformation. People should include forgiveness into their way
of life in order to leave a peaceful and disturbance free life. Apart from personal and
professional relationship, people perceive offence out of racism, sexism and crime which
need reconciliation yet most of the time forgiveness is the only way to deal with this.
According to personal belief it can be said that the incident of Dakota is deeply rooted in
history of United States and in order to maintain the co-existence in coming days, the
initiative of horse riding indeed ultimate gesture of reconciliation. Nations, regularly feel
insecure and lack of trust across continents and within global space. The idea of living
together has to be merged with reconciliation which will contribute to the idea of peace
directly.
Part 3
a) Indigenous ways of learning
While researching on the ‘ways of learning’, the perception of indigenous people
regarding their own culture, their ideas and objectives matter. The concept is much similar to
“ways of being” and “ways of living”. The series of incidents through which aboriginal
culture has evolved, it has distinct pattern of transformation. The transition is a blend of
science and spirituality which represents their evolving knowledge, beliefs and their
perception of western people and similarly western’s perception regarding aboriginality.
Clearly, the entire case is being viewed in a sceptical manner. No matter how much the
community has evolved policy makers do not take the initiative to understand social
expressions of communities which are different from the cultural scape.
To mitigate such issues, indigenous communities of first nations have set research
guidelines to understand the process of evolution considering the historic research agendas

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and findings. The results suggest to develop strategies for expressing their struggle to
empower themselves. The educational curriculum does not include studies regarding
indigenous culture and such practices are restricting them consistently to represent them in
front of contemporary world. It can be stated that the exploration never ends as far as gaining
knowledge regarding aboriginal community or indigenous culture is concerned. Young
generation who belongs to western territory must consider culture as a source of knowledge
too. Understanding their nature, specification and learning data shapes the process of learning
from culture and through it.
b) Lecture on native knowing
According to Larry Merculieff’s lecture on ‘Native knowing’, TEDxHomer-Larry
Merculieff-Native Knowing. (2019), his upbringing was entirely traditional amidst of natural,
pure environment where different kinds of wild birds and animals were the part of ethnic life.
As a child and even as an adult, he was invited by people and even if not invited the culture
suggests to treat every visiting being as guests. Therefore, the lecturer have always been
receiving well greeted attitude from his community mates. He has described men of his peer
as highly active and officially educator of hunting, fishing whether women were the ones
who used to take him as company while berry picking, cooking and camping too. His life is
highly influenced by the stories he has been listening from his grandparents and family
members. While growing up, he also had a spiritual mentor who enlightened him regarding
relationship, masculinity, ethics or morality and hardships of life.
Development of his personality is partially based on the powerful words of his mentor
mostly. He also describes that how elders feel about learning things. He mentioned how his
elders expected to observe and learn on his own. Fortunately, according Richardson (2018),
he did not feel that there were not adequate staff to make him underqualified. From this
observation, it can be said that the environment where he was born and brought up, was

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enough to explore all the senses, thoughts and feels as a child without any strict instruction or
dictatorship. Hence, the first important fact is indigenous culture respects individuality unlike
modern society where parents put unnecessary discipline over children which restricts them
to learn and explore freely. He expressed his gratitude towards the culture where he has
grown up amidst the celebration of free will. Another important example can be given when
his mentor took him to a hunting session and he was fascinated by the weather and forgot the
purpose. However, his mentor gave him a lesson where he showed him folk of birds who are
flipping towards every direction yet were not colliding with each other. That is how he told
him to focus on his present rather than wandering away towards multiple direction. He
concluded saying that intelligence comes from gut feeling, senses, capability of
understanding something and intuition for achieving ultimate accuracy.
c) Application of indigenous teaching methodologies in contemporary classroom
As stated in Gay (2014), it has been noticed that nations belong to first community,
has a tendency to take the control of children’s education. In order to make parents
satisfied teachers have to be ready for handling cross cultural behaviour within classroom
of first nation’s schools and communities. It has been observed that contemporary
classroom scenario shows high diversity. With the gradual growth of such classroom
trends; schools and vocational institutions are emphasizing on cultural experiences and
cultural capability of educators while interviewing them. Therefore, considering the
essence of Larry’s lecture teachers need to provide flexibility, opportunities of group
discussion and activities to address aboriginal identity. Story telling is another method of
making students understand basic concepts of several lessons. Moreover, culture based
support is necessary. With the help of multimodal approach in classroom teachers can
overcome lingual differences at the early stage of learning.

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d) The reason behind transformation of teaching practices
As mentioned before, the students’ background is changing gradually. Immigration
and presence of multi-cultural society are the reasons behind it. First nations schools and
educational centres are determined to transform their methodology as demand of catering
students from aboriginal background is increasing. That is why, the trend has become
increasingly high to transform teaching methodologies. Surprisingly, educators and
communities are supporting this shift continuously.
Part 4
Significance of Aboriginal language and its survival theory
According to Bradley and Bradley (2013), various credible sources demand that one
third of the indigenous languages has the chance to survive in coming days and even less than
half languages will be considered as a mode of communication in next fifty years. However,
some of the structural factors have been acknowledged which contributes in retention of
language. The forefathers have invested their time, energy and blend love to every stories
they convey to younger generation. Stories are likely to remain in consciousness of people
and increase the chances of language retention. Another method is including aboriginal
languages to educational curriculum. It will enhance chances of language survival.
Conclusion
Therefore, to conclude it can be stated analysing the Dakota 38, the concept of co-
existence has been established. With the advancement of global culture, multi-cultural
societies has been reformed where aboriginal values and learning methodologies are very
much relevant as far as retention of indigenous language and culture are concerned.

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References
Bradley, D., & Bradley, M. (2013). Language attitudes: The key factor in language
maintenance. In Language endangerment and language maintenance (pp. 21-30).
Routledge.
Fleras, A. (2015). Multicultural Media in a Post-Multicultural Canada? Rethinking
Integration. Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition, 8(2).
Gay, G. (2014). Culturally responsive teaching principles, practices, and effects. Handbook
of urban education, 353-372.
Richardson, C. (2018). Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education: Are We
Adequately Preparing Pre-Service Teachers to Circumvent Cultural Marginality in the
Classroom?.
TEDxHomer-Larry Merculieff-Native Knowing. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6cmKeRV3Z0
Wilderutopia.com. (2019). Dakota 38 Documentary: Healing Journey of the Dakota People |
WilderUtopia.com. Retrieved from
https://www.wilderutopia.com/international/humanity/dakota-38-documentary-
healing-journey-of-the-dakota-people/
Youtube.com. (2019). DAKOTA 38 - Full Movie in HD. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pX6FBSUyQI

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