Abstract
We provide a response to Michiel van Eijck and Wolff-Michael Roth’s article and Michael Mueller and Deborah Tippins’ rejoinder. As we adhere to the conversation, we hope to bring new insights on the matter of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and/in science education. As the title suggests, we divided the present commentary in two distinct but interconnected sections. The first section (Giuliano) deals with the limitations imposed by language in dealing with a possible amalgamation of TEK into the traditional school science curriculum and the threat that such a move would represent to the value of keeping them distinct from one another. The second section (Nicholas) touches on the unseen (or ignored?) perils of neglecting indigenous voices in the debate—which, in itself, corresponds to yet another limiting factor inherent to this forum. Also, the second section reports on a professional experience with B.Ed. students that speaks to the practical implications of the current discussion. Combined, the two sections seek to uncover the potential significance of the TEK-WMS discussion to different education actors beyond the non-aboriginal scholarly world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The use of a Sheffer stroke (“∣”) indicates that the relationship between TEK and WMS is not a simple dichotomy of either/or (represented commonly by the use of a slash symbol, “/”), but instead a more complex interweaving of both TEK and WMS, or TEK|WMS. Therefore, the use of the Sheffer stroke helps conceptualize the complexity that permeates the present forum by acknowledging the recursive nature of the conversation that unfolds within the next few pages (e.g., Roth 2005).
Note that the adjective tentative is intentionally used here in the context of the fragmentary nature of education as an ongoing activity that is exclusively a human manifestation: We are “in the process of becoming—as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality” (Freire 1970, [2006], p. 84).
In a broader sense, we are all educators (Codo 1999).
Note that these roles frequently overlap.
On that note, I like to think of the chemist Hesse Darmstadt’s dream of a snake biting its own tale as a good example of when a unambiguous differentiation between TEK and WMS is hardly possible. According to Dixon (1973, p. 24): “there are numerous episodes in the history of science which compel one to believe that, at times, scientific discovery is comparable with artistic creativity… intuition or sudden, unexpected insight.”
References
Alfred, T. (1999). Peace, power, righteousness: An indigenous manifesto. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Apple, M. (1990). Is there a curriculum voice to reclaim? Phi Delta Kappan, 71, 526–530.
Bach, R. (1977). Illusions: The adventure of a reluctant messiah. New York: Dell Publishing.
Bakhtin, M. (1930 [1981]). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Battiste, M. (1998). Enabling the autumn seed: Toward a decolonized approach to aboriginal knowledge, language, and education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 22(1), 16–24.
Battiste, M. (Ed.). (2000). Reclaiming indigenous voice and vision. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.
Brody, H. (2000). The other side of Eden. New York: North Point Press.
Castellano, M. B. (2000). Updating aboriginal traditions of knowledge. In G. Dei, B. Hall, & D. Rosenberg (Eds.), Indigenous knowledges in global contexts (pp. 21–36). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Chambers, C. (2003). “As Canadian as possible under the circumstances”: A view of contemporary curriculum discourses in Canada. In W. Pinar (Ed.), The internationalization handbook of curriculum research (pp. 221–252). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated.
Chinn, C. A. (1998). A critique of social constructivist explanations of knowledge change. In B. Guzzetti & C. Hynd (Eds.), Perspectives on conceptual change: Multiple ways to understanding knowing and learning in a complex world (pp. 77–115). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Codo, W. (1999). Educação: Carinho e trabalho [Education: Affection and work]. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Cole, P., & O’Riley, P. (2005). Coyote and raven talk about the business of education or how did Wall Street, Bay Street and Sesame Street get into the pockets of publicly funded universities or vice versa. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 7(1), 15–28.
Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination. Boston: Houghton Miffli.
Dalke, A., & Grobstein, P. (2007). Story telling in (at least) three dimensions: An exploration of teaching reading, writing, and beyond. Journal of Teaching Writing, 23(1), 91–114.
Deloria, V., Jr. (1997). Read earth white lies. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing.
Derrida, J. (1990 [2002]). Who is afraid of philosophy? Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Derrida, J. (1991 [1992]). The other heading: reflections on today’s Europe. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Dixon, B. (1973). What is science for?. London: Collins.
Donald, D. (2004). Edmonton pentimento: Re-reading history in the case of the papaschase cree. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 2(1), 21–53.
Donald, D. (2009a). The curricular problem of indigenousness: Colonial frontier logics, teacher resistances, and the acknowledgement of ethical space. In J. Nhachewsky & I. Johnston (Eds.), Beyond “presentism”: Re-imagining the historical, personal, and social places of curriculum (pp. 23–39). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Donald, D. (2009b). Forts, curriculum, and indigenous métissage: Imagining decolonization of aboriginal-Canadian relations in educational contexts. First Nations Perspectives. The Journal of the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, 2(1), 1–24.
Freire, P. (1970 [2006]). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Grobstein, P. (2003). A vision of science (and science education) in the 21st century: Everybody “getting it less wrong” together. Paper presented at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy’s 1st Dialogue on The Changing Roles of Mathematics and Science in Society. Chicago: Adler Planetarium. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/imsa/imsatalk.html.
Gudmundsdottir, S. (1995). The narrative nature of pedagogical content knowledge. In H. McEwan & K. Egan (Eds.), Narrative in teaching, learning, and research (pp. 24–38). New York: Teachers College Press.
Haig-Brown, C. (2008). Taking indigenous thought seriously: A rant on globalization with some cautionary notes. Journal of the Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies, 6(2), 8–24.
Haig-Brown, C. (2009). Decolonizing Diaspora: Whose traditional land are we on? Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 1(1), 4–21.
Haig-Brown, C., & Dannenmann, K. (2002). A pedagogy of the land: Dreams of respectful relations. McGill Journal of Education, 3, 452–468.
Hingangaroa Smith, G. (2000). Protecting and respecting indigenous knowledge. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming indigenous voice and vision (pp. 209–224). Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press.
Jickling, B. (2001). Environmental thought, the language of sustainability, and digital watches. Environmental Education Research, 7, 167–180.
Kay, P., & Kempton, W. (1984). What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? American Anthropologist, 86, 65–79.
M.D.Z. (1936). A literalist of the imagination. Poetry, 47, 330–331.
Mueller, M. & Tippins, D. (2009). van Eijck and Roth’s utilitarian science education: Why the recalibration of science and traditional ecological knowledge invokes multiple perspectives to protect science education from being exclusive. Cultural Studies in Science Education (Published on line 18 September).
Ng-A-Fook, N. (2007). An indigenous curriculum of place: The United Houma nation’s contentious relationship with Louisiana’s educational institutions. New York, New York: Peter Lang.
Ng-A-Fook, N. (in press-a). Another bell ringing in the empty sky: Greenwashing, curriculum, and ecojustice. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.
Ng-A-Fook, N. (in press-b). Decolonizing narrative strands of our eco-civic responsibilities: Curriculum, social action, and indigenous communities. In K. Young & D. Stanley (Eds.), Contemporary studies in Canadian curriculum: Principles, portraits, and practices. Calgary, Alberta: Detselig Enterprises Ltd.
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2008). Grade 9 and 10 science curriculum. Toronto, Ontario: Queen’s Printer for Ontario.
Reis, G. (2009). Gross’s anatomy: Textual politics in science/biology education research. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 781–790.
Reis, G. (2010). Making science relevant: Conceptual change and the politics of science education. In W.-M. Roth (Ed.), Re/structuring science education: Re/uniting sociological and psychological perspectives (pp. 233–241). New York: Springer.
Roth, W.-M. (2005). Doing qualitative research: Praxis of methods. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Roth, W.-M., van Eijck, M., Reis, G., & Hsu, P. -L. (2008). Authentic science revisited. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696–735.
Schank, R., & Berman, T. (2006). Living stories: Designing story-based educational experiences. Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 220–228.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books.
Stanley, T. (2009). The banality of colonialism: Encountering artifacts of genocide and white supremacy in Vancouver today. In S. Steinberg (Ed.), Diversity and multiculturalism (pp. 143–159). New York, New York: Peter Lang.
van Eijick, M., & Roth, W. M. (2007). Keeping the local local: Recalibrating the status of science and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in science education. Science Education, 9, 926–947.
wa Thiong’o., N. (1986). Decolonizing the mind: The politics of language in African literature. London: James Currey Publishers.
Wells, G. (2002). Learning and teaching for understanding: The key role of collaborative knowledge. Social Constructivist Teaching, 9, 1–41.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This review essay addresses issues raised in Michiel van Eijck and Wolf-Michael Roth’s paper entitled: Keeping the local: Recalibrating the status of science and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in education (published in Science Education) and in the rejoinder by Michael Mueller and Deborah Tippins entitled: van Eijck and Roth’s utilitarian science education: Why the recalibration of science and traditional ecological knowledge invokes multiple perspectives to protect science education from being exclusive.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reis, G., Ng-A-Fook, N. TEK talk: so what? Language and the decolonization of narrative gatekeepers of science education curriculum. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 5, 1009–1026 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-010-9299-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-010-9299-x