INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

The course on Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is a back-and-forth movement in methodology seeking to discover and clarify in order to appreciate and utilize the great resources embedded in the people?s local understanding and usage of the world around them. It revisits the past in order to study the core values, beliefs and practices associated with the people?s worldviews that can be adapted as a guide to today's generations. The lessons from such studies can benefit everyone, as we look for a more rational and sustainable way to live on this planet in harmony with other fellow beings. Furthermore, in developing countries, where formal education continues to be culturally undemocratic and does not recognize the way the majority of learners communicate, think and learn, IK comes in to reduce on this unfair situation and to advocate for the de-colonization of the school curriculum and pedagogy, through more critical reflection of what schools are actually offering students. In this course unit, it becomes clear that for indigenous peoples themselves, their systems of knowledge creation and transmission are worthy of study in their own right, and must be part of what is worthwhile to learn in schools. This must be so because this is knowledge based on the social, physical and spiritual understandings which have informed and still informing the people?s survival and contributed to their sense of being in the world. It is important for the conservation of cultural diversity.