Borderland

Posted on Artichoke’s Knowledge Building wiki page:

Next to the wisdom of youth, the knowledge of people who’ve managed to survive with minimal technology for millenia has been all but fogotten. This survival feat was accomplished by assuming a relationship of respect for all things. We’ve had many discussions up here in the North about the value of Native Ways of Knowing, and how they might help us find our way in a world that seems increasingly fractious. I like this story from the Eskimo elder telling about learning to hunt caribou:

The boys watched as their father proceeded to walk directly toward the caribou herd, which as he approached began to move away from him in a file behind the lead bulls, yet he just kept walking openly toward them. This had the two brothers scratching their heads wondering why their father was chasing the caribou away from him. Once the father reached the area where the caribou had been grazing, he stopped and put his bow and arrows down on the ground. As the (now) elder told the story, he demonstrated how his father then got into a crouching position and slowly began to move his arms up and down, slapping them against his legs as though he were mimicking a giant bird about to take off. The two brothers watched intently as the lead bulls in the caribou heard stopped and looked back curiously at their father’s movements. Slowly at first, the caribou began to circle back in a wide arc watching the figure flapping its wings out on the tundra, and then they began running, encircling their father in a closing spiral until eventually they were close enough that he reached down, picked up his bow and arrows and methodically culled out the choice caribou one at a time until he had what he needed. He then motioned for his sons to come down and help prepare the meat to be taken back to the village.

As the elder completed the story of how he and his brother were taught the accrued knowledge associated with hunting caribou, he explained that in those days the relationship between the hunter and the hunted was much more intimate than it is now. With the intervention of modern forms of technology, the knowledge associated with that symbiotic relationship is slowly being eroded. (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005)

Any talk of knowledge or knowledge building has to be coupled with some mention of it’s purpose. Otherwise, we have to ask, “What’s the point?” Frijtof Capra’s conversation with E.F. Shumacher illustrates some new possibilities for Science that indicate we may eventually begin to recognize the value of “knowledge for understanding,” as opposed to “knowledge for manipulation,” while we think our way around and out of the Mind vs. Matter trap.

Chaos theory may help us see how other deterministic theories are limited by the uncertainties and contingencies of the classroom. The best analogy for teaching that I’ve come upon in the recent weeks that I’ve been following this line of thought is from Capra’s book, The Hidden Connection. He compared the trajectory of a rock, when kicked, to the trajectory of a dog given the same stimulus. Teachers need to think like people who are kicking dogs, not rocks. The outcome is predictable, but not absolutely.

Artichoke’s Knowledge Building discussion is a blast to read. Thanks for the nudge, Artichoke.