For this weeks reading I am reflecting on Marie Battiste “Decolonizing the University Indigenizing ¨. We face many challenges everyday which include social, economical and technological issues. This article highlights many interesting points about how “Eurocentric thinking” is viewed. I am an education major and it made me think about how students from foreign countries feel when they come to America and must adapt to the language and the American culture. I have seen foreign students who are very bright academically especially in Math but fail in other subjects because they cannot read or write the language. It is unfortunate how society has taught us to be afraid of knowing more then one language. English is not the only main language in the world. We have students from different backgrounds and cultures and we must learn to accept them. We can’t view things from only one perspective. We must be open minded. Imagine how frustrated people and students feel when they don’t know the language they want to get it but they cant.

 

For this weeks blog post I decided to respond to Marie Battiste “Decolonizing The  University” which I found to be interesting and something I’m not used to reading about. Battiste writes about regarding the days of early Europeans taking over the Indigenous people because they were illiterate.  Battiste states “The differing conceptions also imply different modes of transmission and different modes  of human consciousness.  These understandings reject the older illiterate and literate dichotomization  of language skills.” (Battiste, 120) When I read this quote I thought about how many students and academics are challenging and resisting colonialism inside and outside the classroom.  For instance, many students that come from different countries with accents are taught to transition themselves to speak English. It’s very difficult because learning a whole news language takes a long time before you are comfortable speaking to others.  The education system in our society have students separated based on they way to speak and learn. This reading has me questioning America’s education system.

Work Citied

Marie Battiste. “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing  the Page: Part 1.” The Future of The Page.  University of Toronto Press, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The work I choose for this week is Marie Battiste’s Indigenizing the Page. In this article, Battiste talks about how Indigenous people retained their oral culture and Aboriginal forms of literacy during the time of being colonized and assimilation of Eurocentric ideas and imperialism. Battiste brought up this one example of Mi’kmaq, an Indigenous person who was living in eastern Canada and was part of being colonized with other Indigenous people in eastern Canada. Battiste explains how Mi’kmaq kept his culture during this period of colonization. Battiste wrote “Stripped of their wealth and power in eastern Canada, Mi’kmaq maintain their knowledge and heritage through symbolic literacies and language, as they are also becoming increasingly bilingual. They are restoring their knowledge and heritage by taking over the education of the youth, and healing the harmful psychological and economic damage of colonialism.”(Battiste, 2004). Although Mi’kmaq became bilingual and had to assimilate, he still preserved his Indigenous culture and Aboriginal forms of literacy from being completely erased by Eurocentric ideals for future generations that followed. Battiste emphasized how Aboriginal forms of literacy is prominent in Indigenous culture and how important it was for it to “not been replaced or displaced by print culture and new technologies of the page.”(Battiste, 2004) Through this, Indigenous people have retained their culture for many generations.

References: Battiste, Marie. (2004). Print culture and decolonizing the university: Indigenizing the page: Part 1. The Future of the Page. 111-124. 10.3138/9781442657250-007.

For my NYPL Oral History Project, I chose the interview done by Brian Gerber, interviewing Adrian Spratt.  Adrian Spratt is a British born, now a Brooklyn Heights native, visually impaired, with a speech impediment, NYC attorney.  The reason I chose this interview, to be perfectly honest,  was Adrian’s photo. After I heard the original interview, I knew I was writing a blog on him, but seeing Adrian’s picture, there was something very welcoming about him. I loved hearing Adrian’s story because he has quite the one to tell.  It was slightly difficult to understand at some parts due to Adrian’s British accent mixed in with his speech impediment.  However, hearing his life story was truly inspiring, and I can say almost as if a modern Helen Keller. Adrian had many physical problems and diagnosis’ as a child which affected him as an adult. But despite those problems, which most can say would forcibly sit those who are affected, down, and prevent them from doing wondrous things in their life, Adrian went above and beyond. He finished his elementary, secondary, and primary education, and even went on to attend university, including Harvard! Leading to become the attorney he is today. Adrian’s story really makes me believe that nothing is impossible, and anything is possible, (as they say in Disney, my favorite!) if you just believe, and set your mind to your goals.

For this week’s response I chose to write about Thamus and Theuth. The whole conversation between Socrates (philosopher who dictated the story), and Phaedrus (Socrates’ pupil), is fascinating. However, the following line is what stuck out to me most.  The god Thamus said this to the god Theuth  in response to Theuth’s idea on how letters, and written words will help mankind for the better. “ The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. ” I really liked this line because it speaks volumes of mankind today, even though we are talking centuries later. Yes, written text, and literacy has made mankind leap miles in a positive way, and in so many categories. Culture, religion, societies, etc. However, seeing as we live today, with technology surpassing us in so many ways, it is important to acknowledge what Thamus said. Due to technology being where it is, we have become accustomed to it. Sure, it works in our favor, technology, and it is extremely helpful and convenient, yet we are forgetting who and what we were as a people beforehand. It is important to remember the ways of the past, to continue tradition, and not lose ourselves in the future. I believe that was the message of Thamus, if we let ourselves be fooled and seduced by the phenomenal ways of what letters. literacy, and eventually technology bring us, we might forget who we are and where we come from, and that cannot happen.

Cited:

http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/myths/phaedrus.htm