Expanding student understanding of Indigenous worldviews
Paul McKenzie-Jones, Ph.D.
Paul is Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at MSU Northern. His
research and teaching focus is on critical
intersections of race, indigenous identity, contemporary issues, cultural
traditionalism/revitalization/fluidity, and trans-national indigenous
activism in the 20th and 21st centuries. His first book, Clyde Warrior: Tradition, Community, and Red
Power, was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 2015.
Expanding student understanding
of Indigenous worldviews
This OER will showcase how using examples and discussions of
comparable indigenous experiences benefits both Native and non-Native student
cultural awareness in the classroom. While IEFA focusses upon Montana Indian histories
and experiences, I use film, art, and other forms of material culture to ask
students to engage broadly with other indigenous communities within and outside
of the United States. Often these examples are shown next to local forms of
cultural expression. This exposure, its comparative component, and the
analytical discussion of such, has proven to help them understand and
appreciate the local indigenous perspectives more clearly than when these local
perspectives are studied/discussed in isolation. The OER will outline several
exercises and assignments that have proven successful in enabling both Native
and non-Native students to develop a wider cultural consciousness than they
began with.
Access the OER here: