Traditional Indigenous Education Created More Stable productive & Honorable Members of Society
I never understood why so-called ‘highly intelligent’ people never merely looked at the man-made non-indigenous educational system and realized it is a totally unnatural way for humans to learn, just because we have sophisticated technology does not mean the modern educational construct creates better human beings who are productive members of society if you were ever as privileged as I am to have seen and lived among TRADITIONAL indigenous societies (not the semi-modernized or modernized ones which are just as corrupted as the non-indigenous societies around them) who still use their own natural educational processes - you will quickly notice they have no crime, no homeless people, no addicts, and no mentally unstable children going on murder rampages in their societies (as happens in the USA every month), yet YOU are utterly convinced of the ‘superiority’ of the non-indigenous educational system. Where fools rule ignorance is bliss!
In TRADITIONAL Indigenous societies, a child learns two ways basically, by LISTENING & UNDERSTANDING IN SILENCE, AND BY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS (NOT by regurgitating facts upon demand to earn points). For example, everyone who has eaten food made by my wife always tells her it tastes great and that she should open a restaurant because it would do well, but my wife’s mother never taught her to do ANYTHING in the kitchen, my wife merely had the personal interest and desire to learn how to cook and she observed everything her mother did - then repeated the process and made a few personal modifications to suit herself and her own taste buds.
My wife had a genuine interest to learn to cook - so she taught herself by careful observation. Just as she (and both our daughters) had a genuine interest to undergo the traditional 9-day-long puberty rite of passage. their parents did not tell them they HAD to do it, they WANTED to do it so they requested it be done for them, because they understood the traditional importance of it - and they wanted to make their family proud of them by passing it. The desire to make the family and tribe PROUD of you - rather than ASHAMED of you - is a major driving force in the heart and mind of every traditional indigenous child, so the Western notion of 'do as thou wilt and care not for how your actions may impact others - because 'you should only care about yourself' - is why western countries have the WORST juvenile delinquency and behavioral issues of all human societies on earth, it's all about 'Me' in your misguided way of existence, and its why a 'successful' businessman in non-indigenous societies steps on, crushes, or destroys his competition all the way to the 'top' - and you look up to him as a 'pillar of society'...whereas in every traditional indigenous society, he would be an OUTCAST and a DISGRACE of a human being - for doing such self-centered and selfish things!
The downfall of non-indigenous societies is that they stress inquiry and too often the questions asked are merely the result of premature reflexive action (like listening only to respond and 'win the argument' - not to actually learn anything) - and while it IS useful to ask a question if you do not understand something - so you can obtain better personal clarity, very often if you just observed and listened longer (rest your damn tongue so your ears can hear instead) - the understanding will come to you eventually, but IMPATIENCE too often is the driving force in incessant inquiry, if you doubt me - think about ALL the non- indigenous ‘askholes’ you know, who are always incessantly asking for your advice and guidance - and then never following any of it
Furthermore, no traditional indigenous child is punished for not learning, because you will only punish yourself if you don't want to learn something that might be very useful to you in your life, if the elders are showing you and the other children how to forage, and fish and farm, and how to use plant medicine from your environment - and you take no interest in learning those things (which both males and females need to know to survive), you will just be punishing yourself because no one will want to marry you or have children for you, your tribal society will not respect you or see you as a valuable positively contributing member, and you will have a short miserable life because you cannot even provide for yourself. So every traditional native child understands that these things are important and essential life tools every member of the tribe needs to have some understanding and proficiency in.
ADDITIONALLY, every child in traditional indigenous society knows that WE are greater than ME (the opposite of the 'its your life do whatever you want with it' - MISphilosophy of non-Indigenous societies). If you know your tribe is few in number, you would never entertain any selfish notion of 'I do not want to have children' - because you will KNOW that your tribe's very survival and continued existence REQUIRES the birth of more children. Also, in a traditional indigenous society - you KNOW that everyone in your tribe is your extended family, so you do not want to do anything that will cause them harm, or embarrassment/shame...so you would not 'wuk-up on people in the street and bend over so that others can 'jam your buttocks to the beat of a rythmm', or 'grind your crotch on others' as if you have no self-respect or respect for your other family members...that might be the 'acceptable' way to have 'fun' in non-indigenous societies, but it is NOT our traditional way to behave in such a manner, it is beneath the dignity and morals of the tenets in every indigenous cosmovision.
Unfortunately in the corrupt world we live in today such a traditionally useless & unproductive member of the tribe can go and live among the non-indigenous as a 'sex-worker' and use their vagina or anus to make a living charging ‘short-term rental for temporary access’, but that kind of ‘option’ does not traditionally exist in any indigenous society where there are no ‘easy roads’ or ‘short cuts’ to existence, traditional tribal life is honest and respectable hard work daily, a real-life true example of the axiom ‘by the sweat of thy brow shall thy eat’…not ‘by the application of KY jelly shall you earn a living’.
By Damon Corrie
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