Kinship Worldview - by Paul Freedman & Donald Trent Jacobs (Paperback)

About the Book

"Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Authors Going Deeper with Holistic Education" is a collection of essays and poems on Indigenous holistic education. It explores the interconnectedness of all life on Earth, reflecting Indigenous scholars' perspectives and addressing the impact of post-colonial influences on education.

Book Synopsis

Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Authors Going Deeper with Holistic Education is a collection of essays and poems offering testimony to the holism of original traditional Indigenous ways of knowing, teaching and learning. Each chapter describes an Indigenous orientation to holistic education that explores deeply into the sacred interconnectedness of all life on Mother Earth. This collection from internationally recognized Indigenous scholars and leaders reflects a "coherent worldview encompassing the processes of the world and how we humans find meaning in those processes" (Wildcat 2001, 7 - From Power and Place: Indian Education in America. Fulcrum Publishing).

Indigenous worldview is the ultimate foundation for holistic education. Unfortunately, holistic education has been held back by post-colonial worlding, defined as the result of colonizing hegemony being intrinsic to most educational systems in dominant cultural schooling. As a result, implementation of this holistic ideal has fallen short of what we need to achieve in education. Here is a collection that returns to the roots of holism.

Review Quotes

This is an extraordinary collection of essays by wise Indigenous educators who share wisdom and practices from their personal experiences. In reading these, it becomes heartbreakingly clear how our profound levels of disconnection from each other and Mother Earth have brought us to this present reality of disaffected and lost students, exhausted teachers, overwhelmed administrators, and the escalating intrusion of political agendas into the classroom. Thankfully, for those of us willing to stay in the struggle, this beautiful work offers true solutions for how to reconnect with Life's energies and persevere together, just as Native peoples have done for millennia. I am so grateful for this book. -- Margaret Wheatley, author of 12 books from Leadership and the New Science to Restoring Sanity

"We two legged, big brained, hominid creatures are kin to all that ever was, is, and ever will be. The contributors here ask what that means for how we think, learn, and educate our young. This is no fringe pedagogy, but educational first responders coming to rescue a culture in a five-alarm crisis. It is a very good time to reconsider education--the process of drawing forth--and summon the Angels of our better natures, who have been there all along." -- David W. Orr, Oberlin College emeritus; Arizona State University, Professor of Practice, Editor, Democracy in a Hotter Time (MIT Press, 2023)

"For too long, we have sought to impose the tyranny of our pulverising mind on the self-creating, self-organising, and self-sustaining generosity of the all-blessing universal soul manifesting itself in all phenomena - unconditionally and impartially.

Modern education, for all the good that it has done, has progressively alienated itself from the nourishing graces of the Sector Noble it was meant to be and stands in dire need of resuscitation and restoration to its original purpose.

The present anthology offers, in my view, a most compelling invitation to look into the soul of education deriving its vital life-force from the deep recesses of the fecund womb of all-embracing sovereign Nature." -- Thakur S Powdyel, former Minister of Education, Royal Government of Bhutan.

"In my conversation with Four Arrows (2012) it became apparent that holistic educators can benefit greatly by listening to the voices of Indigenous educators. Holistic education can sometimes be too head centered and ignores body and spirit. The material in this book can help holistic educators deepen their work so that they can "walk their talk" more fully by connecting more directly to the Earth and Spirit." --Dr. John (Jack) Miller, Professor, Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto