Jagged Worldviews Collided by Leroy Little Bear

In reading Leroy Little Bear’s article ” Jagged Worldviews Collided” there was one specific section that really stood out to me. The section was titled “Aboriginal and Eurocentric Values Contrasted”. At the beginning of the section it talks about how the Aboriginal culture attempts to mould their members into what they deem as the most appropriate version of themselves. Although later on in that same section it says “In Aboriginal society, diversity is the norm, so deviation from the acceptable behaviour is minimized” ( Bear, pg.83). This confused me a little because if they are moulding ever member to have this specific attributes then everyone is the same, therefore there is no diversity, but it stated that diversity is the norm. It is defiantly a possibility that I am missing something or not fully understanding the authors point. Feel free to comment and help me better understand this!

Thinking back to my time learning math in high school there were defiantly things oppressed or overall not taught. Jumping back a little to our treaty education lecture last week, we all recognize that treaty ed./Indigenous perspectives should be brought to light in every class. In my high school math classes (grade 10,11 and 12), we watched a three minute YouTube video on Indigenous perspectives of math and that was it. Therefore this was oppressed in my math classes. In my grade 9 math class I had a teacher who was working towards their masters in Indigenous education (she also happened to be my mother, so I might be a little bias). She brought elders into our classroom through the year. One presentation talked about symmetry in nature and how the First Nations peoples used this. She also incorporated the medicine wheel into some of our math projects. From this I understand that it is possible to have Indigenous perspectives/Treaty education brought into math, I think it’s just a matter of how hard the teacher wants to try, which is frankly very upsetting.