This course sprouts from my thesis research, and as part of experiencing being an Indigenous Student at MIT. The course presents how western education and it’s institutions have been an arm of the state to assimilate people in colonized territories, erase traditional knowledge, control and surveil populations, and . It is directed to students of history, pedagogy and education, Indigenous studies, and all students about to start a research endeavor.
Main Topics:
Schools and Universities as arm of the state
Assimilation through education: residential and boarding schools
Higher Education Institutions and the military-industrial complex. Case study: MIT.
Imagining other futures.
In this chapter we explore imagination as a tool for decolonization and regenerative change, we study and read about alternative realities that already exist, like other education institutions that exist, concise examples of ethical research, land back, and more.We collectively explore what the future could look like.
subtopics:
Volksschule: the blueprint for modern Western education.
Acceptable knowledge: ranking human knowledge according to racial and geographic hierarchies.
Residential and boarding schools.
Western Science: Invalidation, erasure and extraction of Traditional Knowledge.
Indigenous Methodologies.
Ideological State Apparatus: linguistic hegemony and eurocentric curricula.
Case study: MIT acquiring Indigenous land through the Morrill Act of 1968 in exchange for military instruction of the US government.
Concept examples:
Epistemicide: The systematic suppression and destruction of local, Indigenous, and non-Western knowledge systems in favor of Western scientific and Eurocentric paradigms. - Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Birch tree tapping and collecting of birch sap in Devora’s backyard during spring.