Education: An Excellent Opportunity to Respect, Maintain and Promote Indigenous Children’s Cultural and Linguistic Richness

Abstract

Education can provide the opportunity to affirm indigenous children’s cultural and linguistic identity by using their funds of knowledge as an essential tool in the teaching and learning process.  This paper emphasizes the importance of using indigenous children’s voices, knowledge, and wisdom to continue to develop their talents and capacities to share, learn, inquire, analyze, and create. To do so, indigenous children should be given the opportunity to participate in meaningful activities that allow them to utilize their native language and culture which can be done through bilingual discussions, debates, artistic works, creation of poems, singing of songs, games and group activities related to their own indigenous culture while using both their native and second languages. Also, critical thinking skills can be developed through the use of this type of activities that can be artistic and also promote collaborative work since bringing the community together is fundamental in the indigenous cosmovision. In addition, the techniques that are suggested in this piece can help create a peaceful/harmonious environment in the classroom where students’ affective filters are open to welcome and practice the target language since enriching interactions that embrace diversity in all its dimensions are promoted. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript is to share some ideas to make the teaching and learning process more meaningful, respectful, harmonious, and enjoyable through artistic activities that promote indigenous children’s own language, culture and cosmovision. The ideas that will be discussed in this piece are based on a qualitative research study conducted at a Spanish-Indigenous Tsotsil bilingual school in Chiapas, Mexico.