Education for Re-Indigenization: Toward an Econormative Philosophy of Education

Abstract

The proliferation of ecological crises on the Earth in the twenty-first century is mainly due to a human arrogance founded on the metanarrative of anthropocentrism. Whereas Jesus rejected a claim to imperial power, Christianity is guilty of supporting Western civilization’s trajectory of colonization, genocide, and ecocide. Christian education has done little more than lay a thin veil of piety over the industrial model of preparing students for successful placement in the machine of Progress. All of this rests on a Platonic dualism: man [sic] over nature/creation, civilized over uncivilized, orthodoxy over orthopraxy, mind over body. By separating meaning from being and segregating learning from the real world, the Western educational model leaves students adrift in a fragmented and abstract existence. This contrasts significantly with Native American and other Indigenous epistemologies and educational philosophies. To help heal the Earth and reclaim the econormative core of the Christian lifeway requires that we once again educate our children to be Indigenous in their local bioregion.