Week 8 - Shannon Trinh

The metaphor of the song in comparison to academia is something that I have never heard of before. I especially found this line interesting: “Like fire, it has a song. That fire shapes and forms all life, and each shape has a song” (3). Each teacher carries a song into the classroom, spreading this song (knowledge and wisdom) to younger generations. Therefore, perspective and attitudes are being transferred from mind to mind, which can either be extremely empowering and educational, or toxic and oppressive. I think it is important to ask the questions: What are we preparing our youth for in the classroom? How are we shaping their ways of thinking? Are we teaching them how to grow into critical scholars who can question authority when necessary and care for others? Or are we building robots that absorb and spit out information on command? This mentality can be especially detrimental to our future as seen in this line: “Eurocentric thinkers have taken culture as their abstract possession and Indigenous knowledge as merely symbolic and ideational. This search for stable, systematic regimes has reduced the knowledge that Eurocentric scholars claim to value ‘on its own term’” (8). We have trained the youth to look at history and culture in general through a Eurocentric lens, preventing them from fighting oppressive structures in society. Furthermore, we have sucked the creativity and joy out of learning with cutthroat academic environments and competition.

A way to change this vicious cycle of misinformation and one way thinking is to set aside time for both teachers and students to reflect on curriculum and collaborate in ways that enhance learning and promote growth: “To find the song, we have to set boundaries around work – so that there is time to do the work, and time and space that is set aside and named as sacred” (8). This means spending more time outside, away from electronics, talking about real life experiences instead of memorizing facts and encouraging activity in the classroom. This also means talking about in depth issues that affect the local and global, and to change the mentality of Western superiority. I believe that we expect the youth to be our future and to fix the problems of the world, however they are not being equipped with the songs they need in order to do so. Everything that we do require balance and harmony – it is only through conversation and collaboration that we can find it.

Question: What are the specific effects of finding “song” in academia? Increase in compassion? How can slowly implement this way of thinking into today’s curriculums?

Works Cited:

Frances Wyld & Bronwyn Fredericks. “Earth Song as Storywork: Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledges.”