This book brings attention to the understudied and often overlooked question of how curricula and classroom practices might inadvertently reproduce exclusionary discourses and narratives that omit or negate particular cultures, histories, and wisdom traditions. With a focus on representations and classroom practices related especially to ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, it includes unique contributions from scholars studying these questions in various contexts. The book offers a range of important studies from various contexts across the Americas, including Canada, the various member nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Puerto Rico, and the United States. The various chapter contributions address and discuss nuances of each of the contexts under study. The contributions also help highlight some key commonalities across these contexts, including how dominant discourses and various forces have historically shaped—and continue to shape and reproduce— such omissions, misrepresentations, and marginalization. In addition to seeking to reconcile with some of these ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, the book charts a path forward toward more holistic analytical frameworks as well as more inclusive and balanced representations and classroom practices in these aforementioned geographic contexts and beyond. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, undergraduate, and graduate students with interests in Indigenous education, curriculum studies, citizenship education, history of education, religion, and educational policy.

A “profound and inspiring” collection of ancient indigenous wisdom for “anyone wanting the healing of self, society, and of our shared planet” (Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma). A Penobscot Indian draws on the experiences and wisdom of the First Nations to address environmental justice, water protection, generational trauma, and more. Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, Sherri Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our day—including indigenous land rights, environmental justice, and our collective human survival. Sharing the gifts she has received from the elders of her tribe, the Penobscot Nation, she asks us to look deeply into the illusions we have labeled as truth and which separate us from our higher mind and from one another. Sacred Instructions explains how our traditional stories set the framework for our belief systems and urges us to decolonize our language and our stories. It reveals how the removal of women from our stories has impacted our thinking and disrupted the natural balance within our communities. For all those who seek to create change, this book lays out an ancient world view and set of cultural values that provide a way of life that is balanced and humane, that can heal Mother Earth, and that will preserve our communities for future generations.

This book brings attention to the understudied and often overlooked question of how curricula and classroom practices might inadvertently reproduce exclusionary discourses and narratives that omit or negate particular cultures, histories, and wisdom traditions. With a focus on representations and classroom practices related especially to ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, it includes unique contributions from scholars studying these questions in various contexts. The book offers a range of important studies from key African and Euro-Asian contexts, including Afghanistan, Albania, Greece, Iran, South Africa, Sweden, Türkiye, and Zimbabwe. The various chapter contributions address and discuss nuances of each of the contexts under study. The contributions also help highlight some key commonalities across these contexts, including how dominant discourses and various forces have historically shaped—and continue to shape and reproduce—such omissions, misrepresentations, and marginalization. In addition to seeking to reconcile with some of these ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, the book charts a path forward towards more holistic analytical frameworks as well as more inclusive and balanced representations and classroom practices in these aforementioned geographic contexts and beyond. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, undergraduate, and graduate students with interests in Indigenous education, curriculum studies, citizenship education, history of education, religion, and educational policy.

Many of us are alarmed by the accelerating rates of extinction of plants and animals. But how many of us know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? While biologists estimate that 18 percent of mammals and 11 percent of birds are threatened, and botanists anticipate the loss of 8 percent of flora, anthropologists predict that fully 50 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world today will disappear within our lifetimes. And languages are merely the canaries in the coal mine: what of the knowledge, stories, songs, and ways of seeing encoded in these voices? In The Wayfinders, Wade Davis offers a gripping and enlightening account of this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through a handful of indigenous cultures, describing the worldviews they represent and reminding us of the encroaching danger to humankind's survival should they vanish.

The essays in this volume of the Fons Vitae Series, Merton & Indigenous Wisdom, are spiritual exercises to explore Merton's globally inclusive religious imagination. These exercises can revitalize our ways of living as we drink from the springs of ancient views and practices. They help us to not only recognize the damage of European colonization, but to taste indigenous American wisdom as a still-living sacrament for our collective salvation.

Today's Native Americans still turn to the ancient knowledge and the wisdom of the elders. They have learned to seek vision the old way. Known for their ability to find the wisdom of the ancients and apply it to finding a more spiritual life today, Native American teachings help us comprehend the sacredness of Mother Earth, engender a deep respect for all living things, and develop the ability to find a place in the circle of life. Exploring Native American Wisdom brings the supernatural world of their ancestors back to life to show all of us how we can find peace within. We are shown how to live successfully in a rapidly changing world while reopening the ancient door to the divine power and wisdom that resides within each one of us. The reader is invited into a mystical dimension where humans are able to communicate with animals, fire, wind, water, earth, and each other. We see how Native Americans today follow the same traditional path to understanding of self and the supernatural using vision quests, dreams, ceremonies, and the exploration of natural laws. We learn about the wisdom of the Old Ones, how we can enter a mystical dimension of self-discovery with the oldest Spirit of Creation, and how to discover inner talents and gifts as we journey to the top of the Sacred Mountain to meet Eagle... and fly to a new dimension filled with energy and power. Book jacket.

The rich, oral tradition of Native American wisdom is captured in this moving collection of tribal voices from time past.