Oct. 3 Entrance Slip - The Grammar of Animacy

I've been thinking a lot about terminology over the last month. One notable example from my Social Studies pedagogy course was the tradition of titling European colonization of North America "Westward Expansion." Without critical examination, this may not raise any red flags. But what if we titled this chapter "Eastern Invasion" or "European-Canadian aggression." Then the Eurocentrism of the first title comes to light. Similar examples follow from the "discovery" of America and the Red River "rebellion" in Canada.

Robin Wall Kimmerer reignited this topic, which is of personal interest to me, by reminding me that our language -- its words, grammatical structures, and cadence -- affects our worldview. If we see the natural world as animate, perhaps human and related to us, it makes exploiting it much harder. She orients the reader by saying that English is a noun-based language, which is inextricable from our thing-based culture. If we think of natural features (rocks, mountains, grass) as 'beings that are' they demand a different respect from us. I'm eager to introduce these concepts to my future students because they go beyond a call to simply "respect nature." However, I have some concerns/points for further research. Namely, I would be concerned that a discussion of Indigenous peoples defining mountains and plants as family members would be reductive and perpetuate harmful stereotypes of Indigenous cultures as "primitive." In no way do I agree with this assessment, but I think the well-intentioned effort to translate Indigenous ways of knowing into English synonyms often flattens and infantilizes Indigenous concepts. How can we teach our students that not everything can be translated? Furthermore, I would like to research mathematical terms that may be missing out on an Indigenous perspective.  

Lastly, I'd like to recommend the TedTalk, "How language shapes the way we think" by Lera Boroditsky. This video was shown to me during my TEFL training, and it completely changed my perception of the importance of language, I couldn't help but rewatch it after reading Dr. Kimmerer's chapter. In particular, in the first 6 minutes of the video, Lera talks about an Indigenous tribe in Australia that doesn't have words for right and left and instead refers to everything in cardinal directions. This makes them excellent at physical orientation and it also influences how they see timelines (spoiler alert: it's not left to right). I can't recommend it enough!