Pikaneangi “In the Beginning…”
Our belief is that every Huli youth needs to learn his place in the world from the beginning — not just in the world of today – but from the times of our forefathers. We know that traditional education is ended. We also know that nothing has filled the vacuum and our youth do not know their roots, their heritage, and their place in the world. The Children of the Sun works to educate our youth about Huli culture as it is now and in the beginning.
The Committee will use Kevin Hill’s Culture-Based Curriculum: A Framework, Ontario Native Literacy Coalition, June 2001. (see document download below).
Our programs for Hela elementary children will be holistic, culture-based and community-based:
• Holistic The term holistic refers to the, educational practice of teaching and learning of the whole person in all the dimensions of their lives- spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical.
• Culture-Based The term culture-based means that the program is based on the Hela community’s framework of values, priorities and world view, so that the path of cultural educational development chosen to meet a community’s needs is theirs, not what outsiders might choose for them.
• Community-Based The term community-based means that the base or foundation of educational design and development must be rooted in the lives and processes of the Hela community for whom it is being designed for.
Our cultural education program must include:
• Our Huli heritage language; and
• English language skills.
Ideally, our cultural education program allows learners to:
- learn from within their own culture, and;
- function from within their world view and cultural values.
Specifically, we will be designing a culture-based curriculum system that integrates English language skills development.
CURRICULUM DESIGN DEFINED
Curriculum design is a carefully structured process. It consists of identifying educational goals, obtaining learning centre and related community information, and making curriculum decisions as to what content will be included and how the curriculum will be structured. Thus, this plan will outline the processes involved in designing the following four basic dimensions of any educational curriculum:
- The goals or function of the proposed education system,
- The curriculum content (subject matter),
- The Instructional Process (which includes structure, method and context),
- And Assessment.