In the United States there is the presupposition that bilingual education is the answer to teaching linguistically diverse children. The idea is that the children who have a mother tongue other than English and do not speak English as their own language will be sufficiently able to merge and communicate with the major culture of the States while being taught the majority of their classes in their native tongue. In many cases this presupposition creates a setting where the same children are never exposed to English beyond a few hours of each school day. Continue reading
Category Archives: Cultures
Leadership Development among Navajo Youth
Michael P. Shead
Senior Paper
International Community Development
Oral Roberts University
Tulsa, Oklahoma
December 7, 1999
Part II: The Community Development Project
Leadership training among the Navajo men between ages 12 and 17 in the Shiprock Agency of the Navajo Nation Reservation.
A Note From the Researcher.
A comprehensive documentation of the needs and suggested solutions for any people group would probably fill volumes. This document is not, by any means, an attempt to address all the needs of the Navajo people but to identify specific leadership issues and present a possible solution in this area.
This project is an effort to contribute an organized leadership training program for young Navajo men. Its purpose is to train up young leaders who know Jesus Christ as Savior and friend and who will be able, honest, and wise leaders in every area of Navajo life. This project will take on several stages before completion: analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation and empowerment.
Michael Shead
Tulsa, 1999
Defining Community Development
Michael P. Shead
Senior Paper
International Community Development
Oral Roberts University
Tulsa, Oklahoma
December 7, 1999
Part I
Chapter 1: A definite purpose and plan
Defining Community Development
Community development is a process. Development is a long-term process of helping people to help themselves. It is said, “Give a man a fish and you will have fed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you will have fed him for a lifetime”. This is the concept of community development–to empower people to care for and improve themselves.
In his book, Two Ears of Corn, Roland Bunch
Community development includes many different areas: agriculture, economics, literacy, hygiene, and others. No matter what area in which the development is taking place it is important to remember that the purpose is to empower the people within their own society and culture so that changes are coming from within the culture and from the people, not merely because an outside influence is changing them.
In 1973 Dale Kietzman presented a definition of community development to the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). He said, “Community Development is the process of helping to strengthen a community (and its leadership) so that it can resolve, through its own initiative, the problems which face it” (Yost & Yost, 1999). Continue reading
Nepal: Land of People, Kings, and Mountains
Nepal is located between India and China.
Part I — Nepal: People & Places
Nestled in the Himalayan Mountains between Tibet, China; and India sits the nation of Nepal. This is a land full of nearly anything you can imagine. From Hindu pagodas and Mount Everest to villages filled with evidence of the 2,500-year-old Nepal culture and history;2 you can find people from around the world, history like nowhere else, and the majestic mountain vistas offered only by the Himalayas.
Politics
Historic
Nepal has a lengthy history tied to Tibet, China, India, and some influence from the British colonial days.3 According to a Library of Congress article, Nepal has existed as a kingdom in the Kathmandu Valley for some 1,500 years.3
In 1743 modern Nepal rose from the slopes and valleys of the Himalayas valleys under the House of Gorkha led by King Prithvi Narayan Shah.4 King Prithvi desired to unify the many separate kingdoms throughout what is now Nepal. By force he conquered many principalities until he held strategic positions around the Kathmandu Valley. When Kathmandu was captured in 1769, it became the capital of the future Nepal. King Prithvi continued to extend his kingdom until his death in 1775. (Compare to US history, this was one year before independence was declared from Great Britian.) The influence of King Prithvi had brought many ethnically and religiously diverse people together under one national ruler and established guidelines for the nation’s foreign policy for centuries to follow. 4
In the early 19th century, the House of Gorkha came into conflict with the British East India Company and sparked the AngloNepalese War (1814 -16) which proved disastrous for Nepal and reduced the kingdom to its present size.3 Soon after, a period of Nepal’s own politics followed under what is called the Rana Rule. This was the rule of hereditary dictators which began in 1846 and lasted more than a century.3 These dictators used their positions as heads of state and the support of the military to build stability for the country. This provided Nepal with a time for growth but the oppressive dictators greatly inhibited political and economic development by secluding the country from other nations and strictly limiting internal affairs. Continue reading
Dividing our history, our heritage
December 2, 1998
Original title: “The place of minority history and values in the classroom.”
As tomorrow’s teachers we ask how we can instill in the children an understanding of the value found in diversity. We want to show children that different opinion and views are valuable to society and their own lives. The difficulty is teaching this without alienating the children from each other.
The United States has been called a “melting pot” of peoples. In teaching our children, I think we should point out that rather than a meshing and melting of individual peoples into a unidentifiable mush, the U.S. is more like a color photograph. Each color is vital to the completion of the whole picture. Just as the photograph needs the variety of colors so society needs different opinions and ways of doing things to make it whole. Continue reading
Experience as an outsider
November 4, 1998
Being an outsider from what is considered the norm is, for most people, undesirable. While most people want to be different from others, they do not want to be an outsider who stands out as someone who does not know or is unaware of cultural norms and values.
In 1995, a friend and I spent two months in South America. Most of the time I was in Santiago, Chile, teaching English to first through sixth graders at a school. I remember the first time my friend and I went to visit the school.
My friend Sam and I had purchased nice felt hats at a tourist market and decided to wear them to the school that first day. We knew that we stuck out as foreigners but the hats did not help at all.. While the hats may have been in keeping with the traditional Chilean culture, we soon realized hats of that sort were not worn by very many people in the city. We successfully became the object of many stares as we made our way down the street trailing our host. When we got back from the school that afternoon we stored our hats for the remainder of the trip. Continue reading
Photos: Play-Time Around The World
A nice set of photos showing what kids around the world have when it comes to playtime. Reminds me of Peter Menzel’s “Material World: A Global Family Portrait
Photographer Captures What Play-Time Means Around The World | FullyM.com by Snapsort.
Six Weeks in Asia
In fulfillment of the International Community Development Internship, I spent May 14 through June 28 in central Asia. The seven-member team of which I was a part, was active in various forms of assistance and evangelism in the nations of Nepal, Bhutan, and India.
Overview
Our itinerary sent us all across the area of northern India and Nepal and briefly into Bhutan. The entire internship can be separated into three segments: Conferences, Trekking/Medical assistance, and Discipleship.
Conferences
Our conference itinerary sent us to the Nepal-India border town of Karkavitta, Nepal, for our first conference. Then we took an overnight bus to Kathmandu, Nepal, where we painted at a youth center and lead another conference. After nine days in Kathmandu, we rode in a bus and jeeps to the Bhutanese border of India where we attended a secret pastor’s conference in Bhutan, an extremely anti-Gospel nation. During that week we also led a youth conference in Jaigon, India. During the conferences, I spoke (through a translator) on the topics of: “Growing in the Lord”, “Destiny”, and “The Armor of God”.
+Spiritual needs
The Karkavitta conference there was attended by people who had traveled more than three days specifically for the conference. Beginning on a Sunday night, the conference sessions continued until noon on Wednesday, May 20. It was a joy to see a visiting Hindu teacher accept Christ while others rededicated their lives to the Lord.
The Kathmandu conference was aimed more for youth of Kathmandu so we spent time of fellowship in small groups and playing sports with them. This time of fellowship was a good time to get to know the people and showed them that we are real people who enjoy life just like they do.
The final conference we preached was in Jaigon located on the border of Bhutan and India. Bhutan is one of the most closed nations to the Gospel. Persecution of believers is continual in this tiny nation nestled in the tropical foothills between India and Tibet. Continue reading
A product of my culture
September 23, 1998
Some students go to a museum of art or a symphony to “get cultured.” But, in a much different way, I have already been cultured and continue to experience the affects of what my culture is in nearly everything I think, say, and do.
An individualized work ethic and desire for purpose in the things I do has been ingrained into me. I gathered a purpose-oriented mind-set from the individualized learning and studying I did at the Christian school I attended and the farm where I was raised. With this mind-set, I get many things accomplished, but sometimes I wonder if I am not merely doing “things” for the sake of doing them. While I enjoy people and working with them very much, if I’m not doing something or going somewhere with a purpose I feel uncomfortable and out of my “cultural zone.” Continue reading
Amish and Compulsory Education
School has been an issue which the Amish have come into conflict not with each other but with state and local governments.
In Elmer Schwieder and Dorothy Schwieder’s book A Peculiar People: Iowa’s Old Order Amish, the Schwieders document the conflicts between state officials and Amish families over the compulsory education issue. The 1960’s began a series of fines, jail terms, and court cases. In Iowa’s Buchanan County the school superintendent, J. J. Jorgensen, filed complaints against the Amish school leaders for sending their children to unapproved schools.
After a series of fines and the October 28, 1963 judgment of District Judge George Heath that the Amish are not exempt from such school requirements, the conflict rose to a rapid climax. It was the fall of 1965 when the Amish defendants refused to pay the $24 fines and it became obvious the soon Amish land would have to be confiscated and sold which would eventually ruin the area economy. Continue reading