Human Development as Cultural Negotiation: Indigenous Lessons on Becoming a Teacher

Abstract

Human development in a cultural negotiation perspective is a theoretical, not merely a descriptive, stance. As have others, the author finds encounters with indigenous life to open up understandings of the cultural nature of human development obscured by formal instructional settings. Examples of both in- and out-of-school learning in indigenous contexts demonstrate the blurring of learning-teaching roles in joint endeavors embedded in relationship, the significance of right context, and the seriousness of integrated personal and cultural /developmental goals or future pictures. Beyond current individualistic models of cognitive or social constructivism, a cultural constructivism - education as culture-in-themaking - is presented. Indigenous lessons support the movement from an intrapsychic, positivistic, and normative cognitive psychology to a contextualized/situated, interpretive/intentional, and participatory /constructivist cultural psychology of human development. A shift in conceptualizing teachers' roles, from primarily instructors and evaluators to focal cultural negotiators, is proposed, with some examples of relevant practice.