Education open to the mountains

An “education open to the mountains” encompasses a holistic understanding of culture and goes beyond the language and the dances to include lifestyle, livelihood, and resource management. The community’s sustainable practices and deep knowledge of the landscape ensure that resources are carefully managed. This reflects an integrated understanding of how to balance the impacts of livelihoods on the environment. When traveling across the landscape. there is also a care and respect for the rivers, the rocks, and cultural areas for meeting.

Dalēpaan, a cultural home away from home

Dalēpaan, from the word dalēpa or to stay in a safe place, is an important tradition for our elders when visiting relatives far away. In passing through different villages, they ask for a safe place in the community where they are welcomed. They may then continue their journey refreshed. This is a reciprocal cultural relationship.

In APC, dalēpaan means a cultural home away from home, and is a microcosm of indigenous communities in Upper Pulangi. This is where our students get to learn more cultural skills and develop social responsibilities. Learners in the dalēpaan work together during cooking and cleaning chores, and in collecting fuelwood and managing the fruit trees and gardens. Coming from different villages and living together, ideas are shared, contexts are better understood, and differences recognized. In connecting with others, a more balanced understanding of other people and cultures is gained.

The youth play and work freely together, giving occasion to develop relationships and leadership skills. Students form friendships that strengthen the ties of the villages from which they come. Teachers, as Ate (older sister)and Kuya (older brother), provide support, guidance, and accompaniment. This “home time” of being together greatly contributes to a broader peace across families and communities. The youth engage with new students or visitors and learn about their experiences.

Landscape

For generations, these mountains and rivers are integral to our vision and way of life. These gifts of the Creator to our ancestors allow us share in the broader spirit of life and the blessings of being in balance with the landscape. We continue to strengthen our vision as community by learning from the forest, wildlife, water, crops, traditional resources, celebrations, and food for the future. This is why keeping the mountain in view throughout the seasons and years of learning allows all imbibe a sense of familiarity and capacity to work with the land.

The surrounding mountains and life provide a sense of identity and origin while serving as a fundamental part of the students’ learning. The school’s authentic setting amidst the mountains enables a deeper understanding of the natural environment and a stronger commitment to assist the forest’s natural regeneration after previous decades of logging.

By caring for the trees, gathering seedlings, and managing the bamboo along the stream banks, the school not only imparts valuable lessons to the students about environmental management, but also demonstrates the importance of our interrelations with nature. The traditional knowledge in the clearing of the uma (farm) is a basis for learning about the pioneer species that quickly take over. These include some filler species and the pillar species that give structure to the pre-montane tropical ecosystem.

This unique environmental way of proceeding fosters a strong connection with the land and instills in the students a deep appreciation for sustainable practices and responsible land resource management.

Cultural relations

The appreciation of the strength and interconnectedness of our cultural heritage is essential in understanding and accepting what is common and what is distinct in our diverse cultures, and contributes to a deeper understanding of our community.

In the context of culture-based education that supports a community’s cultural aspirations for strengthening identity, self-expression, and educational and social growth, our cultural relations are an integral part of our daily life. This educational approach enhances community relations and facilitates learning towards a simple and sustainable way of living. We see that this dynamic can contribute to the enhancement of our ties in society and the advancement of our community’s greater recognition and capacity to engage with local government.

The value of education is found in our children’s ability and confidence to ask questions and to individually and collectively seek answers in the community and in their context. Our language, Pinulangiyēn, is critical in nurturing our children. With their parents, culture-based education can contribute to the child’s sense of identity and participation and grow together as members of community. With our inherited lands, we know how to form relations while sharing in the broader world.

The ability to engage through culture and language in this indigenous context is challenging for the children by the time they get to high school where experience and reflection need to be encouraged. As a response, culture-based education ensures the integration of science, mathematics, and economics with the cultural and the broader social contexts.

The youth need to explore new and valid ways of living that add to their sense of integrity and opportunity, leading to a greater sense of service and good for all. As such, culture-based education also ensures that the fullness of indigenous knowledge, skills, and practices includes the specific relation with forest, biodiversity, water, and livelihood management. The sharing of the spiritual connectivity found in this constant engagement with such life is also included.

Within this framework, land rights and clan relationships are upheld through ancestral lineage, formal agreements, and ceremonial practices that foster peaceful coexistence and strengthen the connection between people, land, and ancestry.

The meaningful celebration of culture is critical for the students’ learning as they contribute to sustaining the relations between people and the land. As they recognize the intrinsic link of their cultural identity and the land, students are able to contribute to the needed reconciliation, peace, and care of their shared heritage. They also deepen their interconnectedness with the land that sustains and the seas beyond where the climate forms.

The educational setting

As a culture bearer, the Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center (APC) helps in passing on the traditions, identity, and wisdom of the Pulangiyēn as education becomes part of the living heritage. Culture-based education (CBE) is recognized formally by the UN and many governments as multilingual education (MLE) and is not simply about learning a language. It is an education that recognizes culture and its contribution to identity and knowledge. Culture as practiced is the constant and legitimate source of knowledge and teaching.

MLE provides opportunities for voices of the Indigenous to be heard. Language, practices, faith, food, and songs are all part of the culture in which identity is rooted. Through MLE, the teaching of the language, the local traditions, the ancestral land, the forest, the biodiversity, the water sources, the food and livelihood, allow the life and lifestyle of the Pulangiyēn to be valued and to thrive.

In APC, MLE ensures that students receive a holistic education rooted in our identity while sustaining the relation with our landscape, forest, water, food, and livelihood. MLE is about learning and living our identity, language, traditions and culture, while living creatively in our ancestral land. MLE allows us share what we know and who we are in society.

Students understand about assisting the natural regeneration of the forest because this is part of our cycle of activities. In managing the land and water, there is care for the trees planted and the formation of a well-drained natural landscape that maintains soil nutrients.

In this educational setting, students not only learn about the name and use of each tree species, but also the active management and safeguarding of these trees to prevent soil erosion, increase rainfall infiltration, and sustain the interconnectedness of life within the surrounding forest. Students listen to the kalaw (hornbills) that can be heard daily around the school, indicating the presence of a rich biodiversity.

Education interweaves with all life

The APC school is rooted in the local kaguna (culture) and the gaup (ancestral domain). In building the school structures, natural materials in the area are used as construction material such as fallen logs of different tree species and bamboo.

The school’s approach weaves the culture and the environment in the learning process. The life of the community and their natural resources are at the core of the learning experience. The community’s existence is intricately connected socially and spiritually with the land, water, and all forms of life for food and economy. The earth, the landscape on which they live, has been passed down through their ancestors from Migtanghaga, the Creator. This type of covenant, landangan, is a reminder of the Covenant God made with Noah and all of creation in the Christian tradition. The basic sustenance (konsumo), cultural knowledge, and gratitude for a way of life come from the natural resources, and the culture-based education that uses the mother tongue reflects this connection with the environment.

Society at large is urged to recognize the uniqueness of cultural knowledge and the managed environment for the significant contribution to the nation’s richness and long-term sustainability.

This interconnectedness with the land is fundamental to our way of life and is intricately woven into our cultural identity. By embracing this approach, education becomes a means to nurture a deep respect for the environment and a sustainable way of life that is rooted in the cultural heritage of the community and the service of the common good.

The integration of cultural and ecological education not only enriches students’ understanding of their surroundings but also equips them with the knowledge and values needed to become responsible environmental managers. This interconnected approach fosters a deep appreciation of the intricate relationships between culture, ecology, and sustainable living, ensuring that future generations are able to value and sustain their cultural and natural heritage.

The role of Indigenous Peoples as guardians of the planet is vital due to their ability to work in harmony with nature that draws on ancestral knowledge. Amid the escalating challenges of the climate crisis and food insecurity, Indigenous Peoples are gaining international recognition for their knowledge of the land and waters and their use of nature-based solutions.

In the face of global despair, the voices and wisdom of Indigenous Peoples offer invaluable insights and solutions in responding to the complex challenges of a threatened biome of life.