Abstract
The world over, educators are increasingly expected to serve learners with multiple differentiating conditions, functions of among other things, cultural orientations, modern times, and trends. Additionally, there is increased information exchange in the world due to population migration and the ever increasing access to internet services for hitherto inaccessible Geographical regions and related populations. Internet access has allowed online class attendance and brought needed educational services to learners irrespective of their physical locations around the world. All the above dynamics increase college students‘ diversity when added to the current economic recession felt in the world and which has seen many people lose their jobs and decide to re-enter educational programs to adapt their skills to the needs of the prevailing job market. Because of this increased diversity in the student constituency, the import of understanding and enriching practice with insight from non-Western perspectives of teaching and learning has never been more essential. This empirical study among indigenous Luo women artists of Western Kenya focused on the teaching and learning processes utilized in the art forms of pottery, basketry, and indigenous architecture. The overarching instrument of study data collection was a form of participant observation adapted to the Luo community‘s epistemological structures. This study documented the system of sustainable indigenous adult education, explored and described the local terminologies associated with this education within the meta-language of established adult educational studies and practices, and reported the processes involved in this education in a way as to be reproducible in a similar setting. The main objective of the study was to explore the anti-colonial aspects of these indigenous art educational processes. This exploration was in as far as the educational processes gave the study participants skills that enabled them to engage the social, political, economical, spiritual, and medical hurdles facing the community in their capacity as indigenous practitioners. This study found out, among other things that the participants utilized experiential learning strategies that include learning by doing, imitating, and scaffolding. Participants also depended on other collective members as important support network for learning the individual art form and living as expected by the community.
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Recommended Citation
Wadende, A.
(2012).
Non-Western Teaching and Learning Processes: Adult education Among Women Artists of Kenya‟s Luo community..
Adult Education Research Conference.
https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2012/papers/50
Non-Western Teaching and Learning Processes: Adult education Among Women Artists of Kenya‟s Luo community.
The world over, educators are increasingly expected to serve learners with multiple differentiating conditions, functions of among other things, cultural orientations, modern times, and trends. Additionally, there is increased information exchange in the world due to population migration and the ever increasing access to internet services for hitherto inaccessible Geographical regions and related populations. Internet access has allowed online class attendance and brought needed educational services to learners irrespective of their physical locations around the world. All the above dynamics increase college students‘ diversity when added to the current economic recession felt in the world and which has seen many people lose their jobs and decide to re-enter educational programs to adapt their skills to the needs of the prevailing job market. Because of this increased diversity in the student constituency, the import of understanding and enriching practice with insight from non-Western perspectives of teaching and learning has never been more essential. This empirical study among indigenous Luo women artists of Western Kenya focused on the teaching and learning processes utilized in the art forms of pottery, basketry, and indigenous architecture. The overarching instrument of study data collection was a form of participant observation adapted to the Luo community‘s epistemological structures. This study documented the system of sustainable indigenous adult education, explored and described the local terminologies associated with this education within the meta-language of established adult educational studies and practices, and reported the processes involved in this education in a way as to be reproducible in a similar setting. The main objective of the study was to explore the anti-colonial aspects of these indigenous art educational processes. This exploration was in as far as the educational processes gave the study participants skills that enabled them to engage the social, political, economical, spiritual, and medical hurdles facing the community in their capacity as indigenous practitioners. This study found out, among other things that the participants utilized experiential learning strategies that include learning by doing, imitating, and scaffolding. Participants also depended on other collective members as important support network for learning the individual art form and living as expected by the community.
