This article is a personal reflection about the acknowledgement of my "taken-for-granted frames of reference" (Mezirow, 2003, p. 59), which were replicating the hegemonic narrative I grew up surrounded by as a white, Mexican, Spanish-speaker; while hindering a more thorough understanding of the educational and linguistic topics that…

Students at Tucson High School in Arizona, part of Tucson Unified School District's highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) K-12 program, the largest in the nation, are taught Indigenous concepts, including Panche Be (seek the root of the truth), and the Aztec and Maya calendars. The author speaks to the students about the relationship…

This paper focuses on the capacity building of "local partnership" members or leaders as development agents in their Mayan communities. It relates to an education/training process started in 1995 in four different regions of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, which was carried out by Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) and academic…

At the present time, approximately 50% of the population of Guatemala is classified as indigenous, while in Mexico the figure is estimated to be between 10% and 15%. The figures are deceptive, however, since there is no legal definition of what constitutes an Indian in either country. This unit contains lessons that focus on indigenous groups in…

A University of Yucatan (Mexico) professor who taught a Mayan linguistics course to indigenous teachers in Mayan discusses three issues that are central to understanding how indigenous education interacts with pan-Maya identity: the importance of locally developed Maya literature, the symbols used to define Maya culture, and a conflict over Maya…

In Chiapas (Mexico), the public schools call themselves bilingual, but in reality they consider traditional languages inferior and teach only in Spanish. Sna Jtz'ibajom, a Chiapas group that preserves Mayan culture through oral and written literature, founded a community school that has taught over 2,000 men, women, and children to read and write…

Describes the central concept of Mayan culture, the possession of the soul, or ch'ulel, in the process of forming a knowledgeable person. Soul acquisition is important to becoming the ideal person, and to the educational formation of future generations. Looks at the role language plays in culture as memory, thought formation, and learning process.…