Decolonization of Our Education Systems.

In my role as Associate Editor for www.DearWise.Earth I got to interview one of the advisory board members, Wahinkpe Topa, aka Four Arrows or Don Trent Jacobs. Listen here or on Spotify.

An American college professor, writer and activist for American Indian rights whose work has focused on Indigenous worldviews, wellness and counter-hegemonic education, Wahinkpe Topa, or Four Arrows in English is one of the foremost thinkers on decolonization in our education systems.

Also known as Don Trent Jacobs, he’s faculty in the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University and formerly Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College as well as tenured Associate Professor at Northern Arizona University. He also sits on the advisory board of Dear Wise Earth.

With doctorates in health psychology and in Curriculum and Instruction (with a cognate in Indigenous Worldview) he has authored 21 books and numerous other publications relating to wellness, critical theory, education and Indigenous worldview.

His latest book: Restoring the Kinship Worldview, written with co-author Darcia Narvaez was released in 2022.

In this conversation on Dear Wise Earth: Talks he shares his fascinating journey from a young man as a marine sent to war in Vietnam to his conversion to Four Arrows and his current life on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

We talk about his theory on the need of Decolonization of the Mind, ‘best practices’ to allow indigenous wisdom and earth’s wisdom to flow into the hegemonist worldview and about how we can create acupuncture points that will help release flows of wisdom into an otherwise mechanistic worldview.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Or on my Substack Podcast.

I’ll be releasing one of these Dear Wise Earth: Talks each week so please follow and share if with your friends, if think its interesting.

You can follow Dear Wise Earth: Talks on Spotify.

I’d love to hear your feedback.

Remember it only takes 3.5% of the population to come together to protest against something to make it happen. When 3.5% of any country come together to demand something they inevitably get what they want.